Life on the Preservation, US Edition (6 page)

The breeze hustled a Burger King bag out of the recessed doorway of XXX GIRLZ and sailed it into the air.

The door dissolved in shadow.

Ian cranked the throttle and popped the clutch, swung tight onto Mission Street, accelerated, aiming for the ramp to the 90. He had to get out of the city. Get away right now. Out of the bubble. Every instinct begged him to turn back
and
go forward. His usual dilemma. Then the I-90 tunnel enclosed him and he had no choice. He was going to Pullman, to Sarah – if Pullman and Sarah even existed anymore.

Ian shot into the sodium-lit sleeve of concrete and presently emerged into brilliant afternoon sun. Ahead of him moderate traffic traversed the floating bridge across Lake Washington. He eased up on the throttle. Somebody honked. Cars swung around him into the passing lane and proceeded unmolested to the end of the bridge and beyond, or so it appeared. Ian experienced the solid conviction that he would not be so lucky. It hadn’t been a dream of crashing. It had been much weirder than that. The details were gone but a residue of fear remained.

Ian slowed to a crawl and edged the Chief into the breakdown lane to let traffic pass. The engine popped and farted, threatening extinction. When he was a kid Ian had loved the look of the Chief as it finally began to emerge out of the random collection of parts strewn around the garage. The long flare of the fenders and low-slung retro impression appealed to him. But Ian had also resented the bike. His father lovingly, obsessively assembling the thing around a skeletal frame, while Ian sat ignored in a corner with a sketchpad or a book; his Dad, always with an open can of beer within reach, telling him, “...a bike like this is like a flesh and blood person,” and other such bullshit, not even really talking to Ian but meditating to the sound of his own voice...

The wind off the lake was bitter cold. Cars and trucks blasted by him.
They aren’t going anywhere
, Ian thought without even knowing what he meant. A moving van roared past, staggering him in its slipstream.

He had been here before.

He was
always
here, stuck between two commitments. Seattle was home, but it was no longer a safe place. It had gone all
wrong
. But crossing the bridge would take him into an unknown, vulnerable sphere that terrified him.

He idled in the breakdown lane, shuddered as traffic blasted by.

Fuck this.

He throttled up and swayed back into the traffic flow. As he approached the mid-span his stomach muscles clenched. A big Dodge Ram filled the lane about fifty feet ahead of him, guy with a Kenny Chesney cowboy hat behind the wheel.

Something in the sky caught Ian’s attention. High over the lake half a dozen green blisters appeared. They bulged, as if something was trying to poke through a membrane. The blisters popped, and flashing silver pinwheels scattered across the sky. At the same moment the truck crossed the mid-span, and Ian’s Chief did the same.

The Indian wobbled between his legs. So familiar. Like hitting a slick patch and momentarily losing control.
Like
that but not the same.

The Indian wobbled.

The Indian wobbled.

Then everything changed. Silence enclosed him, and the space was saturated in yellow and emerald light.

Ian hung in the void, able to move his limbs but without effect, like a stranded astronaut. The Dodge was still in front of him but now appeared to be the size of his thumb. Distance and dimension became meaningless. As his eyes adjusted he perceived that his green-yellow universe swarmed with the detritus of a vanished world. Cars, planes, boats, people and animals – all of them propelled outward as if in a very slow and controlled explosion.

The Dodge was like a matchbox car drifting inches from his nose, its tiny driver the most delicately detailed doll imaginable. Ian could have flicked the truck around with a touch of his finger, or so it seemed. He elected not to test appearances. Looking down the length of his body, he saw that he drifted above a vast pebbled plane. Because of the insane perspective, it was a while before he realized the pebbled plane was actually the Chief’s brake light cover, stretched to football field proportions. Ian closed his eyes. His heart lugged in muffled panic. He wanted to scream but could not utter a sound as he slow-tumbled outward.

When he opened his eyes he found himself looking at a side view of a jet airliner. It was of normal proportions. Faces peered out of the passenger windows. A woman in the first window forward of the wing stared directly at him. Many of the faces were terrified, but not this woman’s. Ian looked into her eyes and discovered some kind of serenity there. She smiled at him, as though they had both been through this time and again and wasn’t it funny that they were here yet again. He wondered what it must be like for her inside the cabin. In the slow course of things the wing tilted up, and as it did so the jet’s physical dimensions warped out of proportion and it became tiny, a jeweler’s delicacy, position lights winking in the yellow-green gloom.

Gradually the gloom brightened, and Ian realized he was coming to the outer limit of the bubble. He couldn’t see what lay beyond. As objects and people arrived at the outermost lightness they simply vanished.

Ian drifted inexorably toward that outer lightness, the skin of the bubble. He thrashed his limbs with a baby’s feeble protest.

...I
AN STOOD IN
his kitchen pouring steaming hot water through a Melitta coffee filter. He yawned, so tired he could not even remember crawling out of bed. He had promised Sarah he’d arrive in Pullman in time to take her to dinner, and he felt bound to keep that promise. Pullman was almost three hundred miles away. Something close to panic agitated him at the prospect.

He lifted the filter away from the coffee mug and set it in the sink then leaned over and inhaled the fresh ground scent of Vivace’s Italian roast. He added a dollop of heavy cream and took his first sip, hoping it would spike his brain. It didn’t.

Stepping out of the narrow kitchenette, he noticed pill bottles arrayed on the bedside table. He froze, recalling a dreadful sense of being sucked away down a dark funnel, of yearning back toward life...

He put his coffee down and picked up one of the pill bottles, the Halcion. There were only a couple of pills left in it. He stilled himself, listened to his body. Had he done it? Had he finally, really done it? No. He felt tired but not like he would had he ingested a dozen or so Halcion, not to mention the contents of the other, equally depleted bottles.

Something was going on.

He turned to the window. His restored but neglected ’47 Indian Chief stood wheel-cocked, the morning light shining on its red paint and dull, spotted chrome. The fringe around the leather seat looked limp and sad. His father would have hated to see how Ian had failed to maintain ‘a relationship’ with the bike. Well, not all relationships were
good
. At least he had permission from the building management to park in the alley. Persistent anxiety enveloped him. It was Sarah. He missed her but he was also relieved that she had returned for her second year at WSU. He almost preferred her as a text message attached to a memory. It was safer that way. Not so close.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” Ian said out loud.

His cell rang. Immediately he hoped it was Sarah calling to cancel the weekend. With that thought, fresh anxiety trickled through him. What if she
did
cancel? He wanted it both ways.

But it wasn’t Sarah.

“Ian?” Zach said.

“What’d you do,” Ian said, “stay up all night?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“Listen, I don’t feel so great.”

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s like there’s ants under my skin or something. You know what? It’s like a panic attack. Ian, there’s something going on, man.”

Ian frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“I already think that.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Just tell me. I’m listening.”

“Okay this is how bad it is,” Zach said. “I wanted to come over there but I couldn’t force myself to leave the fucking building. I mean I couldn’t go out the door. I feel like Howard Hughes.”

Ian sighed inwardly. “Are you high?”

“No, I’m not
high
. Jesus Christ.”

“Then what is it? Do you want me to come over?”

“No, don’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“This is one of the crazy parts,” Zach said. “If you come over, they might see you.”

“Who might see me? Who’s ‘they’?”

“I don’t know.”

Zach always got paranoid when he smoked too much grass.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Zach said.

“Really? What am I thinking?”

“You’re thinking I’m acting all paranoid because I smoked too much weed.”

“I might be thinking that. It’s not as if there’s no precedent.”

There was a long pause, then Zach said, “Never mind,” and broke the connection. Ian picked up his coffee, wandered into the kitchen, drank a little and poured the remainder over the dirty dishes in the sink then added the empty cup to the pile. He peeled a banana and ate it. Then he called Zach’s number. It rang three times and went to voicemail. Whatever. Suddenly the prospect of riding to Pullman appeared slightly more inviting. He knew Zach would eventually call him back, and he knew that his whole Saturday would be co-opted by a babysitting mission. On the other hand, that would be a good excuse
not
to go to Pullman. On the
other
other hand he suddenly wanted to get out of the apartment, out and away from the sleeping pill bottles that were begging questions from him that he didn’t want to ask.

Beautiful day for a ride, even if the wind was sharp. He intended to head straight to the 90, but instead found himself detoured, riding by Zach’s 14th Street condo. Behind these ivied walls dwell today’s dope heads and game geeks. One of them, at least.

He rang the intercom. Zach didn’t answer.

“Fine,” Ian mumbled.

He got back on his bike.

Ten minutes later he roared out of the I-90 tunnel. Bright morning sun struck him full in the face. He throttled up – then immediately backed off. Cars were stopped all over the floating bridge. Ian swerved to avoid running into a yellow Lexus. The driver stood next to his open door, looking at the sky, as were many other people. Ian continued to make forward progress, weaving slowly between the stopped vehicles and gawking pedestrians. He kept glancing up. Finally, craning his head back toward the city, he saw them: like silver pinwheel lights hovering in formation. Only Seattle’s tallest building, the Columbia Tower, was visible above First Hill. One of the pinwheel lights stopped spinning and descended toward it. The skin prickled over Ian’s back, and he knew he was witnessing something otherworldly. Then the Chief crept past the bridge’s mid-span.

The Indian wobbled....

DEFINITION OF FUNCTION

W
HAT HAD BEEN
Charles Noble stood in the middle of the Noble Gallery and lifted his hand, as if bidding an orchestra take up their instruments. There was no orchestra – only an empty oak floor. The image existed in Noble’s mind and naturally came forward with the gesture. The new Charles examined the connective association and found it appropriate. Then he closed his eyes and became a Lens, focusing energy, reconfiguring local space. He opened his eyes. A small wine bar had risen out of the floor, a fluted vase and red rose in one corner. It was something the other Charles had often thought about doing but could never afford.

T
HE
N
OBLE
G
ALLERY’S
door opened, and Charles looked up from the crystal stem glass he was polishing. Charles wore a white linen jacket, a red tie, and a fedora. He owned a number of hats and generally felt better when he was wearing one. This was partly vanity. His prematurely thinning hair made him self-conscious. But also he simply liked hats; they made him feel more like himself. The Curator, who was the new Charles, noted the irrationality of this but mentally shrugged and surrendered to it. Curator defined his usual function but now things were different. So very different.

“Hello,” said the man who had just entered the gallery. His skin was olive and his eyes almond brown. “I’m Curtis, that’s my bookstore next to you. We haven’t met, so I thought–”

“Biblio,” Charles said. “‘Books New And Rare’.”

“Yes.”

Charles knew all about Biblio. He knew about Curtis Sarmir, too. The old Charles had thought very often of Curtis, had devised elaborate scenarios in which they became acquainted – scenarios that the old Charles often dismissed later as stupid ‘meet cute guy’ fantasies. The Curator now allowed Charles to invite the acquaintance he had previously been too afraid to pursue.

“I’m Charles Noble.”

They shook hands.

“Hence ‘The Noble Gallery’,” Curtis said.

“Exactly. Would you care for a glass of wine?”

Curtis Sarmir grinned, his mouth coming open slightly in mock surprise. “Actually, I would.”

“White or red?”

“If it’s before noon it simply must be white.”

The Curator poured two glasses of Riesling and handed one to Curtis, who wandered around the small gallery, sipping. Paintings and photographs of dancers, classical ballet and modern interpretive, occupied the white walls, illuminated by cunning little lights. On a pedestal in the center of the room stood a blue marble sculpture of a swan copulating with a ballerina.

“A theme emerges,” Curtis observed.

“I suppose, yes. The exhibit is changing soon, though.”

“To what?”

“I haven’t yet decided.”

Curtis handed Charles his glass. “I have to get back to my shop. No one’s watching the register.”

A minor current of panic rippled through Charles and he blurted: “Maybe we could... brainstorm?”

Curtis raised his eyebrows.

“About the next exhibit,” Charles said. “I really can’t quite decide.”