InkStains January (11 page)

28 January

Do you really want to know the secrets?

Take the magician – the illusionist, if you
will. He performs, he creates tricks of mind and eye, he uses his
hands and his skills to make you see a thing that isn’t real and
make you believe it. If he’s successful, you walk away with a head
full of wonder and amazement. Yet you don’t go simply to have the
trick pulled over your eyes – you seek the flaw, the tell, the
secret. How is it done? And whether it’s simple skill or elaborate
trickery, when you uncover the method, the illusion is spoiled. You
don’t marvel at the dexterity or ingenuity. No, you walk away
thinking he’s a poor excuse for a magician. He let you in on the
secret. The next time you see that same trick, you can say smugly
to your companion, “I know how that’s done. I know the truth. Here,
let me spoil it for you.”

I’ll admit I’ve often been behind the scenes.
I’ve seen the work that goes into producing a thirty minutes talk
show for television. I’ve watched musicians argue with themselves
over the inflection of a single note in a song. I’ve seen pencil
sketches of what would later become feature length Disney
animation. On the other side of that curtain, where all the ropes
are being pulled, the smoke generated, the mirrors positioned,
there can be a great sense of accomplishment when everything comes
together and the target audience walks away without thinking of the
method. When the illusion carries the day, you are successful.

Yet DVD special features, magazines,
websites, friends who know or think they know, even television
specials with masked magicians, will proudly reveal all the secrets
that went into the creation of that illusion.

If you want to know the secrets, they are out
there.

But they’re not really, are they? Knowing how
a thing is done is not the same as knowing how to do a thing. The
revelation of a secret doesn’t confer ability, not even real
knowledge. If you want the secrets spoiled for you; that’s your
choice and you have the means. But if you want to learn the
secrets, really learn them, so that you can animate your own films
or create your own illusions, that requires study, practice,
dedication and devotion.

It also requires sacrifice. You’ll never see
the illusion in the same way. But if you’re sincere and earnest, if
you’re building a craft not just exposing its faults, you’ll start
to appreciate the spectacle of the creation. You’ll find joy in the
method and satisfaction in its execution.

Allow me to re-work my initial inquiry: Do
you want to know the secrets, or do you want to be a part of
creating those secrets?

29 January

The street is a snake. It slithers through
the city, winding this way and that, full of venom, full of the
things it’s consumed. Things are people, good or bad, the snake
doesn’t care.

It’s another Friday night. None of the lights
on the snake street seem to work. There are different types of
danger. Most people don’t know one from another.

The snake winds around and through other
streets, crossing traffic lights with cars sliding and slipping,
never racing, never finding that kind of speed. Storefronts are
locked tight after twilight, but there’s always the clubs, the
bars, the errant library, the hourly motels, the pizza places, the
convenience stores.

Inside one, there’s a man, big if not strong,
just doing his job, answering one guy’s questions as another sneaks
up alongside. For a twelve pack of beer, maybe forty bucks out of
the till, the secret sneaking guy takes a swing.

No one goes down. It’s an awkward moment. The
would-be thieves flee. The clerk, dazed, isn’t sure what
happened.

When his shift comes to an end, he leaves his
company-issued smock and wanders the snake. He’s something of a
poet. He sees the beauty in the flaws and the flaws in the beauty.
He thinks he knows things, but he’s confused. He doesn’t know what
happened tonight. He stops at a bar, buys a beer, tells a girl what
he knows. She’s not interested. Later, when he’s alone, when he
doesn’t know her name but knows he’ll never see her again, he’ll
write her a poem. He’ll do this in his bedroom. The window
overlooks the street.

He feels the street’s venom in his veins. He
stops at some other convenience store for a bottle of water. He’s
not loyal. It’s just a paycheck.

He walks in. The other two guys are here,
about to do their thing, the same thing, to the girl working here.
She’s young and tiny, and one good fist upside her heard could be
the final bite of the snake. But everything pauses when he walks
in. A bell on the door announces his arrival with a tinkle. The
guys pause, caught. The girls slips back, out of their trap, only
now that it’s too late even realizing it was there.

The fist-happy thieves glare, but he only
shrugs and smiles. It’s provocative. Dangerous. Like sticking your
tongue out at a cobra. They’re coiled tight but losing patience. He
tells them, “It’s not your night.”

They’re about to launch themselves at him,
they’re half an inch from lashing out, when the girl pumps her
shotgun. The sound echoes over the convenience store’s cheap tiled
floor, bounces off stale donuts and frightening hotdogs. She
announces, “We’re closed.”

It’s enough to take the sting out of their
fangs. They leave, faking nonchalance, barely able to contain
themselves. When they hit the street, they run.

He goes to get his bottle of water but she
swings the shotgun around. She says, “Out.”

He nods once, sadly, despite a bit of thirst
he’s got to bite back. He doesn’t have to fake calm as he leaves
the shop. He’s on the street again, the snake. He feels its
dangerous energy through the soles of his feet. But he doesn’t
understand.

30 January

The temp arrived for her first day of work
twenty minutes early. It was phone stuff, assisting people in doing
things, which probably meant convincing people the thing they were
being made to do was somehow better than they thing they wanted to
do.

The temp was one in a class of twelve, though
it should have been thirteen. Already, before beginning, one was
lost. The instructor was a young, enthusiastic man who believed all
the things he said, even if he didn’t understand them.

The temp learned well. She feigned interest.
It was shortly before noon before the instructor realized something
was wrong. Perhaps it was the way she smiled, or the way she wore
her hair. Maybe her accent. But something about her was different
than any of the others, different in an uncomfortable way.

She called herself Jenny. The instructor
wondered if that was her real name. Maybe it was Jennifer. Or
Genevieve. Or something entirely different thanks to a witness
relocation plan or because she came from a foreign country. Or
another planet.

He found himself watching her in the
afternoon, waiting for her to do something to justify the
attention, but nothing happened. The day progressed as any other.
After a full day of instruction, the temp and all the other temps
left, and the instructor stayed behind to go over tomorrow’s lesson
plans.

The temp was friendly, but didn’t actually
make friends. Who does, the first day of a new job? She went to her
car and went home just as everyone else did.

He found himself thinking about the temp,
this so-called Jenny. He couldn’t concentrate. He went home.

The temp did not show up for the second day
of instruction. It happened. One of the others also didn’t come
back. The instructor gave the class anyhow, and in the afternoon
sent his students to listen to working agents do their thing on the
phone.

The temp never came back. She didn’t run into
him at the supermarket or in the bookstore. He never looked over at
the car next to him in traffic to see her profile.

It was her eyes, he finally decided, that he
couldn’t forget. They were too far apart, or too narrow, or too
coppery in color. She used them well, even when just in learning.
He could get used to staring into eyes like those.

Failing to find the temp in real life, he
dreamt about her. He couldn’t remember her voice, so she never said
anything. She watched him, just as he watched her. It started to
get confusing. He didn’t know who was the dreamer. Who was the
dream? He looked forward to sleep, knowing he might – only might,
there was no guarantee – see the memory of her, catch a glimpse of
an image, a reflection, an echo.

He saw her dream image when he was awake.
First, in his apartment, in his kitchen, standing near the stove
and staring, simply staring. He blinked, and she was gone. Then in
the classroom, standing in the back of the room, watching and
listening, giving him the full benefit of her eyes until he looked
directly at her. She wasn’t there.

Head full of wine on a Saturday night, he saw
her in the parking lot standing beside his car, waiting, smiling
mischievously, those eyes catching the light. But she was only
mist. Smoke. A wisp of nothing, and not even that.

Eventually, he got another job in another
city, packed up his apartment, and left. He hoped to leave the
temp, too. But hope isn’t currency. He saw her on the interstate
and he saw her on the side of the road, hitching a ride, except she
wasn’t really there. No one was.

He met a woman in the new city and they
started dating. Her eyes were arresting. She was smart and strong
and excessively real. For a time, he didn’t see the temp
anywhere.

Then one night in a dreamt-desert, she said
to him, “I’ll never leave you.”

“
Why not?”

“
You won’t let me
go.”

As he aged, the temp did not. She was a
moment of frozen time. She looked nothing like she’d actually
looked, he was sure. He didn’t remember her, he only remembered the
memory of the temp.

He never told his wife about her. He never
told his children, though she’d been there for their births. He
wasn’t sure if he was cheating on his wife or on the temp. He tried
to convince himself he wasn’t being dishonest.

In his 60s, a stroke struck him down. He
couldn’t see properly anymore, or think right, or speak at all. It
was unpleasant from the start, and it only got worse.

The temp would visit him in the hospital,
after hours, late at night, after the nurse did her rounds. She’d
stare at him with those eyes. She said, “So sad.”

It was a struggle to speak. “What?”

“
Everything about you,” she
said. “I saw it from the start. You’d had dreams. What happened to
them?”

“
You stole
them.”

She shook her head. “You can’t blame me. I’m
not real. I’m not even a figment of your imagination. I’m a
misfired synapse. I’m a faulty brainwave. You got stuck on me. I
didn’t stick myself to you.”

He tried to apologize, but words were hard
for him.

“
Don’t apologize,” she
said. “It’s too late for that. Release me.”

He tried to tell her he’d never had her, but
his tongue refused to cooperate.

“
Let me go.”

He thought that would be a good thing. He had
a family. A life. Something of a life.

He died in the night, wife at his side.

The temp took a long, deep breath. It was her
first in almost four decades. She shook out her hair and walked out
of the hospital. She disappeared in the night, swallowed by the
moonlight, in search of her own dreams and the girl she’d been.

31 January

It is a big house built of dream stuff and
whispers and champagne bubbles. It’s at the end of a long, winding
drive flanked by mythical statuary and numerous hedges and flowers
and the occasional video camera, all behind ornate iron gates
topped with gargoyles and barbed wire. To put it simply: one does
not arrive here inadvertently, but by invitation.

A line of fancy cars and supercars and
limousines lead up to the doorway. Bored chauffeurs lean against
their empty vehicles smoking cigarettes and drinking cheap whisky.
The good stuff’s being served inside by tall, thin models and
muscle-bound youths wearing dog collars.

Stephanie arrive in her sporty red BMW. She
wears a mass of thin platinum strings about her neck and a gown
designed by next year’s top name. She ascends the stairs to the
front door like a movie star, but there are actual movie stars here
so almost no one seems to notice her.

“
You look
wonderful.”

“
Such a lovely
display.”

“
Have you tried the
eel?”

“
Have you met the
Maestro?”

It promises to be a long night. There are
plenty of faces to see, and the artwork – museums’ envy – on the
walls, and the wandering violinists, seven or eight of them moving
about like smoke on the mountain.

Stephanie accepts an offered glass of
something that tastes like lost innocence. It’s very sweet, and
potent.

There’s no reason for the party. Reasons are
always over-thought. She dances briefly with a banker and listens
to a poet’s crude jokes. She doesn’t know how to pass judgment;
it’s just something she does, though she never means anything by
it. She hasn’t yet met the host. She’s not sure who’s being rude,
and she’s not sure she cares.

Deep into the night, Stephanie finds herself
on a balcony, dangling bare feet over the edge, staring out across
a blue-lit swimming pool under a star-pocked sky. A violinist
serenades her from the room behind her. The music shifts this way
and that as the player dances, alone, in the broad library.

She reminds herself to focus. She’s here for
a reason, or something like a reason. Right now, this moment, as
she sits, it’s a frosty night in hell.

A woman steps onto the balcony. She doesn’t
notice Stephanie. It’s a wide balcony, so it’s not unforgivable. An
empty wine bottle dangles from one hand, a cigarette from her
mouth. Her perfectly done make-up seems garish in the soft outside
light, almost clown-like, an exaggeration rather than an
accent.