Kingdom (14 page)

Stepping out of the shower, Dylan dried himself, slapped on some deodorant, and dressed quickly—jeans, T-shirt, and a pair of old Chucks. His apartment was a mess and someone was sleeping on one of the couches that formed a perimeter around the massive television hung against the exposed brick wall—bottles and cut straws and DVDs were scattered all over the floor and the bundle of blankets piled on the couch in the shape of a human began to groan.

“Chase, that you, man?” Dylan asked.

There was a muffled response, some incoherent grumblings, cursing, and an admonition not to be a dick and turn off the lights, even though the television was still on, the sound muted—it was Chase.

Dylan grabbed a half-empty capped bottle off the floor filled with what might have been lime-green Gatorade but just as easily could have been piss and flung it in the direction of the pile of blankets, smiling in spite of his
splitting headache at the sound of the plastic hitting the sliver of exposed scalp peaking out.

“The fuck man,” Chase called out from under the blankets. “I’m trying to get some sleep. Why are you awake so early? We didn’t get in until what? Like 6? Go back to bed.”

“It’s like, almost 5 in the afternoon,” Dylan said.

“Like I said, why so early?”

“I got some shit I gotta take care of.”

“More coke,” came the voice, this time with increased hope.

“Not exactly, dude. It’s just some shit I gotta do.”

“Fine man. Get all secretive on me. Just text me whenever you’re done doing whatever. We’ll grab a bite.”

“Might not be back till late man.”

“No worries–I’m good. These couches are comfortable as all fuck. Besides, isn’t that
Godfather
box set around here somewhere? I might just chill, watch part one and two, probably avoid three…I think I got some oxy last night, too…Need to check my pockets.”

That’s when Dylan saw it: Staring back at him from the television was the same face, the same eyes he saw on the building last night. Dylan felt his stomach flip and the world went wobbly.

The look on his face must have been worse than he felt, because Chase was actually up, moving off the couch, asking Dylan if he was OK. Dylan could only point to the television in response; the close-up of the face had ended, segueing into a political ad for the man to whom those eyes belonged: Jack Heffernan. Strong, warm colors flooded the screen and Heffernan was shaking hands as he moved through crowds, as he toured construction sites, as he met with members of the United States military.

“Those eyes…” Dylan half-whispered, his throat dry.

“Yeah, man,” Chase said, looking uncertain as he nodded toward the screen. “Kind of reminds me of your pop’s. In a good way. I mean, everyone thinks so…Just no one really wants to bring it up around you, dude…You can’t tell me this is the first time you’re seeing this guy? He’s everywhere…I might even register to vote. I mean, probably not but I’m considering it, you know?”

Dylan was shaking his head, no longer certain. Had he seen Jack Heffernan before? It was impossible to say; he just couldn’t remember. The past
few months had just been a blur, one continuous attempt to escape from fear and anxiety and memories—nothing was certain.

The ad ended and Dylan felt his pulse slow, his world steady. He glanced at his phone.

“It’s all pretty intense dude,” he assured Chase, trying to forget about the ad, trying to focus on what he had to do next. “Look, I gotta jet. We’ll meet up later.”

“Later,” Chase agreed as he turned and headed back toward the couch but Dylan was already out the door, keys, lighter, and iPhone shoved in the front pockets of his jeans, wallet in the back left, sunglasses in the back right.

Dylan’s loft apartment was on the 15th floor of a 20-story apartment building located in Tiber City’s Glimmer district, a neighborhood populated by the young and wealthy who had chosen not to flee for the relative safety of the suburbs. The hallway of the building was bright and wide—too bright—and his headache mushroomed, his hangover serving notice it wasn’t going away without a fight. Wincing, Dylan pulled the sunglasses—black-tinted aviators—out of his pocket and put them on, exhaling as the world dimmed. He continued down the rest of the hall, running his hand along the wall as he moved toward the elevators, where the doors opened on their own.

He stepped into the elevator, pressed the button for the lobby, and leaned back against the cool metal wall. A Muzak version of an old Doors song—“People Are Strange”—was playing and Dylan found himself humming along, the painkillers kicking in as the elevator crept down toward the earth before rumbling to a halt, the white button on the side of the wall marked “L” lighting up as the doors slid open.

Dylan walked out of the lobby of his building, which at one time may have been a factory but now was a series of absurdly expensive, minimalist lofts teeming with wealthy junkies and trust fund artists. A security desk was positioned between the elevators and the entrance, a dozen different CCTV feeds from all over the building displayed across a row of tiny monitors positioned under the elevated countertop where guests signed in and packages were left. But the desk was deserted, the monitors broadcasting to an empty seatback, and Dylan kept moving, pushing through the lobby’s revolving door and into the street.

It was raining again—a warm drizzle that smelled like rotting hot dogs, which smelled like the city—so Dylan picked up his pace, cutting across the street that, even though it was still only the late afternoon, was jammed with taxis, with people trying to flag them down, with people shuffling in and out of the cabs, all the while vendors jockeyed for position along the packed sidewalks, each one of them crying out, a sense of urgency infecting the crowd as the sun began to fall behind the tops of skyscrapers.

On the other side of the street now, Dylan pressed ahead, the rain coming stronger, some people opening umbrellas, only adding to the chaos. The pills were kicking in, cascading nicely over the effects of the Ativan. Still, he wished he had taken something stronger but there was too much happening right now; too much he needed to do.

The current block ended and Dylan was crossing the street, moving onto the next block, the storefronts indistinguishable, overdressed black children trying to shake his hand, to introduce themselves and establish some sort of connection whereby Dylan would feel obligated to take their flyer, to listen to a story, to buy candy. But he looked past them, brushing them aside although even as he did he wished it could be different, wished there was no need to be on guard against a child, but this was America in the 21st century and there was no going back. And so Dylan marched ahead, pulling his collar up against the rain, his sunglasses now on his forehead, holding back his long wet hair, his eyes locked on his destination: In the middle of the block, a gap appeared between the row of storefronts and restaurants, revealing the top of a series of downhill escalators framed on each side by stone obelisks that meant something once but were now simply in the way, inconveniences around which harried commuters had to navigate on their way into the subway.

Dylan took the escalator down into the earth, past a toothless troubadour holding—not playing—a beat-up guitar, whispering lyrics to an old Doors song—the same one that had been playing in the elevator earlier that day—reminding Dylan and everyone else who passed that
people are strange
and as the moving steel stairs carried him away from the surface, Dylan turned and watched the old man, the rain intensifying, the busker just standing there, repeating the same phrase over and over, the other lyrics forgotten or irrelevant or both, the cracked case at his feet empty save for a few coins, a cigarette butt, and a HEFFERNAN FOR PRESIDENT button.

The escalator continued to pull Dylan deeper underground until the surface disappeared and for a moment Dylan could see neither where he started out nor where he would end up: His world was a large concrete tunnel—almost 30 yards across, hundreds of feet from top to bottom—sliced into thirds by steel escalators that bore diagonally into the earth. The escalator moved slowly, ferrying Dylan into the earth while an asexual voice coming from somewhere repeated the same series of instructions again and again—passengers should alert transit authority representatives of any suspicious activity and not be afraid to ask fellow commuters “Is that your bag?”—the message interspersed with a reminder that low-interest lines of credit were now available, followed by a website address travelers could visit for more information—subject to certain restrictions, terms, and agreements of course.

The concrete walls on either side of the tunnel were plastered with colorful advertisements, lit from below by a series of lights running through the small gap between the wall and the escalator. The advertisements on the walls framing the escalators were apolitical: One featured a non-threatening, healthy-looking heterosexual couple doing something vaguely athletic—there were hiking boots, paddles, a mid-sized SUV, a white Labrador—the scene constructed in order to explain that a popular herpes medication was now available without a prescription, while another—an image of an assault rifle resting across the top of a gas mask, the entire ad cast in washed-out green and gray—was promoting the release of a new video game set in a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland that, judging from the images etched behind the mask, bore a disturbing resemblance to Tiber City.

Several toxin-neutralizers were fixed above these ads. Visitors to Tiber City often mistook these devices for intercoms but, in the case of a chemical attack on the subway, they would deliver a life-saving blast of nanopowder. Or something like that—there had been an attack a year ago and very little toxin neutralizing had occurred or at least that was the impression left by the 50 or so dead bodies. In the aftermath, there was the requisite congressional inquiries, press conferences, and class action lawsuits but somehow the devices remained—version 2.0—and were now adorned with the insignias of corporate sponsors. Your defense against chemical warfare brought to you by your friends at Shibuya Industries East.

Placing his hand on the escalator’s rubber rail, Dylan tried to focus on nothing, his eyes wandering down from the advertisements and toward the line of lights running underneath them. There was a consistency, an order
to their arrangement that for a moment was somehow comforting but as the ground floor drew closer he noticed something else: In that tiny gap, interrupting the row of ordered lights, was a tattered sleeping bag surrounded by a mountain of clothes, dirty diapers, shards of glass, and a stroller laying twisted and broken on its side.

But then the escalator reached bottom and Dylan stepped off, pushing through the turnstile and onto the platform that, flanked on each side by tracks, cut the concrete subterranean chamber in half. Monday through Friday, this station was jammed with young executives, jostling, attaché cases transformed into shields, umbrellas wielded with more than a hint of malice as vigorous men shouldered women and old people aside in order to squeeze into a subway car already filled to capacity, chivalry forsaken even though the digital screen hanging from the ceiling noted that another train would be arriving in less than two minutes.

Late on a Sunday afternoon, however, the place was deserted. Dylan moved toward the far end of the tunnel, past a series of stone benches, his footsteps echoing off the floor, the walls, the ceiling. When he reached the last bench—the back of which was tagged in graffiti, in symbols and words that meant nothing, something, everything—he sat down, his hangover finally beginning to recede, his chest loosening, his breathing more relaxed as the Ativan continued to carve away the anxiety.

Staring at the empty tracks in front of him as he lit a cigarette, Dylan noticed a hole—or was it a crack—in the wall above the tracks. Water trickled through this break in the concrete, running down onto the tracks and forming a brown pool between the rails. Around this pool, which was filled with empty cartons of cigarettes, old newspapers and magazines—the paper disintegrating, the ink faded beyond recognition—a red plastic bag, and what looked like a pair of panties but Dylan couldn’t be sure, clusters of vegetation were visible, tiny sprouts of green coaxed out of the earth by stale water and artificial light, only to choke on the recycled air and blasts of burning rubber before being cut down by the rush hour express. This process would repeat itself endlessly: Whatever plant life existed before the subway was built forever attempting to reclaim the land, heeding only instinct, striving to fulfill its sole purpose.

Dylan could hear the train rumbling in the distance, getting closer, dull red lights lining the edge of the platform beginning to flash in anticipation, in warning. Seconds later the train burst out of the darkness at the far end
of the tunnel, brakes screeching as the giant metal worm ground to a halt, near-empty, poorly-lit cars flashing past the platform. Finally it stopped and the doors slid open with a hiss, the kind of noise that seemed to characterize even the most advanced commuter technology—like some kind of reminder that the thing was not fucking magic, that it was, at the end of the day, still a collection of steel and wire and electricity put together by human beings.