Nonentity (9 page)

“From a certain perspective perhaps.”

“Exactly. I recently glimpsed something else that might qualify as fate.”

“What was it?”

“I had a dream the other night. It was strange. You and I were sitting next to each other on a bus with all these other passengers. People outside the bus were putting on bizarre costumes that looked like spacesuits. I had an overwhelming sensation of déjà vu. I told you about that and you surprisingly agreed with me. You said that while you hadn’t experienced the moment yourself, it had already occurred in a dream of mine I had previously discussed with you as we rode out to visit my father.”

“That is strange. Did I say anything else?”

Lorna said, “You mentioned that you had written about this apparent dream of mine, but my attention drifted. I don’t remember most of what you said.”

“So, you ignore me in your dreams. Thanks.”

“That wasn’t it. I was mesmerized by a vision of the fantastic. I can’t recall what that vision was. You and I exchanged a few words. Then I put a hand on your face and told you that we would never be apart. Our bus hurtled through the sky. Your father was in the seat in front of us. He turned back toward us and said, ‘Maybe fate isn’t such an abstraction.’”

“My father said that? What was he doing on the bus? How did you know it was him?”

“What was I doing on the bus? I can’t say how I recognized your father, but his comment suddenly makes more sense. I mean, you just referred to fate as an abstraction.”

I rolled my eyes. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What else happened in the dream?”

“I don’t remember. My recollection of it is incomplete. It must have some connection to the real world, though. It matches up too well with our present conversation.”

“Coincidence. Don’t read too much into it.”

“Maybe you’re right,” she said, glancing out the window. “I shouldn’t overanalyze it. It defies explanation. And I may not have long to figure it out.”

Another extended silence followed. Her unusual dream did not concern me. I brooded over her remark that she “may not have long to figure it out.” Was she keeping me in the dark about something that endangered her?

Our journey brought us to a luxurious mansion in the countryside. A majestic stone walkway led over a small pond to the home’s front door. To the left was a rich garden; to the right, a secluding forest.

I nevertheless expected Lorna’s father to be an eccentric, like Lukas Lambert. The words on the mat beneath the front door supported that presumption:
All Visitors Welcome – Except Jack
. Upon answering his door, though, the author revealed himself a dapper man in his early sixties. He wore a white cashmere sweater and casual slacks. Thick silver hair enhanced his dignity. He smiled and hugged his daughter. I instantly sensed that this gent had been as significant to Lorna as her mother.

“You must be Sebastian,” he said, shaking my hand and peering at me with green eyes as gripping as his daughter’s.

“A unique privilege to meet you.”

He said, “Is not every privilege unique?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Ha! I like this chap already.” He placed a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “Let us retire to my den for wine and banter before dinner.”

His den was superb. Book cases ten shelves high enclosed the spacious room. I discovered a book that I would eventually cherish: an original edition of
Criminal Enterprise: The Unofficial History of the Permanent Regime
. I picked it up, leafing through it.

“Do you have an interest in the affairs of State?” Lorna’s father said to me as he stoked a flame in a fireplace at the back wall.

“Not much. I work for the government. It’s rather dull.”

Lorna sat down in a chair near the fireplace. “Sebastian is indifferent toward such things, Dad. He is apolitical.”

“As well he should be. Politics is little men pretending to be big,” said her father, walking to a bar about ten feet from the fireplace and pouring three glasses of red wine.

“I could not agree more, sir,” I said.

He finished pouring the wine and took a glass to Lorna. He did the same for me, saying, “I hope you like reds.”

“Thank you,” I said, taking a sip. “It’s excellent.”

“Glad to hear it. I was a little worried, Sebastian, that you might be some kind of wine connoisseur. I didn’t want to give you anything inferior.”

I laughed. “No need for worry. I’m grateful for the wine and I’m grateful to be your guest. This is a beautiful place you have here.”

“Thank you.”

Feeling comfortable, I said, “It’s a fabulous house. In fact, I’d like to ask you something about it, if you don’t mind.”

“Why should I mind? Sometimes questions are all that we have.”

“The welcome mat at your front door intrigued me. Who is Jack and why is he not welcome here?”

“You’ve got an eye for detail, young man. That’s good. I want folks to notice that welcome mat. It’s based on some of my philosophic discussions with Lorna. As you may know, she contends that people can choose their own realities. I am unsure of that, though I concede it’s a nice thought. I conceived something of a counter-concept. Supposing that she can choose her own reality, could someone else come along and pilfer that reality? It’s at least possible. My name for this hypothetical reality thief is Jack. Assuming I possess a reality of my own choosing, Jack is most emphatically unwelcome.”

“Speaking of similar matters, Dad, Sebastian read
Extracurricular Explorations
.”

“Oh really?” he said, eyes lighting up. “Feedback?”

I went from comfort to unease. “Uh, well, hard to say.”

With a chuckle he said, “Precisely. How could a sane reader have feedback for such a mess of a book? It’s incoherent garbage. But even garbage has its place.”

“Well, ‘garbage’ is a bit strong. You may have just resolved some of the incoherence. The Jack mentioned in the book’s final chapter – I take it he’s the same Jack excluded by your welcome mat.”

“Correct. That was the part I was most confident about, so I kept repeating it. Always overstate your soundest conclusions. How did the rest of the book strike you?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It left me with a bit of a scrambled mind.”

“Marvelous. You have responded to my muddled material with a wisdom beyond your years. The scrambled mind is often superior to the mind that is clear. The clear mind becomes fixed and stops entertaining alternate options. It’s too perfect for improvement. Conversely, the scrambled mind must put things back together, inadvertently strengthening itself in the process.”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever put things together.”

“Even if you do, forget what you’ve done and try to do it again.”

We later moved into the dining room. Beneath an exquisite chandelier was a long oak table that suited its space. In a corner of the room was a small bookcase on top of which sat a framed photograph of a woman. I estimated the woman’s age as mid-forties. She had flowing dark hair and pouty lips. The familiar green eyes made her identity obvious.

“Lorna’s mother,” I said. “Incredible.”

Lorna’s father flashed a broad smile. “More than incredible. You know, had she started out as a hag covered in warts and boils, something deep inside her would have transformed her into a beauty queen. That’s just another kooky idea of mine.”

I shot Lorna a quick glance and looked away. “Maybe it isn’t that kooky. I know someone who invokes similar sentiments.”

“Don’t take that too seriously, Dad. Sebastian probably doesn’t know any such person.”

“Well, I could be misreading her,” I said, “but I don’t think so.”

She said, “It’s not about misreading anything. You see what you want to see.”

“What the hell are you two talking about?” said her father.

She smiled and winked at me. “Nothing, Dad. Inside joke.”

We soon ate a delicious steak dinner that Lorna’s father cooked for us. Included were mashed potatoes and broccoli with an exotic white cheese melted over it. Throughout the meal my two companions discussed the many wonders of her mother/his wife. The conversation reminded me of a sore spot: my own mother. I tuned out.

Following dinner, the three of us returned to the den for more wine.

“Oh Dad,” said Lorna, “I forgot to tell you: I introduced Sebastian to Lukas Lambert a few months ago.”

Her father cackled. “Ah yes. The never-quite-famous but oh-so-brilliant Lukas Lambert, my partner in so many slipshod capers.”

I said, “Really? I guess the two of you go back aways, huh?”

“You should never guess unless you fully understand the question. Except I didn’t ask a question. But I bet Lukas said that to you.”

“How did you know?”

“I know that man almost as well as he knows himself. Actually, if I knew him that well, my head would explode. He’s amazing. Sometimes I’d write something that bewildered me. Then I’d show it to Lukas and he’d explain it like it was basic arithmetic. He became one of my finest friends. It was a camaraderie between two oddballs dead set on keeping themselves and each other off the straight and narrow. What did you make of him, Sebastian?”

“Well, safe to say he isn’t on the straight and narrow. I didn’t get all that stuff about parallel universalism.”

Lorna’s father said, “Nor do I. It may be that no one understands it. Does Lukas Lambert understand it? Not necessarily.”

“That just makes me more reluctant to see him again.”

“That’s okay. Something yet to occur will have to put you in the appropriate mind frame; then you will be ready for him.”

Lorna and I left a little later. I admired her father and thought him a tremendous host. I never saw him again in flesh-and-blood form. Still, he would prove crucial in my larger quests.

****

Allen Jonah’s gravelly voice boomed over my radio:

“… which is why I’m calling this outlandish Grand Premier race for Cynthiana Davinsky. She’s the heir apparent, folks, queen of the puppet show. What can we expect during Davinsky’s reign as chief cipher? Further dismantling of the free market. Call it corporatism, economic fascism, crony capitalism, crapitalism, whatever. Just get ready for a lot more of it.

“Also expect the injustice system to get plenty more unjust. Protections for the accused will keep vanishing. Pretty soon so-called domestic enemies of the Regime won’t even have access to State-employed attorneys. Our masters have already eviscerated rights against unreasonable searches and seizures in their crusades against malevolent substances and terrorism. Habeas corpus is dead. These things will only get much worse.”

Jonah obsessed over “a police state rapidly consuming our entire society.” According to him, an ever-expanding web of regulations rendered everyone a criminal. Those who produced for the Regime and kept their mouths shut were safe. The slightest sign of rebellion, however, could draw the legal leviathan’s wrath. The Regime owned all the courts and all the attorneys; a lowly defendant was hopeless.

I listened to Jonah skeptically. Many of his claims were dubious. His closer-to-Earth allegations were plausible, to one extent or another. My paranoia increased.

Criminal defense issues reminded me of my father. The unsolved murder of Sebastian R. Flemming the Second loomed large. Had my brother Hagen unearthed something about it? I could hardly trust the second-hand information of an apparent dead man (Lawrence Alister). Plus, Lawrence knew nothing definitive. He merely suggested what Hagen
might
have known. Much more certain was the guilt I felt from neglecting my mother. It drove me to seek the truth about her husband’s demise.

Through underground sources I contacted Rev Coomer, over thirty years an employee of the Office of Misinformation. Rumor had it that no one equaled Rev’s ability to dig up confidential dirty laundry. He was apolitical, a pure mercenary, surpassing double his government salary from sales of classified data. I agreed to pay him a quarter of my annual income for anything illuminating about my father.

We met in a vacant parking lot. Condemned buildings surrounded us, affording satisfactory cover. The sun was unusually bright. But the air was crisp.

“Okay Flemming,” he said with gruffness, “the deal is you give me half up front. I get you what you want, you give me the other half. Fair enough?”

“Sure.”

Rev was bulbous, early fifties, distinctive scars on his face. His brown hair was thinning. He rarely cracked a smile.

Taking my money in hand, he said, “Flemming, what’s a guy like you doing getting mixed up in all this radical horseshit? Aren’t you smarter than that?”

“I could easily turn that around, Rev: Why aren’t you involved in all this horseshit? You’re already endangering yourself peddling radioactive material to any scumbag agitator who tosses cash at you. Hell, you’re practically an honorary member of the opposition.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, pal. I got no use for the nutty gobbledygook that gets you bleeding hearts so riled up. Not a damn bit of it’ll change anything. You can’t beat the Regime. They call it ‘permanent’ for a reason – it ain’t ever going away.”