This Book Does Not Exist (11 page)

8.2.98

here
we go again.
i
'm
warning myself that the way
i
feel right now
i
don't think
i
can function all the way through the hour.
why
does anything in life matter?
i
know it's nothing new ... this question has probably been thought of millions of times but for some reason it seems entirely pertinent to me at this moment in time and it is,
i
think, equally troubling that upon previous wanderings
i
can't find a reason why anything matters.
we
often use the phrase 'it doesn't matter' to describe things we seem to think are trite, but why isn't everything in life trite?
say
someone is thinking of committing a crime; they'll always be asked (in the socially accepted world) whether or not they
want
to go to jail?
surely
our life changes, but always life changes.
the
answer to does anything in life matter must go back to the underlined word, want – desire seems to be the only thing that shapes life into meaning, or rather, importance.
that
is, the only part of life that matters is getting what you want.
it's
interesting to note then that life's worth seems to rest on greed, an emotion, and a commonly negatively looked upon one at that.
why
is it negative then if it seems to be the key to making life matter?
i
think it has to do with greed's connotations of excess.
excess
means having more than we need and therefore would apply to the acquisition of things we don't want and yes, that is not desirable because while one desire goes unfulfilled another goes
unplenished
, and then we don't have what we want, yet, at the same time, it keeps us working - because if we were to desire nothing because we had everything there would not be much worth or importance in life would there?
so
it seems the human mind is always working to keep us wanting more, to keep us full of desire, but not greed because greed, to us, is worthless, unless it serves to reawaken or starve another desire which, in turn, keeps us kicking, keeps us living.
suicide
would seem the appropriate option for anyone who has stopped desiring.

I refuse to read anymore.

The words transport me back to an earlier stage of my life I can very much recall.
However, I can’t remember writing any of them.
The entries are dated over ten years ago. Is it conceivable I just completely forgot about this entire journal? I certainly didn’t create this account. Who would have done that? I’ll ask my mom where the scrap of paper came from. I can start there.

I try calling both parents again. I get the same results.

A slippery, unsettling feeling crawls through me.
The journal
has to either be a break in my memory or a crack in reality.
One or the other.

I remind myself I didn’t go through
the Door
to get here.

With the scrap of paper in tow, I abandon my bedroom for Tim’s old room across the hall. At times, during dark moments, I would come here and gaze out the window, searching for some sign of inspiration or purpose on the street, while digging my fingernails into my triceps and pulling at my skin. I resist the urge to do that now. Instead, I stand in front of the window, dust the scrap of paper against the wall, and watch the cul-de-sac, hoping to see one of my parents’ cars turn the corner.

Waiting, I pace away from the windows, past the bed, and back again. On my angular path, I notice a dusty Bose iPod dock sitting on top of Tim’s desk. An old and bulky iPod, maybe even a first generation one, is connected to the dock. I could use a distraction. Music might work. After checking to make sure the dock is plugged in, I activate the iPod and look for something to listen to. My choice is not hard. Only one album has been loaded onto the device:
Here, My Dear
by Marvin Gaye.

I’ve never heard the album before, but I know of it. It was birthed out of Marvin’s relationship with his first wife, Anna Gordy, as part of the divorce settlement. He couldn’t afford child support and alimony so the judge ordered him to make an album and give half of the royalties to Anna. Marvin responded by setting out to record a classic, one that was explicitly about the arc of his relationship, from the burst of love at the beginning to the fury of anger at its dissolution.

I press play. Sound crackles out of the speakers, which are apparently in worse condition than they look. The melody of the song is eerie, reminiscent of a string of notes I’ve heard somewhere else. Intuitively, I question whether or not this is the first song on the album – it doesn’t sound like an opening cut. Glancing back at the iPod, I see the interlocking dual arrows indicating the shuffle function is in use. I have to get closer to read the name of the track. Marvin belts out lyrics, and the melody repeats, prodding my memory enough for me to realize where I heard this before – it’s the melody the pilot hummed moments before taking his final breath.

Another four bars of the song pass, and I put the music together with the strange dirge-like phrase the pilot croaked.

“
Hurrrrrr
,
madeeerr
”

He was trying to say, “Here, my dear,” the name of the album, and now that I’m close enough to the iPod to see, also the name of this song.

Did he cherish it? Was he engaging in a kind of deathbed salute? Or could he have been revealing an improbable link between Marvin’s opus and Naomi’s disappearance?

A loud, swift noise comes from downstairs – what sounds like a door breaking apart.

I tear out of Tim’s room and head for the first floor, where I fully expect to find my mom or my dad or both in a state of disarray.

I hit the entryway and go towards the kitchen. Was that noise the garage door opening? It sounded too violent. I should see someone in the kitchen or the dining room if they came in through the garage. Maybe the family room…

Not the family room.

Because the family room in this house is gone.

It has been replaced by the living room from my parents’ first house, the one they brought me back to after I was born.

A man is standing in the living room. He is facing an old Magnavox television with dials on it. He is rocking back and forth, holding something in his arms.

All of a sudden darkness surrounds us. The TV screen is the only source of light. It is broadcasting a Vietnam War movie,
The Deer Hunter
. Although I’ve never seen the movie before, I recognize it by the infamous Russian roulette sequence. As the scene plays, the man standing in front of the TV shifts towards me, allowing me to see both the outlines of his face and what he is holding.

The man is my father.

But he is not my dad
now,
he’s my dad
then
. A much younger version of the man I last saw this past Christmas, possibly younger than I am now.

He is holding a baby boy.

He looks down at the child, swaying to try and keep him asleep. The baby yawns and stretches, and my dad
laughs
a little and says, “That’s a big one,
Mikey
.”

The baby boy is
me
.

Inconceivably, I am witnessing something that would have happened over twenty years ago if it happened at all. It is disturbing and riveting, and it can’t actually be real. It can’t be. I say this out loud, and my dad ignores me, turning back towards the television and the Russian roulette sequence, as if he wants to show my three or four or five-month-old self how it ends, and that’s when the Vietnamese character in the movie shoots himself in the head.

“Dad!” I exclaim.

He doesn’t acknowledge me.

I blink.

The whole scene dissolves. My twenty-something dad and my months old self vanish. The movie and the living room from my old house are gone. The current family room is back. There is daylight again, and everything is entirely back to normal, if it ever can be.

I fled the house, and now I am driving I don’t know where, just driving, past Naomi’s parents’ house and out of the allotment. What I encountered can only happen behind
the Door
, in the other world, a place built on irrationality. There is a trigger – I walk through
the Door
and enter a twisted version of my reality where anything can happen.

The Deer Hunter
Incident manifested without that trigger.

Driving faster, I message
Geppetto
, demanding that he tell me how.

Afterwards, I try calling my dad.

This time he answers.

Dad
: Hello?

Me
: Dad. Where are you?

Dad
: I’m home with your mother. Are you still coming over?

Me
: I was just there.

Dad
: What?

Me
: Dad, I was just there.

Dad
: We’ve been here-

Me
: I was inside the house.

Dad
: Mike, hang on.

Me
: You weren’t there. I was inside the house.

Dad
: Calm down for a second. When were you here?

Me
: I told you. I was just there. Two minutes ago.

Dad
:
Mikey
-

Me
: Did you ever watch
The Deer Hunter
with me when I was a baby?

Dad
: When did I tell you that? It was always on TV for some reason.

I end the call.

I check for a response from
Geppetto
on
Facebook
.

I don’t find one.

My dad calls me back.

I let it ring.

Driving way over the speed limit, I tap out a tweet:

“My dad had me watch deer hunter when I was 6 months old #
fb
”

The #
fb
sends it to
Facebook
, as well. I want to connect with as many people as I can.

My phone will not stop ringing. It’s my dad again. I want to shut it off, but I can’t kill my line of communication with Geppetto.

I’m going back to
the Door
.

Unless Geppetto stops me, I’m going back to
the Door
.

Since leaving
Daventry
, I’ve received three
Facebook
notifications. The first two are comments on my status about watching
The Deer Hunter
with my dad when I was a baby:

Matthew XXXXX: That explains a lot.

TODAY AT 2:03 PM

Dan XXXXX: have you ever played Russian roulette??

TODAY AT 2:35 PM

The third is a wall post from Naomi’s friend, Virginia. A week ago, I asked her if she knew where Naomi was. She chose now to finally respond:

“
there’s
a guy I know who might know, let me check”

Geppetto
hasn’t bothered to answer my message.

I am standing in East Cleveland. Ahead of me, through the open entrance to
Geppetto’s
, a bright white light is visible.

The Door
is cracked open.

I walk inside the building. The room is splayed
by light, coming from the fissure in
the Door
. A
Bic
lighter is lying on the floor. Coated all the way around its plastic body is a
pixelated
rendition of the American flag.

I pick it up.

Naomi lost lighters all the time. She had one just like this. She used it to light the last cigarette I ever saw her light. At the time, I commented that its design was a metaphor for the country going digital. She said, “You think too much.”