Casolaro 33

On the morning of August 10, 1991, Danny Casolaro was found dead in his hotel room bathtub in Martinsburg, West Virginia. Naked, with twelve slashes to his wrists. Blood on the wall and floor, a scene that made one of the housekeeping staff faint. Paramedics found a beer can, a half-full bottle of wine, two garbage bags, and a standard straight razor.

A detail revealed later: several towels were found on the bathroom, looked as if they had been used to wipe up blood, someone doing so using their foot, according to one of the housekeeping heads at the hotel. The blood smeared in a trail, leading to the disposed towels. These towels were thrown away.

The death was ruled a suicide. A Martinsburg undertaker embalmed Casolaro’s body that night, before Casolaro’s family had been notified of his death—a crime in West Virginia.

Some of his fingernails were broken--no one looked under his fingernails for residue or skin fragments, any sign of a struggle. No bath water sample was taken. A bruise was found under the top of his head that could have induced moderate hemorrhaging.

His briefcase and accordion file of notes on the Octopus, including the related manuscript that he was working on, were not in the room. They were not in his car. The immediate area was combed. Nothing.

The Octopus descended into the waters, its prey left spent, washed up on shore. No photographs, only anecdotes, a fluid story.

Casolaro 32

Casolaro was talking with his friend Bill once about the evolution of conspiracies. Over the years, they’ve gone from outright killing people through stabbings, explosions, and rifle shots to mysterious though explainable causes of death to staged suicides to assassinating someone’s character or reputation. I think we’re in the last stage.

Deaths create martyrs and leave lots of messy questions. Destroying someone’s reputation will stop them from becoming a martyr; there will be no questions because there won’t be anything to ask. It leaves the person humiliated, the destroyed having to live a neutered existence. This is probably worse than death itself. The media can be effectively manipulated to do all your work for you. If you’re a part of the conspiracy, you make some calls, mail some evidence, and sit back and watch it unfold.

If you die at the hands of the conspiracy, he said, you become part of a lore. A collective storytelling that mixes fiction and fact, tangible evidence and interpretable evidence. Basically, you get devoured by the conspiracy and become a part of how its story is told. You become a piece of information.

What happens if you expose the conspiracy, Bill said. What if you’re the one that lays out the truth, and everyone sees it as irrefutable, and you’ve basically changed the course of history through your exposure?

That never seems to happen anymore, does it?

Casolaro 31

After his sister Lisa’s death, Casolaro’s father said to him, in a certain light, you look almost like her. As much as you could expect from a brother and sister. More so than your other siblings. The facial bone structure, the eyes. It’s uncanny.

Casolaro didn’t know what to do with that. I miss her, too, Dad, is all he could come up with. Later, he looked at himself in the mirror. He couldn’t see any resemblance.

Electric Boogaloo, The Wrath of Khan, etc.

More of these coming.  October?

Casolaro 30

One of Casolaro’s contacts, over sushi and plum wine, said, would your Octopus exist if you did not write things down, collect notes, make connections, give it a name?

Of course it would, he said. Maybe it just would not be called “The Octopus” because that’s what I named it.

But you would consider the act of writing, collecting, connecting the dots—these are acts of creation, no? Your Octopus is a conceptually realized product, wouldn’t you agree, an order created out of what could be seen as chaos, parts that would exist by themselves but not as one unit.

The contact was supposed to have information on Hughes Aircraft, but was elusive. Philosophy over facts.

You have no way of knowing that every piece of information that you juxtapose with the next is true or false, do you? And even if it were all true, not every piece has to be necessary to make this concept true. Some pieces are more necessary than others. This is something wholly new. Another investigator might come up with a different concept, his own story to tell. It’s interpretation. One of perhaps infinite.

Casolaro’s mind drifted away from the conversation to his briefcase of notes. He could envision them in his mind. He was thinking of possible connections, things that might be missing.

Casolaro 29

One morning, Casolaro woke, looked into his bathroom mirror with double vision. An early symptom of multiple sclerosis. Two Casolaros in two mirrors, living identical lives. Somewhere, he thought, they split along the fourth dimension; one of them ceases to be Danny Casolaro and goes off into the ether, becomes some sort of phantom that haunts the shadows of this world. For a moment he felt nauseous, as he could feel the duality split at his eyes. He sat on a closed toilet and waited for it to pass. Two of me and I could finish the investigation, he thought, be in two places at once. If one of me was killed, I could still carry on.

Casolaro 28

When he was in Martinsburg, Casolaro thought he should send his notes to Bill. Just drop everything in a FedEx box and have them delivered for safekeeping, pick them up later. After meeting the Iranian, he got a little spooked. The guy was repeating certain words. Octopus, tentacles, prey. He knew stuff about Inslaw and PROMIS, details that were recurring in his notes. He was familiar with Nichols. Told Casolaro this is the kind of investigation where you end up dead, where your friends and family end up dead too. More and more lately people were telling him, you’re going to end up dead.

We will cut you up and feed you to the sharks.

Casolaro decided to hold onto his notes. I’m being paranoid, he thought. The notes—I need them for the investigation. I would be—I would be like an octopus without tentacles, he thought, without them. In his room, he went to the desk, opened the file and pulled out a handful of papers, had an idea, began scanning for patterns.

Casolaro 27

Toward the end, Casolaro went by the name Cesario as an alias, the person someone confused him with once. He dropped the Hector, because he didn’t see himself as a Hector, and just went with Cesario. Checked into a hotel with it, talked to some leads using the name. It was a moment of panic when he was in the hotel parking lot, thought someone was tracking him; the first name that came to his mind.

After checking in, he sat on the edge of his room’s bed, thought, this is dumb, now I’m paranoid. But he repeated the name a few times. Cesario, Cesario, Cesario. He remembered the supermarket incident, but the name was familiar in some other context. Cesario, Cesario, Cesario. Now, I’m like the people I’m investigating, he thought. False names, double lives. A knock on the door made him jump. But it wasn’t his door, rather the one across the hall.

Casolaro 26

One night over beers, his friend Bill looked through his collection of notes. Typed pages with handwriting on the margins and blotches of white-out. Lined loose-leaf pages, some with neat almost mechanical handwriting, others with furious cursive scribbles, words written at odd angles. Cocktail napkins with notes, crude drawings of basic geometric shapes. Newspaper clippings, some with particular words circled in pen, some held together with tape. Bill was stunned by the volume, hundreds of pages, the chaos of the collected archive.

How you can get a conspiracy out of all this, just by looking at this stuff as a whole, I don’t get it.

There’s an order here, Casolaro said. It might not look like it but there’s an organization to it.

It’s an overload, is what it looks like. It’s like someone tried to overwhelm you with information just to keep your wheels spinning. So you’d never get to the true answer.

It feels like that sometimes. He took a drink of beer. My ex-wife once said I wasn’t a detail person. Here’s evidence otherwise.

Update

Danny Casolaro: 64 Stories is moving right along.  Check here for all of the pieces so far. It runs until mid-October. This introduction is probably a good place to start. This story is also good to check out, as it's where I got started. 

Casolaro 25

Within a year before he died, Casolaro learned that he had multiple sclerosis. Very early stages, starting with some general weakness, some double vision. He kept it hidden, only told a few people. He was upset, envisioning himself physically and mentally deteriorating slowly over time, unable to continue his investigations. Also, his love life would suffer, he’d become unattractive, not able to perform, as his body turned on itself, made him a prisoner.

His physician told him, we can mostly control it now, with a proper regimen. You can live for a long time like you always did. And medicine will keep improving as you age. This seemed to calm his fears.

His physician confirmed that, yes, the disease was much more common in women than men, and there’s no real sign that it’s hereditary. There might be some environmental factors but we’re not sure.

So, he asked him, it’s random, coincidence, no real reason? His physician shrugged his shoulders.

McMurdo Station, Antarctica

It was late May--the harshest dead of winter down on the ice--when Jon and Aria brought unity to the United States and New Zealand. Not that there was a divide: the winter residents of neighboring stations often mingled when there was a weather break: chess tournaments, dining, talking, bringing the world above to its very bottom. In late April, there was a lull in the wind and snow. Other than the darkness, it was almost like summer. This is when Jon and Aria caught each other’s eyes in the common room, never noticing each other before. Each would think, where were you all this time? Then, the fury came. Winds, snow drifts, whiteout. Everybody was frozen in place. They talked, gazed, became the nearby volcanoes Erebus and Terror. Ice, nowhere, space--there was nothing but them.

***

Scott sat in his dorm, wrote letters to his wife. Over and over and over. His first winter in Antarctica. The darkness, the wind. He imagined the world around him shrinking and shrinking until he too shrunk and he could fit on the postage stamp that he put on the envelopes. The envelopes piled up. Nowhere for them to go until there was a weather break. He loved his wife. She was a universe away. Her face faded from his memory. He would stare at her picture and, after awhile, his eyes tricked him into seeing her face disappearing. He was scared. He slept with the lights on.


***


Tess fell asleep on the common room sofa one night. She awoke, everyone gone, the place silent except for outside wind and sprinkling of blown snow against windows. She walked back to her room, as she did countless times, socked feet sliding across the floor, but her room wasn't there. She swiveled, looked every direction, turned corners, walked other hallways. But it was gone. Science told her that solid structures like this don't change without intervention. But either it changed or her mind did. She went back to the sofa, slept until morning, and everything was right again.

***

Ray, when not studying the resident whales, played sleuth to discover a practical joker. One year running and no luck. The joke played on him was every now and then, he'd be walking down a hallway, alone, when he'd hear something rolling. He'd turn to find a billiard ball sized crystal ball moving his way. He collected them in a shoe box--nine total so far. All identical. He asked around, showed them to people, who shrugged, gave him puzzled looks. One day, he whispered to himself, I'll figure it out.

***

Jan found herself bouncing, a ball in an endless pinball machine game. Rebuffed by her boyfriend in Iowa, through email no less. Then by Scott. Well, he was married--he had principles, an admirable trait. Then Blair. The resident hotshot surfer dude—okay, maybe not. There was Jon, but now he was attached to this New Zealander. Jan danced around other eligible men. She talked. She played cool. She moved closer. She got nowhere. She grew frustrated. Her work suffered. The ice was cold and lonely, more so everyday; were others magically impervious? If she had a mirror, she would make advances at herself, take the bait, fall in love all over again.


***


Sam walked away from his radio monitoring station for coffee and blueberry pastry. Scratched his head, spooned powdered creamer into Styrofoam cup, talked to Blair about football, and flights home. What he missed was a transmission from space. Scratching, hissing voice filled with consonants--it was brief, almost a hiccup. Unrecorded—the McMurdo Station crew wasn't looking for extraterrestrial life. You walk away, you miss everything. He shuffled back, blueberry on his chin, sipping coffee, looking forward to another long boring day of nothing on the ice.

***

Out beyond Erebus and Terror, in the frozen fields where nobody traveled, there was a man frozen face up in the ice. The sound of his name cast into space, a weak radio signal, floating in the void, never to be heard. His ice cube eyes stare out the bottom of the world. If he were to be found, people would theorize about what brought him here: conquest, a woman, insanity. Running to, running from, running. The mind's eye would trick someone into seeing him twitch, his eye blink, a tear stream down his cheek, and think briefly, somehow, he was alive, trapped in ice, nowhere, space.

Casolaro 24

The deeper he went, the more involved Casolaro became with shady figures. Nichols. Riconosciuto. Turner. He banked on them for information. They were inside figures with deep connections to conspiracy events. People that did the government’s dirty work, ran weapons and dealt drugs, broke countless laws. His friend Bill told him, you’re in dangerous territory with these people. They’ll string you along and then cut you loose.

He told Bill that Nichols had told him, if you keep investigating, you will die. I worry that he’s stringing me along, telling me things that I want to hear, forcing me to identify with him.

Casolaro 23

Upon occasion, Casolaro bumped into other conspiracy theorists, people working on books. The JFK assassination, the Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Area 51. Even someone whose work involved uncovering that the world was being controlled by a race of alien lizard men who were disguised as humans. Once he attended a conspiracy convention, hoping to network, get more information. There were people dressed as Lee Harvey Oswald, posing for pictures holding a fake rifle and militant communist periodicals. Others wore JFK masks, dressed as aliens; even one person was decked out in full military uniform, wearing an Oliver North mask. He listened to them talk: it was a hobby for them. Something to do, something to collect. They weren’t investigators but fans of other people’s theories. You could buy trading cards, comic books, t-shirts. I have real information, he thought, I’ve done the investigative work. I get threatening phone calls.

He abandoned the convention, went to the hotel bar. Drinks, conversation with the woman tending bar. Investigative work, doing your own thing.

Casolaro 22

About a year before his death, Casolaro dated a woman named Olivia. She played the viola, was a member of a symphony. Like him, she had a sister who committed suicide. A fraternal twin, a severed bond that she said felt like it was cut by a jagged knife deep inside her. Once, she played him a sad viola solo she had composed in her sister’s memory, in a room lit by candles, sharing a bottle of syrah. I was in the midst of a year long depression when I wrote this, she said, a dark and lonely place. Perhaps it was too much wine but it made him cry.

Along with classical pieces, she could play the viola solos in The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” and Kansas’s “Dust in the Wind.” He saw her perform in a symphony once and, while impressed by the overall performance, was disappointed that she was one of many instruments, one sound blended in with a multitude.

Casolaro 21

A phone call: we will make your life eternal hell, you’ll be tied to a rock for carrion birds to devour your insides; magically, we’ll keep remaking you, so that the birds can do it, again and again and again; we’ll kill your son, we’ll kill your siblings, we’ll kill your friends; you want a monster, we’ll give you one, wrapping its tentacles around you, smothering, poisoning you, dragging you into the ocean, drowning you forever. The phone went dead.

Casolaro hung up the phone, placed his face in his hands. What have I done, he thought, what madness is this that I’ve unleashed?

Casolaro 20

Casolaro met with one of various book publishers, pitched his book idea. His standard proposal: “This story is about a handful of people who have been able to successfully exploit the secret empires of espionage networks, big oil, and organized crime. This octopus spans the globe . . . to control governmental institutions in the United States and abroad."

The editor said, that’s kind of vague, sounds like any run-of-the-mill conspiracy, can you give me more detail.

Well, it’s kind of complicated. Really, you have to consume the thing in its entirety to appreciate its complexity, just how far and wide it goes. October Surprise, CIA, BCCI, Iran-Contra, PROMIS, maybe even JFK, Watergate—

That’s pretty far reaching. You’ve got just about everything possible there.

It is fairly far reaching, that’s the point of the book. All of these things, they are interrelated. I’ve got tons of notes. Been working day and night for years on this and I’m close. I’ve—

Mr. Casolaro, don’t take offense, but this is, well, this is sort of skimming crackpot lore. We get lots of ideas for alien conspiracies, the Illuminati—

I don’t sleep at night. This stuff—I get threatening calls in the middle of the night. Weird coincidences. If you looked at what I have—

But it didn’t progress. More details, he thought, and someone will take it. He had phone calls to make, people to meet.

Anaphylaxis

I told my wife, don’t eat the crab, remember what happened July 4th, but she shrugged, couldn’t resist. Then she complained of feeling hot, lightheaded. Then the hives came. Then she had trouble breathing. So I gave her Benadryl, rushed her to the hospital, told the scared kids, I’ll call. I went through two red lights, wanted some credit , but she wasn’t watching. Inside, the breathing’s better but still labored. She’s seen immediately. Doctor came by, asked, why’s she eating crab if she’s shellfish allergic. He had thick black glasses. His chiseled physique and perfect tan threw his career choice in your face. We didn’t know, I said, omitting, do you think I’m stupid? He asked about vomiting, diarrhea, anxiety. He mentioned anaphylaxis. He asked about drug, bee, nut allergies. The nurse administered epinephrine. My wife had an electrocution moment. Then she’s fine. The nurse hooked up an IV, said, you should be fine. Before calling home, I said, you look good now, but man that was scary. Why am I having problems now at 39? I shook my head, looked at her. She was scared, like the first time she was pregnant. I refrained from saying, I said don’t, and did you see me maneuver through traffic. I remembered our wedding reception. I tasted the crab cake, pulled her from greeting people, said, you have to try. And she did. Now, I said, forget crab, we’ll try other things. I wrapped my arms around her. Then she cried.

Casolaro 19

Not long before his death, Casolaro saw the movie, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Alone, popcorn and soda during the day, scattered attendees in a sticky floor theater. He liked the film’s premise of battling for the future, negating the conspiracy of computers that had taken over the world. There were parallels in his own struggles: fighting a shape-shifting all powerful force, working within a world that disbelieved the truth.

The end: drowning the cyborgs in a lake of molten steel to rewrite the future. This is how you kill the Octopus, he thought, it has to be drowned in fire. When he left the cinema, in the second before he turned his car’s ignition, he feared it blowing up in a ball of fire.

Casolaro 18

You will read all of this. It will provoke your interest, fire your outrage. Then, you’ll abruptly stop. Too much. It makes your head hurt. This is how these things go. This is how most of the populace is conditioned to accept agreed upon facts and not look for other truths.

Casolaro 17

Casolaro’s death was ruled a suicide. Before he died, he said, if I end up dead, don’t believe that it was suicide.

Casolaro’s death was ruled a suicide. The day before his death, he hit on several women in the hotel’s lounge.

Other than the messy bathroom scene, the rest of Casolaro’s hotel room was found to be tidy, untouched. Bed crisply made, not a piece of trash on the floor or dresser. His friends and family note that Casolaro was untidy, left wreckage in whatever room he was in. His pants were found neatly folded on the bed.

Casolaro’s death was ruled a suicide. The day he left for Martinsburg, he stopped by his insurance agent’s office, paid his home insurance premium.

Casolaro’s suicide note referenced God. Casolaro wasn’t religious, rarely talked or wrote in religious terms.

Casolaro’s death was ruled a suicide. He met at least two of the sources he had planned to in Martinsburg.

Casolaro’s suicide note was only 19 words long. Casolaro was known for verbosity in writing.

Casolaro’s death was ruled a suicide. His friends, family, and people he encountered in Martinsburg said he was always generally upbeat, even when things weren’t necessarily going in his favor.

Casolaro was found with 12 slashes to his wrists, some deep enough to hit tendons, none of them appeared to show any hesitation. His family and ex-wife said that he was afraid of needles and his own blood.

Casolaro’s death was ruled a suicide. One medical examiner said, no person could’ve withstood the pain of the deep incisions and continued.

Casolaro 16

Casolaro had written extensively in creative forms, many poems and short stories, and a novel called The Ice King that was about mountain climbing. He collaborated on a film, “To Fly Without Wings.” A friend of his said, he wasn’t an investigative reporter—he was a poet.

There was some indication he was working on the Octopus book from a novelist’s point of view. That it wasn’t investigative, but fiction.

He liked the construct of fiction for explaining conspiracies, the weaving of fiction and truth to flesh out the story, make the edges smooth and round, eliminating inconsistencies and the random, realizing metaphors, making what could be called a juicy coherent story. A picture, a film, a consumable product. Fiction explaining the truth, even if that truth was essentially a fiction.

He knew that people might hate him for doing so, for making such a dangerous theory palpable, digestible to the masses. For perpetuating conspiracies as master plans designed to explain everything.

But the closer he got, the less he could count on fiction. Too close to the truth, he couldn’t dissociate, or maybe he was just a character in a larger fiction.

Casolaro 15

When he was able to sleep, Casolaro had a recurring dream of falling from a labyrinthine cruise ship into deep dark waters. The deck pool was full of ex-girlfriends, a party of leisurely conversation and laughter. The lower cabin hallways were dark, full of his contacts, unknown agents stalking him. Voices pushing him in different directions. He found himself running through the mazes, searching for light, stairways leading up. He’d be up on deck at night, out of breath, and he’d tumble over the side. Flailing in cold, heavy waters that sucked him under, struggling to surface as he drowned, the moonlight through the liquid filter fading away. The sense of a massive creature underneath, lurking, waiting.

Casolaro 14

Wherever he went, Casolaro dragged along his research. An extensive collection of typed pages, newspaper clippings, handwritten notes stuffed in an bulging accordion file which he then stuffed into a briefcase. Friends said the notes were a mess, but Casolaro was a mad maestro, able to make sense of them.

These notes stayed with him. Placed in the trunk of his car. Tucked under his arm as he went to a bar, a restaurant, to meet a source. The notes were going to be a book, a series of articles, his magnum opus, the essential work that defined his life.

Friends asked him if he had other copies. No, he said, except a few pages here and there. If the heat is on me too much, he said, maybe I’ll send them to Illyrian College. It was a joke no one got.

He went to Martinsburg with them. When his body was found, they were gone, never to be found. The police searched nearby dumpsters, canines covered a mile long stretch of nearby highway. Nothing.

Casolaro 13

At Casolaro’s funeral, a man in a trenchcoat and another decked out in full army uniform approached his coffin, placed a medal on the lid. The soldier gave a salute. The two men walked away. His family, already upset and in mourning, were baffled. They didn’t recognize either man—both had just shown up, were in continual motion performing their deed, and left. Danny had never served in the military. The medal was buried with his coffin.

A family friend later told them, perhaps it was a secret nod to Danny’s work, from good people from within the government too afraid of their lives to go public. Perhaps thanks for your service, for fighting in the long war against evil.

Casolaro 12

Casolaro suffered many odd coincidences. They seemed to accelerate in his last weeks. An FBI agent knocked on his door, was looking for a man named Clifford. Sorry, wrong house. In a restaurant, he started talking to a guy nearby, who just happened to be Special Forces, a fact that he was willing to make public.

He was in a hotel in Richmond and, in the lounge, there was a guy that looked just like him. His double. The guy was even wearing the same color shirt.

He was in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles, discovered the guy in front of him also had the last name Casolaro (no relation though). Not a common name. The guy seemed to shrug it off, say, that’s sure funny.

He was in a supermarket checkout line, a guy comes up to him, puts his arm around him. Hey, Hector, how are you doing? Hector?, he said. Yeah, come on, Hector Cesario, don’t play games, my man. No, you have me confused with someone else. I’m Danny Casolaro. The guy stepped back, looked him up and down, shrugged his shoulders. Man, I’m sorry, I thought you were Hector. He disappeared into the produce section.

Casolaro 11

Casolaro was in a motel outside Tampa when the Gulf War started. The guys from CNN, hunkered down in a Baghdad hotel, reporting as the bombing ensued. He went back through his notes: Saddam Hussein, George Bush were common names. Arms went to Iraq and Iran. Even the chemical weapons they were afraid would be unleashed on the soldiers. It was suspected that Hussein even had a copy of the PROMIS software, possibly from the CIA, most likely the Trojan Horse variant so the government had an inroad on Iraqi intelligence.

This has the tentacles of the Octopus all over it, he thought, as he watched the continuing live coverage between flag-waving bookend graphics advertising the war, the firm-standing generals addressing a gaggle of reporters live from the Pentagon, as aerial bombardment and incoming missiles played in seemingly continual loop, as words like “sortie,” “scud,” and “smart bomb” infiltrated his mind, the jargon of armed advertising.

Casolaro 10

Before Casolaro left for Martinsburg, Olga, his housekeeper, tried helping him with his things. A briefcase, which she watched him shove full of papers. She tried lifting it but it was too heavy, hurting her shoulder and elbow.

What do you have in there, she asked.

Everything, he responded. All of my papers.

He said he was off to meet the last piece of the puzzle, a source that would help pull everything together. He looked tired but hopeful, she recounted, almost like a little boy on Christmas morning, awake to open gifts before sunrise. He was often like that, she said, but in the last days, he was frazzled, tired, a bleeding man still hopeful, stumbling along even though he’s been wounded.

She feared for his life. More phone calls. We will cut him up, feed him to the sharks. Another: drop dead. Another: silence, just music in the background. Stop calling, she shouted into the phone. More calls followed, waking her in the middle of the night. No voices, no music, just silence.

The phone rang and rang into the night. She sat huddled in her bed, refusing to pick up, afraid to move. He had mentioned the word “Octopus” to her before, but didn’t elaborate. Madness, she thought.

Black Thursday

This story is the 11th part of the Griffin filmmaker series. It follows The Street Near and Far.

1
The actor Griffin hired to play Henrick had the worn, existential face he sought. Gray hair like withered grass, facial wrinkles of stone, stark eyes making him look surprised he was still alive. I know he’s the one, he said, because this is the future me, the final Griffin before death.

2
9:15 p.m. Henrick lived for October 14. There was nothing else. Forced retirement, no family, declining health. The terrorist group Black Thursday struck on this day, though not every year, at precisely 10:14 p.m. His bedroom wall had a map from his police days. Twenty-seven pushpins—fourteen black, for where he thought they would strike, thirteen red, for where they actually had. He drew lines connecting the thirteen pushpins, seeking a pattern. There wasn’t one.

3
Griffin wrote in his notes, Black Thursday will be my most fast-paced film. Then he told Helena. Then he told his crew and cast. Pacing, pacing, pacing. The present time will cover fifty-nine minutes, set on October 14, leading up to when the group would strike, with flashbacks covering thirty years.

4
9:26 p.m. Henrick hails a cab. It had been eight years since they last struck but he had a hunch. His old partner Murphy used to tell him, you’re on 24/7, always keep attuned for information, everything’s connected. Murphy, a seasoned crocodile face, who smoked as much as he breathed. Henrick told the driver, to Melvin’s, the name he kept hearing recently. Melvin’s was Montana range cattle, violin-sized lobsters, 1985 port. Henrick now operated without police resources. Only a gun strapped to his leg, the thoughts in his head.

5
Griffin wanted all questions answered before they were asked. Why action? I wanted something new, broadening appeal. Why terrorism? It’s a force beyond our control, one we can only respond to. Why the color red? Next question. Why Henrick? Yes, why Henrick—the most critical question.

6
9:43 p.m. Henrick exits the cab near Melvin’s. Seared beef fills the air. People walking the streets unconcerned, fearless. I’ll stand here, he thinks, I’ll watch. He’s near the door, hears piano from within as the door opens, mixed with conversational hum. The valet sizes him up. Henrick forces a smile at him.

7
Alone, late at night, Griffin pondered Henrick. How far would I go, he thought, how obsessed would I become? The room felt like it was shrinking, enclosing him. Would he abandon Helena, Richard, live obsessed? No, I couldn’t, he thought. The search becomes Henrick’s life. I’m more. Griffin closed his eyes. Silence, darkness—too much.

8
Flashbacks. Car bombs, nerve gas, snipers. “Black Thursday” cards scattered at sites. No threats, no demands, no suspects. Police sweeping the city, breaking down doors, turning up nothing. New mayors, new police commissioners, the feds intervene. Nothing. Henrick moved through thirty years, pushing away friends, romantic interests. He often thought, this time, I’m so close.

9
One afternoon Helena was reading the script, asked, have you counted the dead? He looked at her sitting on the couch, shook his head, unsure. The number of people killed by the terrorists, she said. I’m estimating around 2,000, adding the numbers you give, taking estimates of those unmentioned. Glasses on her face, pencil in her hand, script before her. He shrugged his shoulders. Someone might be curious, she said. I never added up the dead, he thought, is this wrong?

10
9:58 p.m. Henrick finishes his coffee. Across the street he sees a white light in a darkened window. His heart accelerates. Maybe it was just street lights playing tricks. But then it appears again. He hears Murphy’s voice—this is what you live for. He runs across the street. The building door locked, windows dark. He tugs at the handle. The knob is cold, the door immoveable. He looks up at the window, neck cracking as he tilts his head, sees nothing. No police cars nearby. He’s alone. He taps the street level windows with his hand. Plexiglas.

11
During filming, Griffin wasn’t sure if Henrick should live or die. He went back and forth, Henrick’s fate in limbo, until he realized, in a sense, he’s been dead a long time.

12
10:04 p.m. Henrick draws his gun, now stands at the building’s rear. He’s winded, hand trembling, legs in pain. The alley smells of leaves, dogs. He pats the wall, finds the door handle. It wouldn’t budge. He steps back, looks up at the windows, stares. After a few seconds, he sees the light again, and a silhouette. Someone’s up there. Here it is.

13
Griffin pondered, how many more films do I have in me? Five, ten? He thought, Helena, how many? But he never asked her.

14
10:12 p.m. Henrick returns to outside Melvin’s, chases people away by waving his gun.

Get out of here, he yells. Sniper! In the window!

People scream, run, drop flat. Three men in suits exit Melvin’s. Henrick shoves them back inside. Two guys approaching from his right ignore him. He shouts, Black Thursday, Black Thursday. They turn and run.

He thinks he hears someone say, dinner at Melvin’s.

He looks across the street, sees the white light again. He panics, shoots at the window. Glass shatters. People scream. He looks at his watch. The time, he thinks, the time.

15
Griffin determined the film must end with an extreme close-up of Henrick. No sound of gunfire. Just silence, fade in of city sounds, voices. Roll credits.

16
10:14 p.m. In the distance, amateur fireworks mark the time. The street in front of Melvin’s is frozen. Henrick looks up at the broken window, sees an outline of a head, two gloved hands, a red dot of light. Here’s thirty years. In one moment. Now. Finally.

I got you! Henrick screams. Drop the gun, drop it!

From above, cards rain down, hitting him in the head, tapping his gun, landing at his feet. Someone above, he thinks.

On his chest, he sees a steady red dot. He’s frozen, unable to move. I’ve found them is all he can think. The dot crawls up his chest, until he can’t see it anymore.

Casolaro 9

The Octopus was the name Casolaro gave his conspiracy. A multi-tentacled conspiracy involving the highest and deepest levels of government and enterprise. BCCI, October Surprise, Iran Contra, Mossad, Pan-Am 103, Wackenhut, British Intelligence, Inslaw. Covert intelligence operatives, high powered intrusive computer software, money and power. It started a decade or so before, but that may have just been a surfacing period: the framework is probably decades old, reaching back to Watergate, JFK, RFK, MLK, Area 51, the Nazis; maybe even centuries old.

It was a monster that lived in the vast oceans. Every now and then, he found, it would surface, reek havoc, then disappear again, draw in some unsuspecting victims it would drown and feast on. Like most deep sea monsters, it left mostly anecdotal not empirical evidence of its existence, mostly bloodied corpses of victims washed up on shore. It was difficult to get on photograph, the clues it left were cryptic.

I’m going to be the one who gets that photograph, he said, I’m the one who’s going to expose it to the world. Right now, it’s surfacing, but soon it will disappear, probably for a long time. This is the time to get it. While it’s above the water.

Casolaro didn’t see the Octopus was merely using him. His notes and files weren’t words and ideas but mere ink stains secreted by the creature itself, regurgitated scribbles that had been told countless times, a colossal wreck shattered so finely that its facts could never be reassembled.

Casolaro 8

He dated a woman named Sara in May, three months before his death. Japanese dining, a performance of Twelfth Night. He would tell his dates about his work. Most of the details and implications would fly over their heads, or they’d think he was a dreamer, working on fictions, ideas. His last date challenged him, said that it was impossible for the U.S. government and corporations to be involved in a far-reaching conspiracy. He was paranoid, a lunatic.

Believe what you want, if it helps you sleep at night, he told her. The paranoid, as Burroughs said, is the man in possession of the facts.

I’m not an idiot, she told him, but I think you’re deranged. You look like a wild-eyed zealot when you talk about this.

We all gotta serve somebody, it might be the devil, it might be the Lord, as Dylan said, you got to believe in something, he said.

Though he was still friendly with most of his ex-girlfriends, he never talked to her again. Just as well—he was getting closer and closer. He didn’t need a doubter within his circle. Soon, he told himself, soon, things are going to change.

Even though he continued dating, many lonely days and nights followed. Out of the day and night / A joy has taken flight. No one to pull his heart from the fire when he died, keep it for her remaining days.

I’ll wash up to shore, once this is all said and done, I’ll be someone else.

Casolaro 7

Often when he was alone, Casolaro would hear strange sounds. The humming and whirring that a computer might make. At home, different hotels in different cities. He’d be going over his notes, working on his book when he would stop his own noises of pen moving across paper, the click-clacking of the typewriter, and hear the sound. I’m just hearing stuff, he thought, maybe there’s something wrong with my ears, maybe it’s mind residue from Computer Age. Sometimes in a hotel room, paranoid and running low on sleep, he’d throw down his pen and move his ear against the wall, up and down, left and right, a spider fleeing an incoming boot.

The sound gained in strength as he got closer to the truth, closer to his death. The phantom computer seemed to be calculating more equations, algorithms—perhaps it was artificial intelligence, gaining in sentience. He had to abandon a strategy he’d developed—listen to music on headphones—because he was afraid he wouldn’t hear someone coming to kill him.

He’d lie awake at night, still hearing the humming and whirring, the ongoing tick of the clock marking time, propelling him into the future.

Casolaro 6

Casolaro got word about Oliver Stone’s JFK film project just before he died. Kindred spirits, he thought. This whole thing’s coming down, he confided to a friend, we’re living in a time of justice and reckoning, revolutionary times, a time of truth. In the future, they’ll be looking at that colossal wreck, the lone and level sands stretching far away. We’re plunging deeper and deeper depths, charting new levels of the ocean. The governments of the world will be held accountable to the people. The meek, indeed, shall inherit the earth.

Casolaro 5

Danny learned that Mary Wollstonecraft, mother of author Mary Shelley, died after giving birth to her daughter. He could imagine the husband’s and the midwife’s devastation, even if maternal death was common then. Mary Shelley’s husband, poet Percy Shelley, died by drowning, age 29, either by, take your pick, accident, suicide, or murder. Percy met his doppelganger soon before, Danny later read, completely enthralled, and believed that was an omen of impending death. He escaped not one but two shootings in the days before his death. A family friend snatched Percy’s heart from his funeral pyre, gave it to Mary, who kept it and was buried with it.

Octopus

This 212-word story  was the precursor to my current project here at the blog, Danny Casolaro: 64 Stories.

We will fillet you and throw you to the sharks. Danny saw shifty eyes, hitman profiles in the hotel lounge. Now prey; the tentacles were squeezing him. Kennedy. Mafia. CIA. October Surprise. Iran/Iraq. Black-ops. US government. Illuminati. The movies but true. The flow charts all too real. A last look at his notes. He’d hide them but where. His contacts mentioned sharks, prey, tentacles. The same words. A book deal. But they’re closing in, he had hit too close. A cup of coffee then back to the room. More than once--are you protecting yourself? The late night telephone calls. One said, two men will approach your coffin, bury you with a medal. He stopped sleeping, losing cognitive abilities. He told Olga about the hotel. A mistake perhaps—they’d get her too. The papers, the papers, he was thinking on the elevator. He’ll FedEx them to Bill, his private dick friend. Bill said, you’re hitting too close, Dan. Don’t believe a suicide, Danny said. In his room the beasts were there in the dark. Clean coffee snag. Tentacles all over him. Stripping clothes, slicing deep. Shooting pain. My files, he thought, before his head hit the tub. The shadows scatter through the seas. The octopus writes the note in frantic black ink.

Casolaro 4

Casolaro’s father was an obstetrician. Danny remembers him being visibly shaken sometimes coming home from work. He wouldn’t eat, would sit in a corner, a newspaper open before him but Danny could tell his eyes weren’t scanning the words. Birth defects, stillborn births, maternal deaths: the tragedies he faced. He didn’t talk about it. Sometimes, the child inside was almost like a monster, killing the mother trying to live, break free of the womb. Other times, it was the opposite: the mother was a monster, killing its child within. One or the other, intentional or not, rebelled from symbiosis. One of his own children, born after Danny, died from a heart defect just days after being born.

Casolaro 3

Days before he died, Casolaro called his friend Bill, lied to him. I’m writing an article for Time about the whole matter. It’s going to be big. The whole thing, it’s going to be out there, it’s going to be revealed to everyone and that’s that. What whole thing, Bill asked. But Casolaro dodged—Bill always knew him as vague, circling. Time Warner, they’re footing the whole thing. Jack Anderson is working with me on it. Big advances. I’m just finishing up details and, man, this’s going to change things. He was a bit frantic, like he’d had too much caffeine, like he was running out of time.

After Casolaro’s death, Bill made some calls, found out the whole thing was bogus. No article for Time, no financing, nothing. Bill has always found this puzzling—Casolaro was given to exaggeration, a bit overecstatic about conspiracy details he uncovered, but he wasn’t one to lie about something as concrete as an article deal.

Casolaro 2

Casolaro liked to drink coffee. A cup before bed, he claimed, calmed him, the caffeine having the opposite effect at nighttime, though in his last months, sleep was difficult. He’d start his day with some light calisthenics, a shower, his housekeeper Olga brewing coffee in a French press, usually a dark Sumatra/ Kenyan blend. He’d drink that with breakfast, head to a local café. The bustle of people, the smell of brewing coffee, fresh bread and pastries made his brain percolate. Things became clearer. New ideas, the connections made sense.

Casolaro 1

In the weeks before his death, Danny Casolaro told everyone he knew, don’t believe a suicide. I won’t kill myself. If I die, it’s because they killed me. They’re calling me and threatening me. Odd calls in the middle of the night for months. I can’t sleep. I’m getting too close. I’m going to expose them once and for all. The “they” he referred to was always vague. Casolaro would tell you, it’s all vague, I’m working on the details. Slit wrists, hanging in the shower, a balcony jump—don’t believe it, it’s not me. If you hear I’m dead, it was no accident. My sister Lisa killed herself and it devastated the whole family—I could never do that. A running car in a closed garage, pill overdose, driving off a cliff—I didn’t do it. If you find a note, I didn’t write it.

Square Root

We pondered square roots as we walked out the door. In breezy twilight, to unaffordable dinner. 12 is the square root of 144, I said, a perfect number. My hand in my sport coat, fumbling for directions inside a torn pocket. I like 4 myself, you said, 2 times 2 and 2 plus 2 giving you the same thing. Simple, like living in the country, you said, extracting a compact from your purse.

If we sold everything tomorrow, I said, would you come with me, move to the country, live the simple life? Of course--you looking into your mirror--would there be wine? I started the car, said, plenty, we could even own a vineyard, stomp our own grapes.

The car chugged, worked itself to a purr, the engine whining, scraping. Really, you said, we could make our own wine? I nodded, looking straight ahead. Really, I was just guessing. Formulating futures starting at infinity instead of a shoestring--anything was possible.

Quick, what’s the square root of 3,940,225, you asked, tucking away your compact. Dumbfounded at such large numbers, I shrugged my shoulders. 1985, you said, a stellar vintage for wines. Of course it was, I thought. Looking at you--your mind full of numbers I can’t contemplate. We dream big dreams, multiples of our reality, sublime vintages yet to materialize.

As we turned left into the restaurant parking lot, the car stalled for a second in the opposing lane, a pair of bug-eyed headlights bearing down on us, then regained life in a chugging hum. My heart sinking, your face stone, eyes straight ahead.

The Next Project, Starting Monday July 19

I have a new project that, much like Thinly Sliced Raw Fish, I was considering giving its own blog space but have decided to just do right here at the mothership, starting on Monday 7/19. It’s a 64-part collection of under 300 word fictional writings called Danny Casolaro: 64 Stories concerning Danny Casolaro, a real life writer/investigator who was following what he considered to be a broad international conspiracy until his death in 1991 (if you want more info on Casolaro and his conspiracy theories, and his death that some consider suspect, enter his name into Google and browse if you wish). I consider the collection as the first chapter of a possible larger eight chapter work.

My goal is not to be some sort of conspiracy theorist but rather work in that place where reality, fiction, and conspiracy theory meet. I take liberties with real details of Casolaro’s life and throw in some other personalities, some of the conspiracies theories that are out there in the world at large, and I make up stuff as well.

These pieces will be published Monday thru Thursday and Saturday. The individual pieces do not have titles, so they’ll appear as Casolaro 1, Casolaro 2, etc.  Hopefully, you'll follow along and enjoy.

Xavier Soup

She ran at night because it was cooler and helped her mind. A diversion from idle evenings she would spend thinking about him. Running through darkness defied death. Sometimes she would close her eyes and move her arms in a flailing motion, fighting the air as if it were drowning seas. At night it was quiet, people didn’t watch an aging woman. She would make large batches of Xavier soup (chicken stock and dumplings made with parmesan cheese) and freeze it, heat enough for a single bowl. His favorite soup. She would close her eyes sipping the warmth, imagine him sitting across from her, her eternal meal counterpart—death defeated, no more running in the darkness. But there was an empty chair; in her bowl floated lifeless dumplings.

Sometimes when running with closed eyes she imagined he was running from the opposite direction. They would meet in a middle yet to be. Sometimes foregoing sleep she would run after midnight. This was her dreaming, speeding through empty streets, moving closer to him. Sometimes she would run because she would come home and relive finding him dead on the floor, clutching his heart, pain forever on his blue lips. She found him, cried, couldn’t move. Now she could stand. Now she could run.

Gonna Fly Now

When I was a teenager, the movie Rocky IV made me want to become a boxer. I wanted to train in Siberia, running on ice and through mounds of snow, working out in a barn, chopping wood to transform my stick-thin form into that inflated chest, those six-pack abs, that glistening skin. I wanted to be wrapped in an American flag and wearing American flag boxing shorts. I wanted to avenge the death of Apollo Creed. I wanted to take my shots at a tall blond Belarusian putz like Ivan Drago who thinks he’s a steel cold-blooded fighting machine.

When that movie was released I was just 14. My Christmas list that year was boxing gloves, a punching bag, silk boxing shorts, boxing shoes, and, of course, the Rocky IV soundtrack. I didn’t get any of these things, so I had to gamble at school playing cards to get the cash. Two weeks later, the basement became a training gym. I placed my Pioneer boom box on the dryer and blasted Survivor’s “Burning Heat” and “Man Against the World” as I danced and punched. I closed my eyes and there came a montage, memories of me and Apollo, Adrian, and Paulie, and I’m pounding the bag, beating a snearing, towering, immovable Drago into a pile of glass-jawed gooey commie.

So, on a day when I was really getting my eye of the tiger, my rhythm was disrupted. Mom, banging on the basement door, get ready to go to Sizzler for dinner. Steaks and potatoes, all you can eat salad and fried shrimp. We’ll be sitting at the table, our red table tent displaying our order number, and Dad’ll ask, how’s your day, and that’s when I’ll proclaim, call me Stallion, folks, call me Stallion.

Turbinado

Turbinado points a gun at me, says, bang bang, you’re dead, you’re ground beef. This might sound vicious and violent, and sometimes we had to be, but Turbinado and I went way back. Business partners, friends, drinking buddies, now we’d gotten into the business of being hitmen. He went by the name Turbinado though his real name was Charles. I hadn’t picked up a cool handle yet. I was still Chris. I considered making that Krist, give me a little bit of European or hipster flavor, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. Turbinado holds that gun at me, loaded with a full clip, makes like he’s going to kill me, and we laugh. I pick up my gun, point at him, say, I’m going to kill you, and he says, c’mon man, put that thing away before someone gets hurt.

I look at Turbinado and he’s wearing a black leather blazer, grey t-shirt, and Schwarzenegger-type Gargoyles. Me, I got on some too-tight blue jeans, $5 shades from Wal-Mart, and a tattered grey jacket from the Old Navy clearance aisle. Just a Turbinado wannabe. We hop into his tricked out gold ’74 Chevy Nova. Weapons in the trunk. Off to our hit where I’ll play backup and hang outside, I’ll play second fiddle, I’ll just be Chris.

Real Fugitive

This was my 22nd day of being a Real Fugitive game show contestant. The ads screamed for you to watch as real people were chased like fugitives, all for big money. I won the honor for the latest match by correctly answering 15 questions about the 60’s show, The Fugitive. I decided to triple my possible earnings by letting the hunters use live ammunition.

The day before, I had reached a new plateau. No matter what happened, I was guaranteed $300,000 if I threw out the provided white flag and surrendered. Six more days and I’d be up to $450,000. If I made it through eight weeks, I would walk away with the grand prize: $6,000,000. Paid in installments over the next 20 years.

The last three weeks, I’d been sleeping on the sides of highways, in barns, even under a bridge. I’d been using the meager $1,000 in cash they gave me to buy Twinkies, Big Macs and Mountain Dew. But, as the show had gained popularity, it became harder to do. Three days ago, I had to bolt from a 7-11 after a stoned clerk recognized me as the “Real Fugitive” and picked up his phone. To make this game even harder, they were offering an undisclosed reward for my capture.

I no longer went to convenience stores. Hunger burned at my stomach, pleading for me to give up.

To top it off, I had twisted my ankle on day 17 ducking behind a Burger King dumpster. It was three o’clock in the morning. Two shots had been fired at me. I sat there for ten minutes, biting my lower lip, listening. Five days later, I’m thinking less about the shots and more about the dumpster smells of cheeseburgers and fries. That dumpster must have held the mother lode of discarded deep-fried food.

You may ask, why would someone do this to himself? Don’t I have a job, a sense of self-respect, a will to live? Nope. In my life, I’ve flunked out of a state college, alienated my parents and both of my brothers, and lost six decent-paying jobs because I can’t seem to get to work on time. This show was my ticket to escape from future failures.

I was too young. Life was too long. I needed to go all the way by any means necessary.

On day 21, I decided to spend my remaining cash on a gun. I kept my Real Fugitive contract folded in my wallet and there was nothing in there about doing this, only something about being prosecuted for any crimes I committed. I ventured into the city and limped up to men on street corners who wore baggy pants and backwards caps. I assumed they could sell me weapons. I was wrong the first eight times. The ninth time, I was able to score a .38 revolver and ammo for $350.

I figured that, eventually, they would rather kill me then pay me. One clause of the contract: winnings were not transferable to anyone else upon my death.

If they wanted to kill me, they were getting a fight.

On the show’s first day, they made a big ceremony out of my initial run. The announcer guy, with stiff graying news anchor hair and matching gray suit and tie, said, “From this moment on, you are a Real Fugitive!” and he pulled his arm from around my shoulder. I had to run after he said that line. It was in my contract to do so.

I was alone out here, in the American fugitive land. Before I used to hear about people on the run. The FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List. America’s Most Wanted with John Walsh. It seemed like half of America was on the run. Where are they now? Isn’t there a support network? Or is it just every man for himself?

There was a rush to being a fugitive. I savored it in the dead of night, when I was hidden and all was quiet. When this ends, I return to life as the loser I am, no matter what I win. They don’t make shows about that. On The Fugitive television show, I always wondered what Richard Kimble did after his name was cleared. How could he go back to being a doctor, drinking wine and eating cheese with his doctor friends, sleeping peaceful sleep?

It was late at night. I was behind a Wal-Mart dumpster, clutching my gun, ready to fire at anything.

How I Used to Ponder Stars

Every December ten of us gather to watch the Star Wars Holiday Special, drink eggnog, ridicule cult film dreck. Jack's bootleg, flea market purchased tape has vintage commercials: No Nonsense pantyhose, The Wiz in theaters, sitcom Alice Sundays on CBS. The movie has baby Wookiee Lumpy, Jefferson Starship singing “Light the Sky on Fire,” Art Carney and Bea Arthur sleepwalking along with the original film cast. It sucks—even Lucas disavows it. Watching grainy, static-lined footage from 1978 can be painful. But it's always been about camaraderie.

This year, I sit near Vince, old college buddy, thinning hair, two-marriage veteran. Cartoon Boba Fett appears on screen. Beth's pregnant, I say, life's changing fast. Congratulations, he replies in monotone, finishing his eggnog. Vince's second wife cheated on him, peddled his comic collection to buy heroin.

Beth never comes but she indulges me. Five years ago, pre-Beth, I told newcomer Rose, it's trippy, like doing acid. Her face crinkled below her pink-blond hair like I'd farted. She walked away. The following year, no Rose. By then, I was engaged to Beth.

The night ends. We exchange goodbyes, Merry Christmases, Happy New Years. Outside, crisp cold air. My head twinkles with eggnog. Car doors slam, engines fire. Quickly, there's silence. I look skyward, remember how I used to ponder stars, what worlds orbited them. Whenever I asked Beth, what if Star Wars was real somewhere, she'd reply, the Empire's dead, babe. I drive home, think about Beth and the baby, our new world.

Pardon the Dust

Blogger provides new designs, I say why not?  Show me the sizzle, Google/Blogger!

This site may change designs on an irregular basis until I'm content with a new look. 

Where Car Shells Dwell

I live where car shells, black eye houses dwell. Can’t remember your face. The world’s splinters of data. I don’t answer knocks at the door.

Fata Morgana

Note: Pieces of this story have appeared separately. Section 2 was published at Six Sentences (see link at right), and sections 1, 3, and 4 have appeared at this blog.

1
Driving on the Arctic ice, he sees a city on the horizon where one shouldn’t be. He emerges from the vehicle, bitter air and silent moonscape, to admire the sight. Twinkling lights, bustling streets, a parade of flower-covered floats. Don’t look too close, he thinks, else the illusion will be destroyed; instead maintain a favorable myopia, a likeable distortion. The rest of the world below him—he’s buried its false promises, its broken streets, its burnt dusted graves. He thinks of a corresponding soul standing on the same longitude, looking north toward the same point, dreaming of a new life.

2
In the Saharan desert, all mouths salted with sand and heat, he films mirages in the vast wasteland of beauty. It’s a documentary filmed by aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy, he says, an inscription for a future plaque, his face framed in metal framed goggles, his eyes hidden behind black hole lenses. In the distance, there are always voices singing in Arabic, reciting tales of paradise, the voices never coming closer. The crew rides along, often seeing the Atlantic Ocean coming into view. But it’s just more endless desert. They look at him. His face reveals nothing, forever looking forward.

3
The Fay has lived many lives, from times of long dead languages to the present. Sent to a convent as a child. Cast out of brother Arthur’s court. Plotted against Guinevere, his not-so-faithful queen, seduced Lancelot, her not-so-pure knight. After Arthur’s death, she resided with sirens, lured naïve sailors to their doom, made grand castles float in the air. Now she looks into mirrors wondering, who is this being, what’s her story these days. She ignores a ringing phone. She walks onto a city street. The people—cuckolds and marks, adulterers and charlatans. The possibilities. The world remains the same.

4
A boy, caked in dust with a mangy black dog by his side, stands outside the village, watches the approaching vehicle, the lazy dust devil it’s created a looming shadow. His parents regard him as a dreamer, his dead stares and wild stories the symptoms of some desert sickness. The vehicle slows down. He can see inside: foreigners with cameras, focusing on him, as he, unmoving, locks gazes with their machinery. The vehicle accelerates upon passing, trailed by the dust cloud, disappearing into the horizon. He’ll tell his parents about this. They’ll look at each other, not smiling, saying nothing.

5
She lives in Canberra’s outskirts, confined to a wheelchair, in a town known for its athletes. Local legend says the dams upriver release holy waters dripping with nutrients. She finds the legend cruel, fate’s knife twist on her condition. The legend has it that the released waters create waves so powerful that surfers could ride them downstream, arrive like extraterrestrials, dressed in bright-colored wetsuits, sun-kissed skin. On a hot day she could look north, see a false image of a tall wave. She imagines someone riding this wave, his hand the healing touch that would lift her from her chair.

He Comes As No Surprise

Christian Bell comes as no surprise. He is neither here nor there. He can neither confirm nor deny. He counts his lucky stars. He gives it his all. He bends over backward. He gives the shirt right off his back. He puts in a good word. He gives his regards. He will say a few remarks, and then allow time for Q&A. He holds all calls. He is thankful for the opportunity to be here. He takes one step forward, two steps back, unless he takes two steps forward, one step back. He can sense that something is not quite right. He feels this place is going to the dogs. He thinks some things are better left unsaid.

10: The Street Near and Far

This story is the 10th part of the Griffin filmmaker series. It follows Finley.

During filming of his tenth film The Street Near and Far, Griffin visited his old childhood neighborhood. It had become boarded-up houses and storefronts, growing weeds scaling crumbling stone structures, trash and debris scattered on the cracked sidewalks. His childhood home—long ago replaced by apartment buildings.

He named the film after the main street of his neighborhood, where everything was—restaurants, supermarket, clothing stores. His mother called it the street near and far. He never knew why, never heard anyone else call it that. It was uphill from home, a leg-toughening trek up a steep incline. It was close, maybe half a mile, so it was near, though it felt far on hot summer afternoons or snowy winter days. He’d meant to ask his mother why when she was alive.

The street also had a theater, long closed, though the marquee still existed, its lights long dead. Spray-painted cedar boards where the entrance used to be. Liquor bottles and fast food trash and a decaying rat in the entryway. Cracks to the box office window, papers and broken glass just inside the semi-circle opening where you’d buy your ticket. He hadn’t seen it in years, and knew it had been long ago since it had closed, but still he was shocked by its condition.

He hadn’t planned to go inside but decided to after seeing the place. The front provided no possibilities so he walked around the block to the back. Past abandoned stores, one structure hollowed by fire, pawn shops sealed by metal gates, an Asian eatery that smelled like garbage. The back alley was crumbling asphalt, potholes, backyards of ramshackle houses. He found the backdoor, rusted and wrapped in chains. He looked up and down the street, thought briefly, he has family at home, what’s he doing, then pushed the door until it creaked open.

The film’s premise was that the protagonist discovers an old theater where films he sees are replays of his life. He goes during the day and often he’s the only person there. He tries to enter the projection room to see what’s happening there but he can’t. He finds people working at the theater—box office cashier, snack stand attendant, ticket taker, even the manager—tries convincing them of what he’s seeing but they think he’s crazy. When he finally someone comes and watches, the film is what’s on the marquee, not his past. In the movie, the protagonist never learns what was up but realizes his real life is stuck in the past and he can’t keep living there.

The inside smelled musty. Griffin found debris, dust, darkness. Outside light filtered through cracks, revealing dusty seats and floors, screen scarred by cuts, the ceiling sagging in places. The interior mostly untouched. He couldn’t believe it. He sat down in the front row, the seat creaking and crunching. He looked at the battered blank screen. The memories flowed. When he was a child, feet barely touching the floor, he sat eating candy and popcorn, his parents flanking both sides, flickering images reflecting off their glasses. Older, during summer vacation and days off school, he came with friends, crouching down in darkness between shows to stay for the next show. Then he came with dates. Then, as a student of film, as the films became smaller run, less popular arthouse-type fare. Then he was gone.

Griffin sat there, eyes closed, until he heard the door creaking. Someone else coming in. He jumped, felt his heart race, heard someone calling. Anybody in here? An older man’s voice. He answered back. Just me, I mean, yes. The man was standing just inside, below the Exit sign. He was short, hunched shoulders.

I saw the chain off. It’s never like that.

I sort of…I used to come here when I was a kid. Grew up close to here. Just wanted to see what it looked like.

I ain’t gonna give you grief. The man’s head moved, scanning the theater. Man, this place—loved this place. Clean it up, add a new screen, she’d be up and running.

The old man sat down in the aisle opposite Griffin.

Been walking this alley for years. Never been in here since it closed.

You know the first movie I saw here, said Griffin. Pinocchio. I was five. Loved Jiminy Cricket.

Don’t know if it was my first but I remember Strangers on a Train. That Robert Walker—man, was he something. Packed house. Everyone riveted.

This whole neighborhood, said Griffin. The center of my life growing up. Things just change so much.

Used to be bustling, way back when. Momma’d say, let’s go to the street far and near, see a movie, get lunch.

Wait— Griffin heard the words; his blood became ice crystals. What’d you just say?

You mean, the street far and near?

Yeah. Where’d you hear that? My mother always called it, the street near and far. How’d you—why’s it called that?

You know, I never knew. Far and near. Near and far. Weird.

The two sat silent for awhile. Griffin closed his eyes, listened to the man breathing. The guy didn’t know who Griffin but that wasn’t unusual.

Nothing like the old days, the man said. Nothing like watching movies in these old palaces.

Do you think if we sat here long enough, we’d start seeing movies. Griffin kept his eyes closed, recalled the buttered popcorn smell, the sound of the rolling projector. Maybe the old times would return like we never left.

The old man laughed then coughed. Griffin thought about Helena. Would he tell her about this? Soon, he would leave, return to her. Now, though, his eyes closed, time passing and, not sure if the old man was still there, he saw the colors of old filling this place, images flickering on screen. He was young again, his parents alive next to him. His childhood house still alive, freshly painted and landscaped, warm, humming, waiting. The dead street outside restored to fresh color, alive with footsteps and mesmerized children, decorated with streamers and banners, declaring it the street near and far.

Dead of the Night Living

Our writing teacher’s main rule was, no zombie stories. No fighting zombies, he said the first day of class, no parallel reality where everyone here was a zombie there, no stories from the point of view of zombies. Such an outcry about zombies we figured he probably was one. We looked closely for tell-tale signs like nasty head wounds, upturned eyes, and snacking on flesh jerky packed in Ziploc bags. I don’t care about what you do at home, he said, shooting zombies in video games, watching zombie movies, dressing up like zombies for masquerades, but don’t bring it here. This is literature fiction writing, he implored, pale face turning shades of pink meat.

So in defiance I wrote a story called “Dead of the Night Living” that was about, you guessed it, zombies. But I didn’t call them zombies. Instead they were angry accountants. They weren’t undead just overly stoic, devoid of personality. They sported thick black-rimmed glasses instead of bloody fatal head wounds. The protagonists didn’t shoot them but engaged in costly, time-consuming civil litigation. We workshopped it and he said, you’re not fooling me. I threw up my hands like, what’re you talking about, and everyone laughed.

So we spent the rest of that semester chasing mister anti-zombie, with varying subtlety, with zombie stories that didn’t have zombies. He didn’t like it. You’re all playing me, he often snarled, his face turning into a nasty grimace of undeadishness. For a moment in one late semester class, it felt like it got darker outside, the walls closing in and those of us in the room the only humans left standing, but it released as he said, all right, time for a break, swinging the door open, the halls full of oblivious bodies pressing relentlessly to their next classes.

Writing for the Writer

I can’t even cook proper meals, he said, it’s macaroni and cheese and ramen noodles every night if I don’t get takeout Chinese or a pizza because it’s too much trouble. I’m writing these words for a fellow writer who isn’t writing them because he can’t write, or do much else, even as I’ve told him to just get over his problem and get on with his life. He has requested that I don’t conclude with judgment on him, and I’ll honor that, though I reiterate that he needs to get over and get on because I can’t keep writing for him.

Hubble, Backwards

More backwards fun! See previous entries, here.

The idea is to take a small work and reverse the sentence order. This time it’s Hubble, another from Thinly Sliced Raw Fish, found here.

So, here’s the new “backwards” story:

Now he had the answer. Jill always wondered, was the universe expanding or contracting? The auroras of planets, burning balls spinning in cold. Swirls of galaxies, stars born in dusty light. Soon he realized he was in the Hubble Telescope. He died, felt an upward swoosh, a bullet’s journey.

Here’s the original:

He died, felt an upward swoosh, a bullet’s journey. Soon he realized he was in the Hubble Telescope. Swirls of galaxies, stars born in dusty light. The auroras of planets, burning balls spinning in cold. Jill always wondered, was the universe expanding or contracting? Now he had the answer.

Doc Ock: The Early Years

Otto Gunther Octavius’s father came home from the factory, his eyes glassy and tired, his face locked in snarl ready for some home combat. His face soiled with grease and his clothes a rumpled mess, those soiled with years and years of fingers and palms wiping off the dirt. A hard twelve hours of manual labor, and demands and insults from his superiors, and heckling and screaming with his fellow workers, and he still had to come home, fight with those closest to him. Again, he walks through that door and, amidst the same smells of boiled vegetables and meat and the same mechanical grease smell that he had in his nostrils all day here in his home or maybe it wasn’t really in the house but had been burned into his nostrils so that he could smell it at all times, there’s the boy, standing there with that dumb look on his face even though the kid was smarter than anyone within five counties, without his glasses. He’d need another new pair because he was blind as a mole without them. He’d fall into the river and he’d not be able to get out because he couldn’t see and because he was physically a weakling and would just flail and flop and splash the water like a spastic duck until he sank and drowned.

All I work for, he screamed, is buying you new glasses. He turned to Marie, his wife and the boy’s mother, and said, what’s wrong with this boy, can’t you do something about him, he’s taking food away from our mouths, your mouth. He moved closer to her, his index finger firm and outstretched and pointed like some sort of demented appendage knife. She backed away from him, as she usually did, and flinched with every movement of that hand, as she always did, because that hand was capable of striking, as it had done many times before, with stinging ferocity across the face, blasts that knocked her to her knees.

The boy can’t do anything about the school bullies, said Marie, defending him, as she often did, not afraid no matter the consequences. He’s a smart and gentle kid and they take advantage of that. He’s smarter and more gentle than either of us, probably both of us combined. Then you come in here and do the same thing to him, like it’s not enough he gets it at school from mean kids.

You mean, like this, he said, unleashing the back of his hand to her jaw, forcing a scream from her, sending her twisting away, her face turned from both of them.

The boy was watching, glancing down at his feet every now and then but still unable to not look up, see what was happening. His father turned to him, brought that dagger finger out, came toward him with it.

Don’t you understand, Otto, that you can’t just sit there and take it. Otto looked around his father, this creature that looked as if he had just climbed from a sewer or some netherworldly realm, and saw his mother, back turned, hands bracing herself on the counter, her voice mumbling. She was likely praying, as she often did. Here was someone, his mother whom he loved, who was just sitting there and taking it, he thought, but didn’t say it, because he knew that would send his father over the edge.

His father kept walking toward him and Otto kept moving backward until he stopped at a wall.

If someone hits you, Otto, what do you do? The boy shook his head, afraid his father was going to show him by example. His father punched the wall next to him, coming down on the side of his fist and not hitting it full on with his clenched knuckles. Both arms were now out and though he hadn’t planted both of them so they touched and boxed him in, Otto knew he was trapped anyway.

He often thought, what if these arms and legs were more powerful than what he had now, what if he could just use his hands to grab his father’s arms and just toss him aside, what if he could just kick his feet and collapse his father’s legs out from under him, have him fall to the ground on his knees?

He often looked at his father and thought, never expressing this thought, I’m never going to be like you. I’m not going to be an angry bitter violent person who turns on his family and who is just a prisoner of this world, someone who is mired in its filth, lets himself be smeared black and have his back broken to make a paltry salary. He swore he would be someone else, a person who uses his intellect to make his way in the world, a person who does things beyond helping himself.

As he was pinned by his father’s presence, his mother came from out of her daze and said, leave the boy alone, your tormenting him like you do all the time. I’m not tormenting the boy, Marie, I’m trying to teach him a lesson about life. You teach him about nothing, she said. No, I’ve taught him the important stuff—how you defend yourself and you don’t back down, don’t take guff from spineless bullies.

He stared down Marie, turning his attention away from Otto. His face folded into a snarl, his eyes turning hangdog, melting away to the floor, the man in desperate need of sleep, rest, a new personality. I hate you, Otto thought, looking at the side of his face. I hate you. How to escape, he thought, with arms and legs so small, how to make him pay.

His father turned from both of them and said, what’s for dinner, woman, I’m starving. The monster, steam blown off, sat sedate, waiting for service.

The Neighborhood Sloths

We’ve found our neighbors’ kids asleep on their porch, on our porch, on our patio, on our lawn, and even in our beds. They snore like buzzsaws, become immovable masses, impervious to shakes, nudges, and airhorns, and if you’d ever meet their parents, you’d understand how it all fits. You’d wonder just what the heck was wrong with us, why we put with what we do, what glue is it that holds us together, allows us to sleep at night.

Rama's Bridge

Sirima awoke to air heavy with pending rain, calling birds, the clatter of passing people. She looked outside and saw a procession of people moving through the streets. Inside she could not find her husband. Off to cricket or tea, perhaps. Or just off. Crossing Rama’s Bridge, the ancient sandbank chain that once connected Sri Lanka to India, to be absorbed by the ocean, disappear and reemerge in a different life. Whenever he disappeared, her mind wandered.

In the center of the procession, she saw a coffin floating at the top of hands and heads. It was intricate, colored with gold and bright pinks and greens, mad cartoon-like faces, shiny green and red jewels. Outside, her neighbors were gathered in a small crowd. She walked to them, asked what was happening, who had died. They didn’t know. A religious leader, one said. No, perhaps a rebel warlord, said another. Maybe a great cricket player, a person truly worth such a display of mourning. Perhaps it’s empty, said another—a fake funeral staged by the government, to demoralize its enemies. Everyone grew quiet, pondering this possibility.

The coffin moved northwest, drifting clumsily toward India. The crowd moved with it, buzzing and swelling. Would they all fall in the sea, she thought.

Sirima stepped back, turned in a circle glancing for her husband. She did not see him. When she was a child, her father disappeared for long stretches of time. Ramesha, her oldest sister, would tell her, it’s all your fault, now you won’t see him again. Eventually, he’d return, covered in dirt, like he’d crawled from a hole in the ground, eyes and smiles older than before.

A body dead in a coffin, rotting in the humidity, skin and muscle consumed by worms. Or an empty coffin, a funeral of air, the world outside more ominous than the empty space within.

The wind gusted from the west. A monsoon was coming. The passing crowd was out of sight, followed by calm empty road. To her right, her husband emerged on the street, tossing and catching a blue cricket ball.

The Man Who Fell Out of the Sky

I had lunch with the man who fell out of the sky, roast beef sandwiches at the outdoor café and an ice cream cone afterward. At first I didn’t believe his tale, since he would have been dead from impact, and how he didn’t know from where he came and only had selective bits of memory, but then he showed me the crater by the town’s outskirts, the bowl-shaped impact that was burned black and displaying perfect concavity. I saw that and believed him, looked at him with awe, his ice cream cone quickly a milky goo, wanting to touch his skin, feel a tingle of radiation, the warmth of stellar beings.