Read More: A brief Q&A with Dev Jannerson
It was one dollar, says the top Yelp review. What were you expecting, Disneyland?
This is fair, I guess. What I really expected was some animatronic monster, but I still shouldn’t have paid to see it.
Arizona has only two airports. That should have been my first warning that this “business trip” would send me up shit creek. But until old Grant finally kicks it, I’m the one jetting around the U.S. to talk white-collars into land they don’t need. The company pays for decent food and lodging, but I’d rather use those perks at home. My colleagues say I’m lucky. I guess we all need to envy someone.
For some reason, Grant & Co. is selling to folks in hick country. What this really means is that, after I flew in, I had to drive hundreds of miles in a rental. Hundreds that would have been minutes of airfare in any civilized state.
The signs started minutes before the beep of the gas tank. Purple scrawled on yellow, billboards for THE THING? That question mark was always there.
THE THING? MYSTERY OF THE DESERT. EXIT 322.
THE THING? HAVE YOU SEEN IT?
THE THING? ONLY 10 MORE MILES.
They were the only marker in a sea of sand. The desert was empty and dead, full of the skeletons of murdered drifters, no doubt.
By the time it arrived, I expected a theme park, not a glorified gas station. But I needed what they were selling, after all. The rental cars may be comped, but any missing gas comes out of my check. Yeah, I can talk my way out of it, but why deal with that bull?
A large woman held down the ramshackle fort. Your average Middle America sadness: souvenirs, “desert-style” art probably made by kids in China. Next to the bathroom was another door, helpfully labeled Entrance.
I handed over a fifty. Usually I’d just point, grunt, and hoof; I don’t like these people thinking I’m part of their stories. I guess the billboards beat me down. I guess that’s the goddamn point and I should’ve known better. In any case: “What’s back there?”
“Ya hafta pay!” She must have been new, because her job still seemed like fun. Or maybe she got a cut for every sale, one more mac and cheese at Walmart. “Just a dollar.”
I hesitated, looked out the window. Another minimum-wager waited to pump my gas for me. “Fine. Just take it out of what I gave you.”
The doorknob was vaguely greasy. I didn’t want the thought, but it came anyway: Grace would have loved this shit.
I walked through a shack of old furniture that I guess is supposed to function as the front room of a museum. The centerpiece is a car that supposedly belonged to Hitler. Is that supposed to be horrifying or impressive? It’s Arizona. Who knows.
The object I’m staring at resembles a cement sculpture of shredded wheat. It’s that dark gray gluey color. A carved up block, or a bunch of stuck-together strands, form the rough shape of a person. Supposedly, it is a person, a mummy. Besides the four limbs, I can see outlines of eyes, nose, and mouth–screaming, of course. There are even some artfully tattered bandages.
The mystery of the desert is some dumb kid’s haunted house prop. You can be disappointed even when you didn’t expect much.
On both sides of the road, there are orange rocks. The landscape just extends, like nothing else exists anymore. The sports car tears through an endless expanse of orange, and the sky seems huge. I remember I overpaid the Thing people, should have ducked back in for my change. Must have made their measly day.
I try to remember why Grant & Co. is buying land out here. Are these clients looking to plant McMansions? Or a production company, film sets for one of those artsy flicks about getting high in the desert? Perhaps I never knew.
Five hours later, I close the deal. The sellers live in one of twelve grand old homes in a tiny town beyond the Thing, but like I suspected, the plots they’re selling are wide open space, dirt and rocks and no one to hear you scream. Soon there will be trailers and sets, or plants and factories, filling up the spooky emptiness. This sandy hellscape is only going to get smaller.
I sleepwalk through the car rental station, the airport, the gate. I shut my eyes as soon as I’ve found my seat. One more promotion, and I’ll only get the hot-ticket trips when old money wants to meet the suits before signing: New York, Honolulu, even Europe.
When I get home, I have plans with Cyndi. I’m sure that’s not really her name, at least not with that spelling. Probably some infantile hero-worship of Ms. Lauper. Now ask me if I care.
Cyndi’s in that sweet spot after college, feeling all grown-up and accomplished but with no idea what she’s going to do. Eventually it’ll stop being endearing. But Cyndi’s in her post-grad prime: cheerful, eager to please, excited to fuck around with older men.
We go to dinner at an Italian place with mood lighting. It’s a nice restaurant, but not that nice. There’s no valet, no samples, but it’s got a certain charm. Candlelight, red, wood. A teenager’s idea of what romance is.
Cyndi orders a salad but fills up on free bread. As she tears off pieces, she talks about what class she might take next year. Like I said, she’s out of school, so I don’t know what for. Fun?
When my marsala arrives, all that’s left in the basket are remnants. How can a person both talk and eat so much? The torn crusts remind me of the bandages on that cheesy mummy. I almost tell her about it, but stop. There’s no reason.
At one in the morning, I call Cyndi a cab. She ties up her hair but lingers before putting her clothes on. She’s thinking about asking if she can spend the night. I can see the nervousness on her face, the way her hands stop quite being hers. Before she can go there, I mention that I have an early work day tomorrow. It’s not like it isn’t true.
As soon as she departs, I start to doze. The sheets smell like her. I’m glad the cleaners are coming day after next.
Before I know it, I’m awake, staring into the darkness with no memory of what’s come before. I always thought that saying about hair standing up on your neck was figurative, but now I’m not sure. Something’s wrong.
I don’t move until it comes to me: the window. My black drapes are drifting like sails as the cool air comes in. It can’t be that cold out, but I guess one day in the desert was enough to screw with my internal thermometer. I try to remember Cyndi opening the window but can’t. Why would she? She’s not the type to take liberties with someone’s home. Unless she’s harboring secret exhibitionist tendencies, but color me doubtful.
There’s a sudden thump from the opposite side of the room.
Fucking great. Did one of those sadsack street kids shinny in here? I live in this part of town for a reason, but anyone can walk.
I creep backward into the dining area. I’m no cook, but I can locate my butcher knife. In the effort to be quiet, my legs move too far and too slowly, like a spider.
In moments, the blade is withdrawn from the block. The silence fills my ears like cotton. I tear through the dark at the closet door, shoving it ajar.
A man waits and stares, quiet as a roach.
I stumble back cartoonishly, and my mind jumps to what the papers will say tomorrow. My right hand tightens. No homeless burglar is going to do me in. No fucking way.
I’m ready to slash, but the man stays perfectly still. His eyes are dead. Corroded. Two endless pits of oil grounding the shiny remnants of a human face. The tails of his bandages float like feathers.
Before I know what’s happening, I’m against the far wall. My fingers claw the plaster and finally scrabble at the lamp. As yellow-blue light floods my bedrooms, the dark outline confronting me in the closet melts away. I see two suits, a leather jacket, and work shoes waiting on a square patch of polished floor. Everything as it should be.
I invert the doors completely, peer from every angle. Then I pull the switch again and stare through the closet’s opening. What was I thinking? Nothing’s there. And anyway, with the lights out it’s too dark to see anything. Even a body would have just been a shadow.
I’m not the type to laugh at myself, but for a second, I wish I was. Thank god I didn’t cave and let Cyndi stay over.
Some kind of omen when the first person you see in the morning is a teenager.
My head is still murky from lack of sleep. I take another slug from my thermos and avoid eye contact with the blonde next door while we wait for the elevator. Something smells funny. Nail polish, maybe. Her toes are bright and free in their sandals.
Ding and slide. We shuffle in as a unit, like funhouse mirror reflections of each other. I reach into my suit jacket for my phone, though I have little to do with it.
“Mister…” She falters. She doesn’t know. Ooh, how embarrassing. I don’t even know her dad’s name, and he’s been next door for years, well before she arrived. I lift the coffee to my mouth again, like the cause is so urgent that I can’t help it. This is an easier illusion with food. “Your shoe’s untied.”
She’s right. My left set of laces flaps, frayed and grimy. Horrible. With this one oversight, I’ve been equalized with her gawky high school classmates. I have to say something: “Ah.” I bend in as dignified a way as I can. Ding. She steps off before the ground floor, though lord knows why. Kid should probably be in school.
“Abe?” My hand stutters on the keyboard. Why am I so jumpy? Ah, yes: tourist attraction night terrors. I hate travel assignments.
Grant’s waiting at my doorway, which is notable given he’s rarely onsite days other than Friday. His hand sits between the shoulder blades of a precociously pretty brunette, the type whose timidity softens her features into background décor. She looks college-aged. I suppose it’s intern season.
“I wanted to make sure you met our new Regional Director, Ella Jang. She transferred from the New York office.”
What? This means the girl is Colin’s replacement, my new colleague. Depending on whom you ask, the Regional Directors can even be considered my superiors, although I know for a fact our pay stubs are identical.
This youngster looks like she should be having slumber parties with the girl next door. How can she even have been with the company three years?
I nod. “Ella.” It’s more a suggestion of a name than anything. You barely have to move your tongue. Jang. Could be half-Asian, though she doesn’t look it.
Her smile falters. Nervous by nature, or expecting more formality? Probably both.
Grant’s fighting a smile. He knows what I’m thinking. “She’ll be joining you tomorrow in your meetings with the Dragoon investors.”
Goddamn. Schmoozing appointments with the bigwigs. I guess I forgot about that. I’ll be happy to never think of Arizona again. “Okay, then.”
“Okay,” Grant repeats. They turn around as a unit. I take further stock of his hand on her back. Is he banging her, or just hoping to?
When they depart, I click away from my spreadsheets to our company website. Her profile is already there, sans picture but including the years on her undergrad and grad degrees. She’s thirty, evidently, much older than she looks.
I get through the rest of the day without disturbance. My exhaustion makes things dark at the edges. My work is slow, but I’ll fix it. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.
The lobby and elevator are dim and empty. By the time I get home, it’s nearly seven. I heat up a veal entrée and pour a glass of red but am suddenly hit by a wave of fatigue. The thought of eating has abruptly become bizarre.
The meal goes in the top front shelf of the fridge for breakfast. If I wait until tomorrow night, I run the risk of the cleaners helping themselves while I’m at work. The fluorescent glow of the cooler is unearthly. It leaves me squinting, a disoriented ache growing in the middle of my forehead. How long will it take to get back into my groove, to shake the desert strangeness off me?
Fuck it. Pants undone, I fall onto the bed.
My sheets are kicked away, but the dark presses on me like a blanket. Deep, comforting. Until.
I react to what I’m seeing before I’m fully conscious. A pit of dread squeezes in the center of my chest. The rest of me goes very still, a possum playing dead. The figure is against the opposite wall from my bed, in the empty nook between desk and dresser. In the early morning, the pale grays nearly glow.
At college parties, I used to get stoned and stare at my own eyes in the bathroom mirror. They’d go in and out of focus, wobbling with my brain. The specks in my irises were like pixels, alien and constantly changing.
I haven’t touched the green stuff in years, but looking at the mummy is the same. The vile thing gapes with empty eyes. Though its expression is eaten away, its line of sight bores directly through me. The face is animated with awareness and threat. I can’t shake the sense that not moving will help. This is something kids do, with monsters under the bed, but I was never one of those moony types. I just want to stay frozen in the comfort of my bed, hide in plain sight.
From my hallucination. Because I am not seeing this, I remember. I am not seeing this.
I guess I need help. Doctors, tests, sterilized metal. Maybe pills that will fuzz up the edges, smooth the wrinkles on my brain that keep me sharp. This is not a good time for this, but I’ll do it if I have to, and it looks like I will. Even though I know there’s not actually a dead man standing at the foot of my bed, my heart won’t slow down. Better sleepy pills than a stroke.
Stiff, still, I try to imagine that the fucked-up monster is just a prop. In the pitch black, I could squint the Thing into a shadow, but the dawn light is enough for shine and details. In fact, it can’t be long before my wake-up alarm. I grab my phone, a snap of movement like scaring a bug. Indeed: less than an hour until I’d be up anyway.
When I dart my eyes back, it’s gone. […]
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Dev Jannerson is the author of the queer YA novel The Women of Dauphine (NineStar Press, 2019), which was praised by Kirkus Reviews and was a finalist in the 2019 Best Book Awards’ in the Fiction: LGBTQ category. Jannerson also has two collections of poetry, Rabbit Rabbit (Finishing Line Press, 2016) and Thanks for Nothing (Finishing Line Press, 2018); the latter was a finalist for the Golden Crown Award. They have written viral articles for Bitch magazine; won short prose contests with The Writer, So to Speak, and The Flexible Persona; and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. They live in New Orleans with their wife.
Read More: A brief Q&A with Dev Jannerson