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  — How would that work? I mean, who or what would have written it?

  — Who cares? I don’t know. It could explain all this. That’s all I’m thinking. Anyway, I want to ask you a question.

  — Me?

  — A hypothetical. For my own curiosity. Let’s say you could go backwards in time, and end up in Gacy’s house on the Piest night. You have a gun, let’s say. Gacy’s getting the guy drunk or stoned or whatever he did. Drunk, I think. You know the guy’s about to be killed. So you could do what you’ve done, and shoot pictures of Gacy’s last stand, and give that gift to the world. Or you could kill Gacy, and save the guy’s life. Or you could tie Gacy up, have your way with the guy, kill him, then untie Gacy and disappear into the future again, letting him take the rap. What do you do?

  — That’s hard.

  — Why?

  — Because my Robert Piest thing was based on two grainy headshots. If I was there, who knows? He might not work in person. And if he didn’t turn me on, I might just feel pity or outrage or something.

  — Trust me. From what I saw, he was your type. Even dead, I could tell.

  — I don’t know.

  — Look, you know what the world’s like without him. You don’t know what the world would be like if he’d lived. You’ve experienced the future. You know his death’s a little blip. You kill him, then return here without any guilt whatsoever. History hasn’t changed. But you’ve fixed what you thought was a wrong.

  — Look, I can say, Sure, I’d kill him. But if I was there, I don’t know what I’d do. I’d probably take a few rolls of pictures.

  — I was just curious.

  — It’s an interesting question. You’d kill him, obviously.

  — If he happened to be on my way. No offense, but he had a weird jaw.

  — Who, then? First stop–wise.

  — I don’t know. I think I’m more into the genie idea. Something less fixed.

  — So make a wish. Or is it three?

  — One’s fine. That’s easy. I want to go back to that night in Las Vegas.

  — Use the time machine.

  — Wait. So I stalk what’s-his-name here.

  — Etan.

  — What?

  — I think that’s his name.

  — So Etan walks around the casino, goes into the arcade, plays House of the Dead for an hour, and leaves. Now, here’s the wish part. Let’s say he dropped his room key. I wait for a while, until I’m sure he’s asleep, and let myself in. It’s dark, and I’m incredibly excited. You’ve never seen me that excited. I can’t remember what it was like to feel that excited. Anyway, I walk in, and I can see him on the bed. Passed out, I’m thinking. I’m going nuts. I don’t know what I want, apart from him. I have no idea. So I can barely walk, but I’m walking toward him, and then I see the blood. Then I see there’s a gun in his hand. He shot himself. Like hours before. He’s cold. He has rigor mortis. He’s already lost the whole thing I was into initially.

  — Suicide note?

  — I used to imagine there was. And it said something like, I can’t live with these fantasies of wanting someone to kill me. But that’s a little too Omen-esque. It’s better if there’s nothing. No clues.

  — Naked.

  — No, not even that. I don’t even get that. He’s taken everything away.

  — So you’re not just redoing that videotape. You know, with the cute guy.

  — Hopefully, I am, but a baby step further. I don’t get to see my guy’s body. I don’t get sex. I don’t get to be there. That’s different. That’s a little better.

  — So what do you do? Resurrect him?

  — No, no. I’ve got excellent taste, but I can’t take that chance. What if he’s … I don’t know, a Deadhead? What if … who knows? No, I know what I’d do. I’d kill myself. Right then. Take his gun and do it. I’d feel what I felt, and then end it.

  — Seriously.

  — Yeah. I think I would. Of course, that’s easy to say.

  — So, you’re not going to shoot yourself now? I mean after this deal? Please say no.

  — I wish. No, I just change the beginning. That’s all. Right the wrong, like I was saying to you. It sounds contrived, I know. But that’s words. They’re the problem. Words have this awful, downsizing effect on your thoughts. Because to me, it sounds profound. Shit.

  — Yeah, except …

  — What? Shit, now I’m depressed.

  — Except how could it be him, Henry? I’m sorry. He wanted us to fuck him, so he lied. That’s the only difference between him and them. Even I can barely tell them apart. Sometimes when I’m labeling the pictures, I have to guess. The backgrounds change, but the guys are identical. Same long hair, same big lips, same turned up nose, same skinny body, same—

  — I know. But I don’t want to talk about that. In fact, let’s just stop talking altogether.

  — So you do know.

  — Off the record?

  — Cross my heart. Look. Cross, cross.

  — Yeah, I know. But you’re the one who said it doesn’t matter what I know. You’re the one who said it’s about how it looks. So as long as you say it’s him, and that my reaction’s the most profound, indescribable thing you’ve ever seen in your life, then we’re square.

  — We’re square. I mean … well, you know what I mean.

  — Then let’s do it. God, this is pathetic.

  — Give me a second.

  — We should never have talked. You ready?

  — I guess.

  — God, that was incredibly stupid.

  — Wait. You’re just going to shoot him? Wait a second.

  — Yeah. Get ready.

  — That’s it?

  — Yeah. Shut up.

  — Okay, but—

  — Shut up. Damn it. What’s his name again?

  — I told you. Etan. Or Eban, Eden … something like that. But Henry—

  — Hey, Eden.

  8:28: Inside that house resting.

  8:30: Really dark. Can’t see.

  8:34: My eyes won’t adjust to it.

  8:34: Wait.

  8:35: Something different from the rest, but not much.

  8:36: Stood up.

  8:38: Tried to walk but it hurt.

  8:39: Rubbing my leg.

  8:40: Gonna try again.

  8:41: Got two steps, maybe.

  8:43: Lying here.

  8:45: Shit.

  8:46: Crawling.

  8:50: Don’t understand.

  8:55: Still don’t.

  9:01: Like a maze.

  9:03: Left, right, right, right, left, right.

  9:05: Forget it.

  9:08: Just been crawling.

  9:09: Can’t believe this.

  9:10: Lighter ahead. For sure.

  9:13: Please.

  9:16: Almost there.

  Curtains

  Etan’s sort of asleep by the scribbly dirt road. He’s been out here for days, smelling rank when the sky’s blue, and very bunched up when it’s starred and cold. How can he possibly know shit? That’s the lame-ass conclusion he’s reached, drawn by eerily dumb, revolving thoughts. Everything’s just a result of the sun gradually eating the earth, he guesses. Even that idea’s too rigorous for his brain. He’s nothing much, a smalltown boy overly stuck in his head, which tends to refine one fantasy about The Omen and him, ’cos they’re the only tape he owns. As far as he’s concerned, they’ve driven down this exact road, picked him up, murdered him so many times that the picture’s worn down to what’s just so painfully personal to him. He can’t come anymore. He’s all raw. The batteries died in his boombox. Now it’s him and the world again. He can’t ignore the fact, seeing as how it’s so gigantically around him. Not just the shit he can see. He means the world down this road, past those far off, unclimbable, fogged-over mountains. A place where folks merely exist, he figures. Like the trees, bushes, grass, et cetera, growing unevenly on either side of his head. Maybe they’d move around more, b
ut less meaningfully than the stupidest animal he’s ever seen in the woods, even ants. That’s ideal. Not wanting anything, even to eat food or shit it back out. No one would care how they look, much less how any other guys look. No one would want to screw, love, or kill Etan, nor would he want to do that to anyone else. There’d just be him, and a shack, and his stuff, and everything would be able to talk, and every sentence would trigger appropriate words in return, that’s all. Like in some cartoon he saw. So his shirt would be as cool as his friends. It could fascinate him, or else he wouldn’t give a shit if it was boring. If it just talked about what it was made from, or how weird it felt to be faded or ripped. Everything would have the same consciousness, and pretty close to the same flat voice. No individual minds, no hearts, no instinctual shit, just movements and ideas that fit in a pattern too simple to notice. Maybe that pattern would be the thing folks call peace, if anyone ever thought about peace, which they wouldn’t. That’s a pathetic thought, he’s very well aware. He just needs to eat. Anyway, he wouldn’t care about Noel. That’s all. He wouldn’t have cried last night, wondering what Noel was thinking at that millisecond, or how Noel might feel in his arms, or if Noel was okay. There’s a point where he can’t know, unless he finds out. Meaning grabs the dead boombox, stands, walks back home, sees the real Noel, and asks. And even then.

  Noel lies in the slanted rectangle of light tossed away by a high, square, barred window. It spotlights his hand, pencil, white sheet of paper, leaking far enough into the cell to put this glow on the page. He’s drawing a picture of Dagger. Too bad he’s untalented, ’cos he can’t manage a likeness. Just messy lines trying to add up to something important, in his mind. Anyway, done. Or … wait, maybe he’ll add a guy, him, standing there with his arm around Dagger, looking into those badly drawn eyes with a worshipful look, not that Noel’s hand can simulate that kind of feeling. No, forget it. He crumples the paper.

  Noel lies unbelievably motionless under the window. Its daylight feels warmer than anything anyone’s touch ever gave him before, to think of life logically. Dagger is scattered in there, or has to be, or Noel imagines him there, which is the one thing that counts. Maybe the sun’s an incompetent artist like him, who drew the world in hopes of replicating some idea a million times better. Maybe Noel and Dagger were drawn on the earth in hopes of nailing some love too profound to exist outside a mind so far away or psychotic. Maybe Noel is a sketch of someone he doesn’t start to resemble, being too crude relative to the sun’s imagination. Maybe …

  There was a clearing, just past this slight crease in the woods where two deformed, leafless oaks twisted into a skull, if the sun and one’s drugs were in gear. Etan was there, leaning back on the huskiest post that sort of held up Bob’s awning, wacked on two faint sniffs of crystal.

  Seeing a flash in the skull’s deep-set eyes, Etan refocused his own. They held out the usual hope for whatever. Hey, he said, decoding Bob. Long time. Luckily, there was a rasp to his voice, so he came off bored. But it was just some dust left in his throat from those days by the road.

  I knew you’d be here, Bob said. He threw away his ax, slid his less calloused hand down Etan’s jeans, and recaptured that flat as Hell ass. So it wasn’t a pillow stuffed with a cathedral, as his thoughts had solidified George’s. Still, it formed this unusual pact with the past, or there was nothing else.

  How do you know shit? Etan said. In advance and all that. Then Bob’s fingertips cross-referenced Noel’s. The mix-up created this crystal-tweaked ache in the mulch that attached Etan’s face to his skull. It made him kiss Bob, which looked right, but felt unbelievably confusing.

  10:07: Dark.

  10:07: Keep writing that.

  10:07: Know it.

  10:10: Been days now, I guess.

  10:17: Nothing else.

  10:32: Shit. Not again.

  10:33: See my mind.

  10:34: A white dot.

  10:34: Really think so.

  10:36: Enlarging.

  10:41: Watching it.

  10:42: Blossom.

  10:46: God?

  10:50: Can’t describe it. Sorry.

  10:51: Sorry.

  10:54: Blinded by it.

  10:55: Can’t hardly see.

  10:56: Can’t see what I’m writing.

  10:59: Scared.

  — See? Him. Follow my flashlight.

  — Hunh.

  — Dagger. Real as me.

  — Close, but … Nah. Weird, though. Fuck, it’s cold in here.

  — He’s even writing in a notebook.

  — Dagger’s dead, Etan. Thanks to you.

  — Yeah, so why aren’t you still back in jail? Think about it.

  — ’Cos the sheriff’s an idiot?

  — Whatever. So, I was thinking. We traded with Satan, right? That’s why I’m immortal, and got to hang with The Omen. That’s why you supposedly got your big, secret thing you won’t tell me about.

  — You hung with The Omen. Right.

  — Okay, maybe not. I still say that’s him.

  — But if that’s Dagger, then Satan didn’t get shit, so he wouldn’t have given me shit in return.

  — Maybe Satan gave you a freebie. ’Cos you’re cool.

  — I was there, man.

  — Maybe Satan threw him back.

  — Dagger was a gazillion times cuter than this guy.

  — I guess. But he’s sort of scarred up, so who knows?

  — Anyway, Dagger looked like you. If anything, this freak looks sort of weirdly like me.

  — You think?

  — What, you don’t?

  — Maybe. Okay, I see what you’re saying. Hunh. He’s not bad.

  — So that’s not Dagger, is it? Asshole.

  — If you say so, asshole.

  — Then I’ve seen enough.

  I need your help, Etan yelled, and grabbed ahold of the strange, Noel-like guy, so he wouldn’t limp off. There were some jiggles and creaks in the shack’s saggy build, followed closely by Bob. “Noel” hid his eyes, being a scaredy-cat, or on account of the sky’s wearing far too much sun.

  Who’s your friend? Bob said, shielding his eyes. They were total dead ends, in Etan’s thinking. So it was chilling to see them so warm, like they’d just been redrawn by some Disney-ish thought. He entered the unkempt front yard, just as “Noel” took a peek through two fingers. George?

  You know this guy? Etan said. Then he stepped back and kicked around dust, while they hugged, and so forth. He couldn’t relate, except to feel like it should either be him getting groped, or him groping some guy who looked more like a slightly trashed Noel every lame, passing second.

  — Do the trees look different to you? Noel.

  — What?

  — Look over there. Them. See?

  — It’s summer. They’re dead.

  — Okay, maybe I mean everything’s different. Like you. You seem … I don’t know, cold.

  — I guess. But you’re the one who’s acting all warm, man.

  — Less weird, you mean.

  — No, that’s not what I mean. I mean … Okay, wait, let me study you for a second. Look at me. Don’t blink.

  — What?

  — Give me a sec. I have to get Dagger’s face out of your face. ’Cos you’re not quite as awesome as him by these fractions of inches, and stuff. No offense. Hold still. And stop crying.

  — Fuck.

  — What’s your problem?

  — I don’t know. The look in your eyes isn’t something enough.

  — See? This is what I’m saying, Etan. You’re a fucking mess. I just told you. I asked Satan to make me immune to you. It’s too late. Give it up.

  — I’m sorry. It’s just … I feel a lot for … shit. For you.

  — You’ve gotten totally weird. Or else I can see you better now that I don’t give a shit. Yeah, that’s it. Interesting.

  — No, but I always felt this. I just couldn’t … tell. I didn’t know.

  — You’re pissi
ng me off.

  — It’s that fucking Dagger guy. You only like him ’cos he’s dead. Or ’cos you want him to be dead, or I don’t know. Wait.

  — You’re embarrassing yourself, man.

  — Wait.

  3:18: Tell me what I was like.

  3:18: Excited.

  3:19: His lips said, Like you are now.

  3:19: Don’t understand.

  3:20: His lips said, Look at yourself in the pond, George.

  3:20: Leaning over to see.

  3:21: Waiting on some ripples.

  3:23: Still don’t understand.

  3:23: His lips said, Aren’t you amazing?

  3:24: Guess so.

  3:24: What about inside?

  3:24: His lips said, You tell me.

  3:26: Trying to see.

  3:26: His lips said, Try your eyes.

  3:27: Checking ’em.

  3:28: Look confused, I guess.

  3:28: Help me.

  3:30: He’s thinking.

  3:32: His lips said, Let me look.

  3:34: Both of us looking at me in the pond.

  3:45: His hand’s on me.

  3:47: It’s rubbing.

  3:47: His lips said, Look now.

  3:48: I look scared.

  3:51: Scared.

  Etan dragged a broken chair to the table, and sat. He stuck a fork in his portion of rabbit, and smeared a crude Satan face on the plate. Bob and that George or whoever were settled down, saying grace or some insanity. So, listen, Etan mumbled. Would you care if I screwed your friend?

  Don’t even ask, Bob mumbled. The shack was deserted, apart from the obvious shit, plus these ashen, rectangular planes where Bob’s art had deprived walls of daylight for fucking ever. The culprits were smoky, black sticks in the roaring fireplace. ’Cos the answer is, Not on your life.

  Come on, Etan said, and took a huge, ugly bite. It had this forgettable, millionth-time taste. Still, he tried to get into its being some innocent thing from the woods. But the taste wasn’t evil enough to supplant what his damaged mind’s dilated eye had been foreseeing for weeks. You can watch?

  Etan jacks off in his secret campsite, helped along by The Omen on boombox. He’s a tensed scrawl, as usual, beating the shit out of his worthless crotch. He can’t get that George creature out of his mind, noise or not. A wild dog trots suddenly out of some nearby bushes in its mechanical way, hoping Etan’s not around, so it can raid his shit. Its ears pick up on the music, which sounds like the weirdest fight between the most unusual animals it’s ever heard. So it cautiously scampers up onto one of the boulders that gives it an aerial view of the porn. It can’t figure Etan out, being a simple construction. It sees shapes and a motion, and smells the international odor for crotch, which rivets it to the view, though it can’t figure out how to use the excitement it feels. It’s never bored, just hypnotized, which is a glorious thing, or would be, if Etan realized it was there, and understood how it thought, and could learn anything that wasn’t hidden away inside loud, creepy songs. So when he opens his eyes for a second, and sees the dog, life’s predictable. He grabs a gun from his belongings, and shoots. It falls dead by his side. He’s so fucked up. It was so stupid.