Dispatch (22 page)

But I could live with that.

The question was, would I do it all again, given the chance? Would I have my dad killed just because he was an asshole?

Yes.

And I'd off the witch and maybe throw in my mom for good measure. And Tom. And Principal Poole. And those interviewers.

It was horrible to admit, but if I was going to be honest with myself, I had to be really honest—no matter how horrible the truth might be. And the truth was that while I didn't
want
to be this way, I was.

Had I always been like this? I wondered. Had I been born this way? Had living with my parents made me into who I was? Or, as I suspected, had the letters done it? Had writing those lies drawn me into a whirlpool of malignancy that had left me forever corrupted? I didn't know, and I'd probably never know. But I saw myself more clearly than I had ever done before.

The minutes crept by. The hours.

I slept.

I dreamed.

I awoke once again in a cramped position in my chair, muscles sore, my fogged brain retaining the residue of a nightmare in which I was seated at a child's desk in an old one-room schoolhouse writing a letter, while at the front of the classroom lurked a dark indistinct shape that was waiting for me to finish so it could kill me. I could keep it at bay only if I continued to write.

There was movement out of the corner of my eye, white movement near the bottom of the door. Holding my stiff neck, I turned to look and saw that an envelope had been slid into the room. I glanced away, knowing without opening it what it contained.

A detailed description of my dream.

My stomach was growling, but I ignored the three granola bars and the glass of grape juice placed next to the pen and paper on the table. I shifted position on the seat, crossing my legs and tensing my buttocks. I really had to take a shit. I waited several minutes, hoping that one or both of my guards would come to escort me to the bathroom, as they had before, but neither of them did and finally, unable to wait any longer, I stood, walked across the room and tried the knob on the door.

As I'd known, it was locked.

My attempt to outlast them already a failure, I pounded on the door and demanded to be let out. My commands were ignored, of course. Remembering how the man with the binder had rapped three times on the door, I tried that, as well, thinking it was some kind of code. The door remained locked. I kicked out in frustration. Fuck them. I started to unbuckle my pants. I'd take a shit in the corner and let those assholes clean it up.

There must have been some type of surveillance equipment in the room, because the door suddenly swung open, and this time both guards stood in the corridor. "Bathroom break," they said in unison, and there seemed to be a smirk on the face of the one on the right.

I hurried down the corridor to the bathroom, inwardly cursing them both.

Afterward, I did not flush.

This time I had the smirk, and when I was returned to my room, I immediately sat down at the table and picked up the pen:

To Whom It May Concern,

I am extremely unhappy with your employees. They are rude and inconsiderate, and, I would venture to say, poorly trained. I have never before encountered men of such stunning ineptitude. I don't know what kind of operation you are running here, but I must admit I am not favorably impressed. A problem of this magnitude cannot be placed solely at the feet of the individuals directly involved. This is a management failure, and it is the responsibility of those at the top of the organizational ladder to see to it that the entire operation runs smoothly. You are either unable or unwilling to do so. I have no respect for you or your authority and will no longer be cooperating with your grossly incompetent underlings.

For the next half hour or so, I paced around the room, wondering if my letter would reach its intended target, wondering what the reaction would be. I had a lot of time to think, and I considered the subject of time itself. How long had I been trapped here in this office? It felt like three days, but with no clock, no change in light or atmosphere, no visual cues from the outside world, my inner rhythm could be totally off. I could be sleeping for a single hour every six hours, or I could be sleeping twelve hours every twelve hours. It was impossible to tell.

Sometime later, the screaming started again. At first, I thought it might be a tape loop, some type of psychological warfare tactic used to break prisoners down. But this screaming was different, and even though the sound was muffled because of the walls, I could definitely hear two voices this time, one low and constant, delivering some type of lecture, the other high and anguished, crying out in physical pain.

I banged my fist on the wall. "Shut the hell up in there!" I yelled.

To my surprise, they did shut up. It could have been a coincidence—the torture session might simply have ended at exactly that time—but I was pretty sure that the entire thing had been staged for my benefit.

I ate the granola bars, drank the now warm grape juice. As I finished the last of the juice, the door opened and the bureaucrat with the binder walked in. "Congratulations!" he said cheerfully, hand extended. "You have successfully completed our training program and are now qualified to work for us and write letters at the highest level."

Numbly, I shook his hand. "What exactly am I qualified to do?"

"Come on," he said. "There's a party in your honor. Sort of a get-to-know-you, welcome-aboard mixer." He led me out into the corridor, walking fast. "You're really going to like it here."

"Where is
here
?" I asked.

He stopped before a door marked C, then rapped on it with his knuckles three times. The door opened slowly. "Party's in there," he said. "I have some work to attend to, but I'll join you shortly. Have fun!" He pumped my hand. "And, once again, congratulations!"
 

I found myself in what looked like a house. The room before me, a sitting room of some sort, was decorated with antiques, making it look like something out of the 1920s—or the 1960s. I had no idea where I was, and for a brief disorienting moment, I thought perhaps I'd gone back in time. But then someone in another room shouted, "E-mail!" which got a laughing response from the other revelers.

I turned, trying the door that had closed behind me, but it was locked.

There was a hallucinatory quality to everything that was happening, but at the same time my surroundings were very real, very specific, very concrete. Nothing could be farther from that antiseptic corridor than this warm, funky room, but I knew that both were here in the same building.

Where was the building, though? It certainly wasn't that apartment complex—

Shangri-La

—I had initially entered. Despite all the words of congratulation and the irrational feeling of proud accomplishment I had, the fact remained that I had been drugged or otherwise knocked out and then transferred to this place.

Wherever this was.

For the first time in what felt like several days, I was in a room with a window, and I quickly walked over and looked outside. It was daytime, but the landscape before me was shrouded with fog, allowing only minimal sunlight to penetrate. Curious, I opened the window, pushing the frame up slowly so as not to alert the people in the other room. I stuck my head out, breathing deeply, half expecting to smell the dark dank scent of the grave, or a metallic artificial, machine-made odor, but there was nothing.

I squinted, peering into the thick impenetrable air. I could not see anything, but I
felt
something, a sense that the building in which I stood was fake. I was suddenly grateful for this veil that had been drawn. I didn't want to see what lay behind the mist.

I pulled my head in, closed the window, drew the curtain.

What the hell was I thinking? I supposed I'd been subjected to some sort of behavioral conditioning, like what had happened to Patty Hearst or prisoners of war, which reinforced the idea that this company or agency or whatever it was was affiliated with the DOD or CIA or some other national-security group.

More laughter issued from the other room, and after peering into that void, the sound seemed warm, welcoming. Gathering my courage,.! opened the door and stepped out into what looked like the hallway of a midsized home. The conversation was louder here. I could make out individual voices. Men and women. They were talking about—what else?—writing letters.

I walked into the next room.

The cocktail party in progress was like something out of a John Cheever novel. We were in a large upper-middle-class living room. A bearded, barrel-chested man was leaning against the wall next to the fireplace, a drink in his hand, several more lined up on the mantle next to him. On the other side of the fireplace, facing him, confronting him, was a middle-aged woman in a granny skirt with the slightly scattered air of a professional academic. On the couch, crammed together uncomfortably, sat two well-dressed couples who may or may not have known each other. There were seven or eight other people milling about, who ranged in age from early twenties to mid-sixties. One slovenly overweight man wearing willfully eccentric clothes stood by himself against the far wall, staring at his shoes.

It was an eclectic group, and one that seemed to have very little in common save their occupation. I assumed that they were not only writers but Letter Writers.

The woman in the granny dress saw me first. She was facing the stairs, and the movement must have caught her eye. "He's here!" she announced, and all conversation stopped as the gathered throng turned to look at me. I felt embarrassed and didn't know what to say, but the woman came over and took my arm in hers. "Let me introduce you," she said. She nudged me with her elbow. "By the way, what's your name?"

"Jason," I said. "Jason Hanford."

"Mine's Virginia."

I allowed myself to be led into the center of the room. "This is Jason Hanford," Virginia announced. "Our newest Letter Writer." She introduced me to each of the other guests individually. "I'd like you to meet Leo ... Bill ... This is James ... John ... Ernest..." I was hugged, nodded to and winked at.

My hand was shaken. We went around the room, then into the kitchen, where two elderly men, one very short and very hunched over, were eating hors d'oeuvres off a silver plate on the breakfast table. "...Alexander ... Thomas..." In one of the bedrooms, a fat, florid man was putting the moves on a slim, primly attired young woman. "Charles and Jane."

We all reconvened back in the living room. I glanced around, cleared my throat self-consciously. "I assume you're all Letter Writers here. Like me."

"Don't assume," Virginia said. "It makes—"

"—an ass out of you and me," Leo said tiredly. "I know. We've all seen that episode of
The Odd Couple
."

It was weird to hear this bearded ascetic talk about an old television show, but it was also reassuring somehow.

"You're
not
all Letter Writers?" I asked.

"Yes," Virginia said. "We are. I was just making a point."

Ernest, still standing by the fireplace, laughed.

"I write editorial letters," Charles offered. "Letters to the editor."

"I write fan letters to actors and authors and musicians," John admitted.

They all began stepping forward.

"I write testimonials." Alexander.

"I write letters to politicians." Thomas.

Every possible use to which a letter could be put was covered.

Bill was writing letters to
Penthouse Forum
and "The Playboy Advisor." "I'm responsible for moving away from anal and into fetishism," he bragged. He leered at Virginia. "Although I know
you're
still into anal."

"You're disgusting," she shot back.

He roared with laughter.

Alexander shook his head. "You debase yourself and those with whom you associate."

Bill turned on him. "Shut the hell up, you crippled old dwarf."

"
You
shut up!" Ernest roared.

Jane laughed, touched my arm. "You caused quite a stir in here, sir." She nodded toward Charles. "Some of his letters weren't getting into newspapers and periodicals because yours were printed instead. It caused quite a little ruckus, let me tell you."

"It's true," Charles admitted. "Our job is to write letters. We're the ones who are supposed to praise and complain and sway opinion. The fact that you were out there horning in on our territory did not go unnoticed."

Ernest laughed loudly, moving away from the fireplace for the first time and swaggering into the center of the room, scotch in hand. " 'Did not go unnoticed?' That's a prissy little euphemism if I ever heard one. The powers that be were livid. Livid!" He gestured expansively, spilling part of his drink. "You were public enemy number one around here. They were having their toadies try to outflank you, sending reams of letters to combat your correspondence."

"But they couldn't do it," Virginia confided, and I thought I heard a secret pleasure in her voice.

James nodded seriously. "You are very powerful."

A chorus of nods and murmured assent greeted his statement. These Letter Writers knew who I was, I realized. They knew my work. They respected me. Hell, some of them had probably been tracking me for years. I looked around at their faces. I had so many questions, I didn't know where to start. "Who are we working for?" I finally asked.

"The company," Ernest said.

"But what company? What's its name?"

"I don't think it has one." James.

"What exactly do we do here?"

Virginia laughed. "Write letters."

"We're like ... ombudsmen to a certain extent," John explained. "What we do primarily is help people, give voice to those who don't have a voice, write letters on their behalf."

"They don't know we're doing it," Alexander added. "They're not aware that we're helping them. We work behind the scenes, like guardian angels."