Out of Touch (13 page)

             
“Yeah, but that image was a spin off from before the war on drugs. They used to have public health ads showing an egg and saying “This is your brain.” Then they showed a fried egg and said, “This is your brain on drugs.”

             
Reggie gave Phil an incredulous look.

             
“Seriously, I think it predated Reagan.”

              Reggie was just biting into his triple mushroom with Thai basil when Pop motioned him over to the counter. Pop was a big guy, just going gray and soft. He was wearing a red and white checked apron and holding out the phone.

             
Why would anyone call Reggie on the phone at Pizza Pop? But Reggie went to take the call.

             
“Don’t react. This might sound nuts, but you may be watched and your phone may be bugged. I was going to leave you out of this, and I probably still should. But well, Reggie, I miss you.”

             
Sarah was talking fast. Reggie tried to not react. He leaned onto the counter, as if he always received calls at the local pizza place. He imagined himself in a leather jacket, leaning against a jukebox in some long ago diner. If Sarah was really worried about surveillance, calling this way might make sense. She knew he ate here with Phil every Wednesday and the number was all over the TV ads. But what kind of trouble could justify this?

             
“’Miss’ doesn’t begin to describe my side of it. What’s going on?”

             
“Our government’s after me, officially the CDC, though not for any reason you’d expect. Genetic persecution is real. But if I tell you more, you’ll be in at least as much trouble as I am.”

“If you told me you’d have to shoot me?”

“I’ve ditched my phone and car, everything that might have GPS. I can probably never go back to the U.S., but I, I had to at least call you.”

             
“Don’t worry about me.”

             
“Someone has to.”

             
“Thanks. But we can fight this. I have—”

             
“It’s not like that. I really shouldn’t have called you—”

             
“Do you want to offend me? I’m yours. I would do anything for you. Tell me what’s going on.”

             
“Reggie, I love you, but there really are battles we can’t win. So far I’m just trying to stay alive, well, to stay free. I want you with me, but you’d lose everything: job, money, stuff, anything tied to the U.S. at the very least. And they might keep hunting us elsewhere. I don’t know. Think about it. I’ll tell you how to meet me, but then promise you’ll really think it over first?”

             
“This is crazy. You have to tell me what’s going on.”

             
“I can’t. Knowing could cost you everything, and you’d be trapped there.”

             
“No one would know if you told me.”

             
“They’ll know. That’s why I can’t tell you. Anyway, if you want to meet me, go to the place we first had our names carved together. This time a week from now, okay? Be prepared to lose everything you can’t carry casually on your person.”

             
“I need to know more. I’m sure there are arrangements I can make. The CDC doesn’t have that kind of pull.”

             
“It’s more than just the CDC. It’s spies and state secrets and stuff you wouldn’t believe. If you really want to come, try not to be followed and ditch all your GPS. But you have a whole life to live there, and you do a lot of good things. So think about it before you throw that away. I should go. They’ll get suspicious.”

             
“You didn’t call to tell me not to come.”

             
“I called because I’m selfish and weak.”

             
“Not likely. I’ll think first, but I’ll be there. This all seems much too interesting.”

             
“You’re hopeless and impossible.”

             
“I can’t be selfish and weak, too?”

             
“Bye.”

             
“Bye.”

             
Reggie set down the phone. Pop nodded at him and raised an eyebrow. Reggie nodded back and tried to smile reassuringly. He walked to the table where Phil was eating.

             
“Well, was it something about Sarah?”

             
“No, nothing real. Let’s say it was an over-imaginative friend who thought she knew something.”

             
Phil continued to eat in silence. Reggie started chewing and wondered how much of what Sarah said he could believe.  Could the government really be after her? Could they really be spying on him? He wouldn’t put it past Sarah to go insane. She was very high strung to begin with. But somehow, he didn’t think she was delusional. He was sure she wasn’t lying. Perhaps she was overly paranoid. She’d always had strong feeling about genetic privacy. Had she been keeping something secret all this time, something she knew the government might want to control? But what? Obviously she wasn’t gay or criminally aggressive, the usual political targets.  If she carried genes for autism, dyslexia, or schizophrenia, she would hardly be hunted in a secret government pogrom. Maybe she was a mental code breaker or something along those lines? She’d certainly demonstrated a talent for languages while they were in India. And she had a very good sense of direction and memory for floor plans and city layouts. Still, she’d never seemed extraordinary about any of it.

             
“Hey, Reggie, don’t think so hard, you’ll hurt yourself.” Phil had finished his pizza and exchanged a few meaningful looks with Pop. Now he was gazing out the window at signs posted on a lamppost. In addition to numerous rooms for rent, there was one for computer tutoring signed “AI”. What some people would believe.  Hmm, perhaps he was being hypocritical.

             
Reggie realized that if he couldn’t be honest with Phil, he should at least try to be social. “You think my brain’s that easily damaged?”

             
“Fragile as an egg.”

              For an hour on Friday night, Reggie convinced himself he wasn’t going. The whole phone conversation seemed unreal. Reggie streamed nouveau punk music, not because he liked it, but because he wanted to bang his head. He played it loud and the neighbor below retaliated with psychedelic rock and live drums. Reggie turned his music down, knowing better than to fight with a drummer. A courteous silence ensued, and Reggie knew he was going to follow Sarah.

              Over the weekend, he packed all his stuff into boxes. It was surprisingly easy. He set out twelve boxes to form a grid in the living room. Boxes he’d want if he ended up in a tropical climate he marked with a red line. He almost marked the cold weather items with blue but decided that was too traditional and used black instead. Packages he’d most want in a third world economy he marked with a three. Anything with GPS he set aside to donate. It was all outdated anyway, each the latest fad to explore for a month. He ranked the priority of boxes within each economy/climate type alphabetically.

Sarah’s fabrics he ranked very high and his photos very low, partly out of devotion, but also because he was tired of the photos. He set the picture with Sarah in it aside, along with the two pillowcases she’d made.
Even traveling light, he had to bring something that each of them cherished. And the pillowcases could always be stuffed with their clothes to give a bit of comfort while living rough.

His billowing self-satisfaction faded as he reconsidered his role as devoted boyfriend. What if he was instead Sancho Panza, tagging along with a crazy person to avoid his own responsibilities? Part of him clamored for the adventure, for sudden change and risk, regardless of what was happening to Sarah.

He packed good insect repellent and some water purification tablets. Best to be healthy, even if charging at windmills.

              Online Tuesday, Reggie transferred half his assets into international stocks with accounts based outside the US. If Sarah’s troubles turned out to be exaggerated, he’d lose a bit in transaction fees and risky economies. But his choices all reflected his political ideals; so that was okay.

             
At four o’clock Tuesday he left an envelope on his desk for Phil, on the assumption Phil wouldn’t look around until Reggie failed to show up the next day. He tried to be as fair as he could without giving away why he was leaving. He merely said he needed a sabbatical for personal reasons. He left notes for whoever took over his duties as treasurer and board member, and a signed paper giving up his stake in the organization if he failed to return within two months. He pulled the SIM card out of his cell phone and left the rest in a barrel Pronoia kept in the lobby for just such donations. Part of their business was refurbishing cell phones for use in unwired places.

             
Carrying a daypack with two pillowcases, one photograph, and a few necessities, he went out to hail a cab to the airport.

April 9, 2025 – Montego Bay, Jamaica

              Reggie cleared customs in Jamaica at ten on Wednesday morning. Thus far, there had been no indication that anyone was following him or noting his presence. He’d used three short air flights rather than one to make his trail harder to follow, and also to make it less suspicious when he paid cash for his tickets. But he’d departed from Miami and landed in Montego Bay under his own passport. He could play the fugitive to humor his girlfriend, but he wasn’t ready to break international laws, at least not yet.

His clothes were rumpled, but that was why he’d chosen dark nubby cotton. He made a quick stop in the airport restroom to comb his hair and shave then negotiated with a taxi for a ride to the open-air market. He knew his timing would be close, but Jamaica was no place to be in a hurry.

The casual blocking of roads and the smell from petroleum-fueled cars hadn’t changed since his last taxi ride in Jamaica. But cell phones and holo-ads had arrived with a vengeance, a cartoon exaggeration of U.S. cities. A street corner might project a fashion model strutting above pedestrians heads, but even if passers-by looked up, they were all talking to someone not present, using a visible phone or not. Even better were the people talking on phones beneath swirling holographs of competing phones.

The market was a ghastly tourist trap. Thousands of little booths huddled together sporting flashy fabric roofs or kitchy bamboo poles. No holo-ads though. Reggie liked the shopkeepers who called out to him about t-shirts, hats, and GPS-protected jewelry. He knew there were ways around the GPS security. Perhaps if he was to live on the lam, he would learn to hack the chips. With pseudo-professional curiosity, he wondered which items for sale had already been hacked. Then he glanced at a newsstand to laugh at the limited and outdated collection. His hand clutched automatically for his discarded cell phone with its personalized news updates.  It was isolating to have no news or interruptions for so many hours.

Moving alone through the chattering crowd, Reggie found he enjoyed the scent of overripe tropical fruit and even the stench of cigarettes so rare back in California. As he sauntered through the massive market, he couldn’t help spotting an outstanding batik shirt for Sarah. It was black with turquoise in the few places where wax had not been poured and the many places where wax had been intentionally cracked. It was darker than Reggie would have chosen on his own, but three years with Sarah had taught him to avoid too much vibrant color, no matter how well it set off her eyes and hair.

The fellow minding the booth stared at Reggie as Reggie glanced at the shirt. The vendor immediately rearranged his jowls into a smile, wiped sweaty palms on his baggy pants, and set in for the kill.

Reggie haggled knowing he could happily walk away. When he tried to, the squat man chased after him until Reggie deigned to buy the shirt for a quarter of the offering price. It still wasn’t a great deal, but Reggie liked to give people pretty things. Reaching the far side of the market at last, and relatively sure he hadn’t been followed, Reggie hailed another cab and headed out to the water caves where he and Sarah first had their names carved together.

There was no sign of Sarah at the entrance, so Reggie bought a ticket for the noon tour. He studied the other people waiting. To a person they looked like they just fell off the tour bus: two families with kids, a young couple probably on their honeymoon, and several older couples in outlandish holiday attire. If he had to guess someone on the tour was a government agent, he’d guess himself. Smiling, he leaned on a post, and let the sun flow into him.

On the tour, they floated through cool dark caves on a remarkably dry raft. There were advantages to making one of the first runs of the day. The guide rattled off the story of how the caves had been discovered and used over the years. The spiel seemed unchanged from two years before when Reggie had taken this tour with Sarah and her mother.