The Bend of the World: A Novel (23 page)

The cut, I said.

Look, she said. Balloons. And there they were, tied to a post at the end of a driveway like at a child’s birthday party or a graduation cookout, a bunch of grocery store Mylar balloons, although, as we passed, I saw that someone had drawn pentagrams on their silver skin in black marker.

The driveway led to a clearing of a few acres. In the middle was an old two-story lodge with an alpine character; a balcony wrapped around the second floor under broad eves. There were already a dozen or so cars parked; one couple, a man and a woman, walked down a path toward the woods on the far side of the field. I pulled off the drive onto the grass and parked beside an old Chrysler. Only by accident I saw its plate as we walked down the drive toward the lodge.
WCHY-POO
, it read.

7

Ah, the fat man said. Herr Morrison.

It looked like a ski lodge indoors, too. A shitty ski lodge. Partitions had been erected in the main hall, poorly done gallery walls on which hung all manner of drug-inspired art. You know the type. Heads breaking open to expose mandalas and that sort of trash. Tableaux of action figures. Knickknacks strung together with florist wire. There were old couches and chairs here and there; the hall was a sort of atrium in the center of the lodge, lit by skylights, but the glass was dirty, and if the cloudy light outside had a magical undersea quality, in there it was like opening your eyes underneath a murky river. But Pringle didn’t disappoint. He was seated on a loveseat, its color somewhere between turd and loam, and, given his bulk—it’s hard to express just how fat he really was; he seemed like a creature from some watery planet with a lower gravity—the love seat appeared almost like an armchair beneath him. He was wearing a United States Department of the Interior ball cap and a big white apron stained with some kind of sauce. He looked, I thought, familiar. There were a dozen other people in the room, wandering in the aimless fashion that art of any quality confers on the people who have committed to looking at it, or else lying on the suspect couches, smoking. A few of them were women; the rest appeared to be barely older than boys. Pringle was unattended. I’d half expected to find Johnny doing duty as a human ottoman, but he wasn’t around.

Winston Pringle, I presume.

Yes, he said, and I feel thankful that I am here to welcome you. He turned his little dark eyes on Helen. And you, my dear, are not who I was expecting at all.

I’m not, she said. I’m someone else.

This delighted him, and he clapped as he giggled. Indeed! he said. I could not have said it better myself. Won’t you have a seat? Would you like a drink?

No, I said.

Yes, Helen said.

Have a drink, Pringle told me. Mandy! he called, and a petite woman of indeterminate age—her posture suggested thirty-five, but her face and hair implied another decade or two—rose from one of the couches after extinguishing a cigarette and came over. Mandy, he said, this is the infamous Peter Morrison, and his lovely traveling companion.

Helen, Helen said.

Helen, Pringle repeated. The woman who launched a thousand starships.

Hm, I said.

Two cold beers, Pringle said, unless you’d prefer something stronger.

Beer is fine, I said.

It’s a start, Helen said.

You know, I told Pringle, you look awfully familiar.

I could say the same, he replied.

I can’t quite place it.

Ah, but I can, he said. You remind me of my dear old dad.

Why does that not surprise me? I said. Cheers.

Don’t be too eager to take it as a compliment, he told me. My father was one of the most powerful men in history, a deep, devious, and very dangerous man.

Oh yeah? I said. I think Johnny may have mentioned that. He was going to open the time portal at the Point, right?

A bowdlerized version, said Pringle, but sufficient. And how about you, mademoiselle? How do you fit into the picture?

Peter and I are having a torrid love affair, she said.

Well, I said.

Oh, delightful, Pringle said. I have always felt that my little annual gatherings could use a solid infusion of heterosexuality. They tend—he waved vaguely—toward the ephebophilic. I only ask that if you do engage in any such, ahem, predilections, you try to do so in one of the orgone accumulators conveniently located throughout the property.

The what? asked Helen.

Mandy arrived and handed us our beers. What’re you going to do with all that orgone? I asked.

No funny stuff, Pringle said. Just a little cloud-busting for the weekend. Wouldn’t want rain at the barbecue.

So, I said. Where’s Johnny?

Mandy raised an eyebrow at Pringle and gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. He is, I’m afraid, indisposed at the moment, Pringle said.

He’s resting, said Mandy.

Resting, I repeated.

He may, Pringle said, have overindulged ever so slightly over the last few days, but Mandy has him on a strict regimen of rice protein and kombucha. We expect him to be in full working order by the evening.

You know, I said, no offense, but the last thing Johnny needs is more drugs in his life.

I disagree entirely, said Pringle. He’s on the verge of something very important, I feel.

He’s on the verge of dying, I said.

Potato, potahto, said Pringle. But if you will excuse me, Herr Morrison, I have certain duties to attend to. We’ll be dining—your friend included—in my private dining room. Suite twenty-three, haha. I hope you’ll join us. I insist you join us. He went to rise but found it difficult to get out of his seated position. He tried to rock forward, but didn’t quite make it. Mandy offered her hand, but he pushed it away. Now, now, my dear. I just need to get a little momentum. I stared at him as he repeated the maneuver and hauled himself out of the chair. I stared at him as he waddled across through a door beside the dingy hearth.

No fucking way, I said.

You know, Helen said, I swear to God I’ve had nightmares about that guy.

Un-fucking-canny, I said.

8

We did not take advantage of the orgone accumulators. They’re just boxes, Helen said. Uh-huh, I said, exactly. What the fuck? she said. We did take advantage of the fact that someone always seemed to be asking if you needed a beer when you needed a beer. The cloud cover had resolved itself into a more distant scattering of cumuli, and the breeze had stopped blowing, and there was a stillness in the air that amplified the sounds of insects and birds in the grass and in the woods. We wandered the grounds for a while—dirt and gravel paths wound through the lawn and the fields and the nearer, thinner trees. Other than the plywood accumulators, there were a few old outlying cabins, a few fire pits, an odd collection of lawn chairs and chaise longues sprouting here and there. We found ourselves in a pair of peeling Adirondack chairs at some point. As the afternoon passed, people arrived, filling the upper field with cars. They lugged pieces of dirty art out of their trunks, or brought drum kits and guitars. They were mostly younger than me, although a few middle-aged folks as yet enamored with the romance of rejecting something rolled up as well, unkempt and gray and zany in an entirely unendearing way. It was true that the attendance skewed toward the male and toward the immediate postadolescent and toward the gay, but no more so than any hipster bar, and there were plenty of wide-hipped chicks with pretty boyfriends as well. Some of them brought tents and other accoutrements of camping, although none of them was dressed for camp: their jeans were too tight, or they wore ripped shorts; they wore open-toed shoes or vintage sneakers. These people, I said at one point, would not survive a night in the woods. The panthers would get them. Or the bigfoots. Helen said she didn’t take me for such an outdoorsman. I said hardly but I know better than to wear Roman sandals to a campground. She said that do be fair we were hardly outfitted for camping. We’re not camping, I said; we’re on a rescue operation. Your friend Johnny, she said, whom I’ve never met. My best friend, I said, since we were kids. What’re we rescuing him from? she asked; the clutches of Winston Pringle? He seems like a harmless kook. No, no, I said. From himself. Well, she said. That could be more difficult. It poses some ontological difficulties. I like a woman, I said, who says ontological difficulties. Don’t get ahead of yourself, she said. I went to art school. I learned to say a lot of things that I don’t understand. She looked toward the forest. I’ve always wanted to meet a bigfoot, she said. See a bigfoot? I said. Either way, she said.

We walked some more. It is always preferable to attend a party where you know no one and are known by no one. A party where you know and are known has the quality of a dream; it rushes by, unmoored from causation and progression, scene after scene arriving, correlated, somehow, but unconnected; when you don’t know anybody, or what you’re celebrating, or why you’re there, it becomes less a dream and more a dance, less a movie and more an arrangement of bodies in space, a sculpture, a mobile pivoting slowly around you. There were some girls doing yoga in the grass. There were some boys playing guitars. There were some dogs living the pure delight of a few hours of unbelonging. Everyone had their phones and took a lot of pictures. There was a crew putting together a wooden scaffold of some kind. It’s an owl, one of them said when we asked. Like at the real Bohemian Grove. It doesn’t look like an owl, I said. It looks like a horse, said Helen. Guys, the guy said, these guys say it looks like a horse. No way, dude, said another guy. It’s a fucking owl. I don’t know, said the first guy. He rubbed his face and lit a cigarette. It does have a horsey quality. Fuck that shit, said a third guy, who, upon closer inspection, was a girl. It’s a fucking owl. Use your imagination.

Someone was shooting bottle rockets. Someone was riding a unicycle. A group of girls were smoking a joint and making fun of the guy on the unicycle. A guy told one of the yoga girls that he’d like to do her downward-facing-doggy-style and laughed. The girl started to cry. Someone called him an asshole. Two young dudes made out in an orgone accumulator. It had gotten very hot. The sun was high. Maybe there’s something to this cloud-busting shit after all, I said. I love all this bad art, Lauren Sara said. But, no, I was with Helen. Helen said that. Peter Morrison, someone said. I turned around. My weed dealer? Scooty? I said. What are you doing here? We shook hands like business colleagues. Drumming up biz, he said. I come to this shit every year. He looked at Helen. You smoke weed? he asked. I drink, she said. He laughed. I gotta make the rounds, he said. You let me know if you need anything. I like this party, Helen said. Really? I asked. Why? I haven’t done anything like this since college, she said. I’m not sure that recommends it, I said. Peter Morrison, she said, resting her hand lightly and briefly on my neck, her fingers in the curls of my hair, you are such a buzz kill.

Someone said, Oh my God I was down at the river with Tom he has the biggest dick ever. Someone said, Have you seen Mandy she was supposed to meet us? Someone said, He’s a fucking pervert. Someone said, I left it in my car, maybe. Someone said, They used to date, I guess, but he was more into his Tumblr. Someone said, I worked at the co-op for a while but then they were all, like, we need you to come in an hour earlier and I was all, like, fuck that shit. Someone said, He’s definitely got a problem but I don’t want to say anything because he’d probably just tell me that I do a lot, too, but that’s totally not the point and he knows it. Someone said, Fucking mosquitoes. Someone said, There’s never any food here we should drive down to the gas station who’s coming? Someone said, Who’s Winston Pringle? Someone said, I saw them making out in one of those boxes. Someone said, Last year they lit the whole thing on fire like at Burning Man but I guess maybe it caught someone’s car on fire, too, so this year they’re just doing a regular bonfire. Someone said, This weed sucks have you see Scooty? Someone said, Where the fuck is Mandy? Someone said, I’ve got a job interview there tomorrow but I told them I was going to probably be late or maybe have to miss it and they were all, like, Well, if you miss it you don’t get the job and I just think that’s such bullshit because I have a life, too, you know. Someone said, No, if you wait long enough he’ll definitely show you his dick. Someone said, Does anyone know who that dude is with the hot girl? Someone said, if you can’t find Mandy you should ask Johnny? Someone said, Who’s Johnny. Someone said, He’s just a fucking junkie but he hangs out with Dr. Wilhelm and usually has some stuff. Someone said, Who’s Dr. Wilhelm? Someone said, It’s Pringle. Someone said, Wait, who? Someone said, Yeah, he’s a real pervert, but it’s so cheap it’s worth it. Someone said, Peeeter Moooooorison!

We turned toward the house. Johnny was on the second floor. He appeared to be wearing a bathrobe. He called again across the yard. Come eat yer dinner!

9

The private dining room was in fact just another of the lodge’s guest rooms emptied of beds and nightstands with a rough picnic table in the middle. Pringle didn’t sit at the table, but reclined in a nestlike rattan chair with his various plates and bowls of food balanced on his belly as they arrived and departed. Helen and I sat on one side; Johnny, freshly showered and dressed in a familiar uniform of shorts and a hunting vest, sat across from us. To old friends and new, Pringle said, and raised a plastic cup to us. Here here, said Mandy. Her big dog had stalked around the exterior of the room and then curled into a ball in the corner.

We were eating corn and barbecue on paper plates. Pringle was asking me about the flying saucers. Helen and I described them. Yes, he said, those are most likely emissions from a future iteration of Project Pittsburgh. We have yet to actually make contact with them. We believe that they’re returning to the past in order to complete some necessary task that would otherwise be overlooked, thus dooming the Project to failure. Having achieved our ultimate goal, which is total probabalistic determination, or TPD, they are able to move up and down the time spiral, self-editing their own history. It’s very interesting that you saw them when you did. Typically, they don’t arrive until summer.