Death to Jonathan Doe
an excerpt

Chapter 1

When I woke it was like any other day. Light streamed in from the window to the right of me blinding me temporarily and I groaned rolling over and away from the oppressive daylight completely uninhibited by a curtain or blanket. It took me a few moments to realize I wasn’t where I had laid my head the night before. The initial shock passed quickly, as I was suddenly more concerned with the fact my stomach was tied in knots and aching, the all too familiar urge came about me and I stumbled to the bathroom. When I was finished it really hit me, it looked like I was in some sort of dingy cheap hotel. I left the bathroom and sat on the edge of the bed, taking in my change of location. Where Gracie usually slept was nothing more than a dirty stained mattress with pale ivory sheets, the sheets were covered in a leopard print of stains and holes from cigarette burns. Covering the sheets was a synthetic floral comforter, which stunk of cigarettes and something that smelled sweetly sick and human. There was a single television in the room turned off with a mirror on top of it. The walls were a vaguely yellow color, stained from the tar of thousands upon thousands of cigarettes. In the corner was a single backpack, which was frayed and beaten up and dirty from what appeared to be years of use.
I dug through the contents of the backpack; a shirt, a pair of pants, a blank pad of paper; nothing of interest really. I dug further, into each of the pockets finding nothing more than a couple pens, a safety pin, and then to my shock and horror a set of dirty used needles. I dropped the bag at once and thanked my luck that I wasn’t ruffling through the contents and gotten my hand stabbed. I lay back down on the bed and considered my location. My head and bones and body ached with such a force I had never felt in my life. I dug through my pockets looking for my cell phone or anything that could connect me with Gracie. I wanted answers; I needed to know what had happened to me and where I was. Nothing in my pockets but my wallet, I carefully stood and left the hotel room, not even bothering to lock the door behind me, and I found my way to the little office. Behind the thick Plexiglas and steel bar cage a young man sat, he carried all the melancholy of a man who once had dreams, now resigned to working the front desk of some shit-hole motel in the middle god only knows where. He looked at me and flashed me a look of disdain so sharp it could have cut holes through my cotton undershirt.
“How long have I been staying here?” I asked him, hoping only for answers and nothing more.
“3 days, paid upfront in cash. Speaking of which, checkout is in 30.” I fumbled for my wrist where I usually wore my watch; strangely I was not surprised it was missing. “You planning on being out by then or do you want another night?”
“Nah, I’ll be gone. Is there a payphone?”
“Outside” I left him without saying another word, I’m sure he preferred it that way. I found the payphone with only a small amount of trouble and dialed the number of my home. As I waited for Gracie to answer, I scanned my surroundings. Morning only amplified the dirtiness of the street, and the dredges of society were huddled into small clusters smoking or drinking or doing god only knows what. When Gracie answered me, her voice was like that of an angel.
“Jonathan, please why are you calling me again.” She spoke; her voice was soft and flavored with pain.
“Gracie, I woke up somewhere. I need your help. I think I’m lost, I’m at some sort of hotel.”
“Please stop, why are you doing this to me again, you know you have to leave me alone and this isn’t going to make things better. I told you to just leave me alone.” Her voice was hoarse and dark and it pained me to hear her that way. The sound of her hanging up the phone nearly drove me over the edge, and I rested my head against the payphone. There I was, standing there with no leads as to where I was, and the only thing I knew for sure was something happened between myself and Gracie. My whole body felt empty and ached, every last bone in my body felt like it was falling apart. I reached into my pockets and walked away from the payphone and back toward the room I had slept in the night before. I reclined on the disgusting bed and stared at the splotchy stained ceiling. A certain restlessness flowed through me, and I looked around again, hoping to find something else, anything else that could answer my questions. The backpack now slumped on the floor near the television, a single ashtray on the same counter as the television. I sat up and saw near the ashtray a small green matchbook. I stood and picked up the matchbook and turned it over in my hands. It had a small image of a palm tree and a martini, on the back, a single name and a number, scrawled in my own handwriting.
Sophia, 886-565-3253, fumbling for the matchbook and laying back in bed to better reach the hotel phone I dialed the number, waiting as the ringing and the waiting drove me nearly insane. The woman who answered, her voice thick with a Latin accent sounded friendly, or more than friendly. She had a certain sultry tone to her voice that made me want to curl up in it’s rich tones forever.
“’Allo, come on… Who is this?” She said, and I struggled to speak.
“It’s Jonathan,” I tried hard to sound as if I had meant to place the call and knew who I was speaking to. If she fell for it I couldn’t guess.
“Eh, it’s you. I figured you’d never call me back lover boy,” I didn’t ask where the nickname came from guessing I’d rather not know and once again felt sick to my stomach. “Especially after you getting picked up like that, they find you with anything?”
“I don’t know,” I responded to her truthfully, knowing that lying would only make my predicament worse once I tried for answers from her.
“You don’t know? Man you are one weird ass piece of work.” The words that might have stung in any other instance struck home with a sort of truth that was comforting. It was something I knew and could control. Not to mention her voice was filled with a friendly humor, which kept the sting from finding its mark.
“Meet me out tonight, let’s have dinner.” I said, assuming I’d have better chances of gauging her reactions and the truthfulness of her answers if she was there with me. The truth was, I was lonely, I was craving the interaction of a human who didn’t appear to disdain me.
“I promised Hannah I’d watch the baby, but you can come over and we’ll have dinner here if you want.” Her voice was full of a sweet promise. The knowledge that there was somewhere for me to go tonight filled me with a warmth, she offered me directions to her place which I carefully scribed into the notebook that was in the backpack. I could hear her smiling as we said our goodbyes and I was filled with a new sense of purpose. I grabbed the bag and tucked the matchbox into the front pocket and left out of the front door to the hotel room. The city was warming up and people were coming outside, not the sort of night people you would expect in such a mucky place, but day people. People coming and going to and from work, girls walking and doing errands, children playing, the city was positively alive and it renewed my spirit in a way that was cool and refreshing.
I know what you’re thinking, I was thinking it too. So I did the only thing I could, I went for a long walk. The city was alive all around me and I needed desperately to fill my head with something, anything besides the emptiness and the questions. I spent my day wandering and watching people, mostly I spent my day thinking about what would happen next. This whole situation was so hard to believe. I guess I just wanted to get away from my own thoughts. It’s amazing sometimes how fast we as humans can adapt to new problems and how fast we can get so overwhelmed that we just want to escape. As I walked the street that was all I felt, overwhelmed with the world and the absurdity of my situation. How often does anyone wake up far away from home with no idea of how they got there and god only knows how long I’ve been gone. Had I been drugged? What happened to me?
Somewhere around nightfall I headed over to where Sophia was staying, she told me it was her sister’s house. The house was a two story dilapidated structure in between hundreds like it with less than a foot of front yard area and certainly less than that for a back yard. It had a quaint little porch with a screen covering it. There were holes punched in the screen in odd areas, rips and tears from the abuse of children and age and abuse. The house was covered in wood paneling so old it was falling apart and the wood was chipping off every which way. The evening was bringing a wind that bit at my cheeks and nose. As I approached the screen through the front chain link gate Sophia met me. She smiled and waved to me, her long curly hair in a messy ponytail, she obviously didn’t dress up to meet me which was fine with me because I really hadn’t considered dressing all day.
“What took you so long?” She called from the porch as I approached. All I could do was smile, the familiarity was a comfort.
“I went for a walk, you know getting around.” I said to her, as I got closer to the door.
“You’re a mess you know that lover boy?”
“You have a lot of room to talk.” I’m not sure why I said that at first, I didn’t know this woman, but her familiarity with me inspired friendly conversation and the words flowed so easily. The first thing I noticed about this woman was she never stopped smiling.
“Get inside, it’s getting cold out and you’ll catch your death.” I nodded as I walked into the little kitchen. It was small and cramped, but it had the warmth and the fine patina of ages of loving use, of family dinners. She casually walked into the living room where a little blonde boy sat playing with blocks. His fine blonde hair was combed over in soft curls; he couldn’t have been more than five years old. “I watch Danny when Hannah’s working; I’ve been doing it forever.” I didn’t ask where Hannah worked because there were few places a woman could work in this part of town late night and most of them weren’t exactly classy places.
“You live here with your sister?”
“Yeah, Hannah lives here too actually.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever told me where you worked.”
“Don’t be stupid, you met me at work.” She said pulling a small wooden box from beside the couch, she didn’t seem annoyed. Like this was some sort of joke we had.
“Can I be honest with you?” I asked her, I felt I knew the way she would answer; I was just worried she wouldn’t believe me.
“Sure lover boy, you can.”
“I don’t actually remember you at all, I woke up this morning in a hotel room, I have no idea where I am or how I got here. The last thing I remember was kissing my baby goodnight after changing her and going to bed with my wife Gracie. I called you because I needed answers; my wife seemed upset with me when I called, as if something happened while I was gone.” I looked at her nervously waiting for a reaction from her, she ruffled through the wooden box and pulled out a marijuana joint and smiled.
“Lover Boy, sometimes I wonder if that shit you’re taking is rotting your brain; you should stick with the light stuff Eh?” I groaned, it wasn’t an answer, it just lead to more questions. She sat on the plaid sofa and motioned me toward a nearby chair. As she fumbled for a lighter she said to me “Lover boy, your wife left you 4 years ago, when you got busted for doing smack on the job. You met me while I was working at the coffee shop; we started talking because I was the girlfriend of your dealer.”

Chapter 2

I didn’t know what to say, at first I was taken a bit back by her dirty sort of honesty. Then I was confused because I’ve never once even smoked a cigarette, let alone ever consider shooting up heroin at work. She lit the joint and took a long drag, her lips staining the end of the joint with her rouge lip color. I sat back, to say I was frustrated was an understatement. I looked left and right, I sighed. I stood up. She acted as if she didn’t even notice me, Danny did too, which was a real shot to my ego.
“Wait, I what?”
“What do you mean?” She asked me, she shot me a genuinely confused look. As if this was just another of our games to her.
“I think you might have me mistaken for someone else. I’ve never even gotten a parking ticket. I was next in line for a promotion. I had just married Grace.”
“Graciella is such a pretty name, don’t you think?” As she spoke a think cloud of smoke erupted from her lips. I was at once repulsed and furious, I was outraged she wouldn’t take this seriously.
“Jesus Christ this is my life! This is my lively hood. My wife was everything; how the fuck did you know her name?” I was nearly shouting and it was starting to obviously upset the kid who was no longer interested in playing with blocks.
“LANGUAGE IN FRONT OF DANNY.” She shouted scolding me.
“Oh for fucks sake you’re smoking pot in front of him how could that be any fucking better.” She sighed hard, desperately trying to keep her anger in check. I knew deep down I was doing wrong, this woman was nice enough to take me into her home and answer my questions, but I couldn’t keep my anger in check at all.
“The difference is,” she said keeping her voice cool and measured and calm, “Danny doesn’t know that this is any different than a regular cigarette, he knows what naughty words are.” We sat there silent for a long time; I knew I had done something wrong but I wasn’t about to apologize. “I don’t know why you’re freaking out today, I just wish you wouldn’t ruin Hannah’s child like you were trying to ruin your own.”
I just stared at her, my eyes huge and owlish, she met my gaze with a stern look, which quickly softened as she realized. I choked hard.
“Oh god, you don’t know. Honey, after you and your wife divorced, you were allowed partial custody. I only know what you told me but you left your needles out while she was there and she nearly overdosed. You lost visiting rights a long time ago.” I choked again. Somewhere somehow I was missing years of my life and worse yet I tried to kill my own daughter. This was so hard to believe, this whole situation was so alien to me. I needed to get out, I needed to walk. I needed to black out and leave the world and go back to my old life.

Chapter 3

As I waited at my desk, watching the cameras as I had been instructed to, I nearly felt sorry for the man I was watching. I couldn’t understand where he was coming from, but having your entire life taken away from you and replaced with something alien and foreign wasn’t what I generally considered a good way to start a new day. A knock came at the door behind me,
“Come in!” I yelled still staring at the grainy image of the man and pretty woman sitting on the couch. The door clicked behind me and a deep voice that I recognized as my supervisors asked of me
“How is he coming along?”
“He found the girl, so he’s following cues. From what the motel manager said he knows about how long he’s been staying there but he’s just now finding out how ‘long’ he’s been out of it.”
“Is he falling into place?”
“He doesn’t have much of a choice does he?”
“Good point, has he tried calling his wife?”
“Yeah, the decoy worked without a hitch. He completely believed it.”
“Make sure there is no way he can catch a cab or a bus home, we have to make this a permanent plant.”
“All covered anything else?”
“Just keep him quiet, bring in some more actors for more accuracy. We budgeted for them in any case. How is Rosa doing?”
“She’s a genius; he’s eating out of her hand. We’ve advised that he should stay at her place tonight.”
“Good, get people into the houses next door while he’s sleeping. It’ll be too quiet in that neighborhood considering those houses are all empty. It’ll blow cover. The last thing we need is him getting suspicious like the last plant.”
“Consider it done. Do we still have the book of actors? Should I just pick up one of the on call books?”
“Use the on call book for tonight but audition and brief in the morning. I don’t think he’ll notice if the faces change if they’re only there for a day. Also call in the props people. From where I’m sitting these yards are too empty, get in children’s toys and laundry first thing.”
“Yes sir.”
With that he left me to the video monitors, stacked like some sort of skyscraper showing angles of all the immediate area. Some of them switching to locations we would soon be using so I could monitor set up. I fumbled with the dial at my fingertips to listen to each of the channels as the man and woman walked into the woman’s kitchen; I sat in silence listening to every last word of the conversation. I couldn’t help to feel awful for this man, but the pay was so good on this government project that it shut up the concerns of everyone involved. I typed the shortcut to print out the daily stats for the lab rats who were watching this. That was what this project started as, some sort of twisted science project to figure out how much a human could take. How quickly we could adapt to a total change in environment. I chewed the pen in front of me and watched as the woman poured the man a cup of coffee. I touched the intercom button and called for the actress playing Sophia’s sister.
“2 minutes to show time, I sure as hell hope you’re ready.” I got no answer; she must have been on set. I fiddled from one dial to the next and then I saw her, getting her hair set, the artificial sweat sprayed on and putting the finishing touches on her work outfit. The sheer scale of a project this big was overwhelming. Thankfully I was just doing the general coordinating and keeping with the preprogrammed set of events. I looked back at the clock, only two more hours until my shift was over. I looked back to the monitors. He was drinking the coffee, I chewed my nails. Jesus I needed to find a new line of work. Even though to me he was just a little grainy image on a screen, I could feel for him. His pain wasn’t wholly alien to me, even though it was exponentially more extreme than anything I’d ever felt.

Chapter 4

Surprisingly it only took four cups of fresh hot coffee to calm me down enough to talk like an intelligent human being. Sophia might as well have been my guardian angel because she soothed my spirit in such a way that even in the heat of turmoil I found peace in her sister’s home. It was then that her sister arrived home, as I heard someone walking up the steps to the house. I glanced at the clock, 9:00 pm. When Sophia’s sister entered the house, the first thing I could think was, she looks so little like her sister. It seems strange I know, but I’ve never met two sisters who looked so little alike.
Her sister was also Latina but heavier set and stocky in build, while Sophia was almost dangerously skinny. Her sisters hair was pin straight and pulled into a loose bun on the top of her head. The hotel mandated uniform was ill fitting on her frame; her face was rather bland as well, with a wide nose and big bright eyes. Sophia had a small very well defined nose, with her eyes set closer together. I didn’t say anything for fear of offending the two, who knows they might have been half sisters with different fathers. As I sat here contemplating who their fathers might be Sophia poured her sister a cup of coffee.
“How ya’ doin’ sugar, Keeping in trouble I’m sure.” She said, her voice was much deeper than Sophia’s as well. She felt more like the Latina mother I never had.
“I’ve been better.” I said truthfully, Sophia stared at her hands; she appeared to be deep in thought.
“Bella, I need to talk to you upstairs, Johnny mind watching Danny while I’m away?” I shook my head and she took the hand of her sister, and they walked upstairs. I wandered back into the living room and sat on the ratty couch and watched silently as Danny fiddled with the blocks. It occurred to me, it had to be way past this kids bedtime. Danny was playing so quietly, and I sat there, trying to imagine what his mother must look like by quietly rearraging his facial features in my mind. It never really occurred to me as I was working this out in my head that the kid probably had a father too, and I needed to subtract out the fathers possible features. I think it was about when I began way over thinking how this kid looks that Sophia came down the stairs and picked him up.
“Bedtime for you squirt.” She said poking him in the stomach and causing him to giggle. I didn’t follow her upstairs, preferring to sit on the couch lost in thought and wait for her return. When she returned downstairs her sister was with her. She sat on a chair near the television and her sister sat near me on the couch. We sat there for a long moment while Sophia rolled another joint and her sister smoked a cigarette. I sat there chewing my nail and waiting for someone to break the tension that the women didn’t even seem to notice was there.
When Sophia finished rolling and lighting her joint her sister finally looked at me and said “What you’re not going to take another one of your ‘bathroom breaks’?” She chuckled at what I supposed must have been a joke that I just didn’t get.
Sophia shot a look at her sister and I interjected “No thanks I don’t have to go.”
“I thought you addicts always had to do your thing,” Isabella mused.
“Isabella enough”
“That’d be one thing if I was an addict, lucky for me I’m not.” Isabella didn’t even respond, she just laughed a laugh that came deep from within her and rolled over her; finally she looked up to Sophia who was now smoking her joint but still obviously annoyed.
“You hear that sissy? Not an addict. Boy you couldn’t go a full day without hitting the smack. I’ve seen you try.” She laughed her laugh again and crushed the butt of her cigarette on the ashtray on the coffee table in front of us.
“Sophia, mind talking to me in the kitchen real quick?” I motioned for her to join me by standing and working my way toward the kitchen, she stood and followed taking the joint with her.
“Do you mind me crashing here for the night? I don’t know how long my money will last and I don’t want to spend it on the motel room.” She smiled and touched my hand.
“Even if you don’t remember me saying this, but when you saved my life you earned a place on my couch for as long as you’ll ever need it.”
“Saved your life?” I asked, somehow I knew she wouldn’t answer me, not now anyway.
“When Angel got angry at me that time you were coming over. He always got angry too easy when he was messed up. He was threatening me with that gun he was too fond of. You took it from him but the trigger got pulled. It nearly disabled him, but don’t worry he doesn’t hate you for it. It got him clean.” Well color me surprised, I just wasn’t expecting her to be so open, especially considering the circumstances. I took the opportunity though and when Isabella trudged upstairs to her bedroom and Sophia went to hers I curled up on that stained plaid sofa, praying internally that if I woke up somewhere else tomorrow that it would be the place I wanted to be most right now, with my wife and daughter, happy and safe.

Chapter 5

I trudged to the room where I had been assigned for this acting gig. 20,000 a week for 24 hours on call wasn’t bad, especially for some sort of newfangled TV reality show. I was sketchy on the details of it but from what I heard it would be all secretly recorded and the idea was they switch out a guys life with the life of someone far below them in society. This would be a good break for me anyway, playing a woman living far below the poverty line with three other women and a small child, when I had come from a fairly affluent family. This was a chance to prove my acting chops, especially over long term stressful situations with a good mix of improv. I lay in the fairly comfortable bed provided for me and read a cosmopolitan off the nightstand, but I couldn’t really easily get my mind off the man, the only real person in this mixed up affair.
There was something about him that shook me to the core, well maybe it wasn’t something about him so much as it was something about the situation he was forced into, losing my family like that is far too scary for me to imagine, and what a fucked up show this would be in any case, who wanted to watch a man find out his daughter was nearly killed by him only to find out it was all a fiction in the end. Some fucked up ass middle Americans I guess. I sighed and set the Cosmopolitan back on the table and grabbed the folder from under the mattress that kept the notes for the entire scripted back history of my character. I read until my eyes hurt and I was forced to sleep, making sure to carefully slip the folder back under the mattress in the case I got an early morning visit from our Jonathan Doe.
When I awoke, I heard a stirring downstairs, I supposed he hadn’t the nerve to come upstairs yet, or the lady playing Hannah was making breakfast, either way I was hungry and in need of makeup. I sat for a long moment considering the choice in front of me, I was ordered to call the lab rats at midnight and receive a new list of stressors, and then I was to call the ground team for the implementation process before he woke up naturally. I’ve spent so long taking orders for this job, but something was chewing at me this time, of course we had run micro runs of this test innumerous times before, certainly not one to this scale. We dug and pried into peoples lives until we felt we could determine just how much a human could take. Every second of his little pseudo life in that room, it was controlled, even down to the temperature. I chewed on my nails, I knew most likely for the second night he would get the full nights sleep, and the stressors would probably be no more than meeting more people who would elaborate on all the fictional events we had written for him.
The actors were told this would be a reality series, it was best they didn’t know the true nature of this experiment, these were all struggling actors in any case, too stupid to read a confidentiality agreement or even know exactly what it was we were doing, it was in plain text in their fucking booklets. I tried hard to not get angry, but my blood boiled in any case; deep down I knew it was time for me to take my leave. This anger, the frustration was just the first sign of burnout. I could just take my mandated burnout leave and come back later in the experiment. I wouldn’t ever take that leave; the person who would inevitably replace me would see this man, this life as nothing more than a grainy image on a screen, and a static-y voice. I was so deep in thought I nearly missed the vibration coming from my cell phone. I picked it up and looked at the listing, and suddenly felt my stomach lurch. It was the lab, and I was late.

When I awoke on that little couch it was still dark outside, inside a single light streamed in from the kitchen behind me, the light hadn’t woken me it was a sound. At first I couldn’t discern the sound but then, when it came again it was easier to identify, it was the loud clop, clop, clop of a woman’s heels. I rubbed my eyes and slowly sat up to get a better look behind me. I rubbed my eyes again and groaned, lying back down on the bed instead of investigating. The clopping came closer, but still kept its soft rhythm, like a heartbeat. It stopped just in front of my face; I opened one eye, and glanced up in the dark at the person standing in front of me.
She might have been beautiful, I couldn’t tell. The first thing I noticed about this woman was the clothing she chose, or lack of clothing rather. She wore pink lacy lingerie, or what could have passed for lingerie, it might have just been a skirt and bra thing to her. It didn’t really matter; her heels were bright white, made of some sort of PVC and polished to a shine. She wasn’t a street walker, even though she carried the smell of booze and sweat with her. Her heels told a different story, the polish lead me to believe she did little more than dance on a stage and walk to her car in them. Her hair was still nearly immaculate as well. It fell in thick blonde waves and curls over he shoulders, and I assumed under normal circumstances and in plain clothes, I might have found her attractive.
“Oh Johnny what ah’ you doing ‘ere?” She said, a smile forming on her face as she recognized me.
“I was sleeping.”
“That so?”
“Yeah, mind if I get back to it?”
“I thought you never slept.”
“What would give you that idea?” I was getting sick of the banter and really honestly just wanted to go back to sleep.
“You know, all those times we stayed here up until the early hours tweaking out and talking about shit.” She said and promptly sat on my legs. Annoyed with this result I took the hint and sat up and she pulled from her tiny pink PVC bag another more sinister bag filled with a fine white powder. “You don’t mind if I powder my nose do you?”
“No, go ahead.” Well that explained the never wanting to sleep. I felt at first annoyed that she woke me from such a fine slumber to watch her snorting, then incredibly sad. One addiction generally leads with ease into another and I knew it wouldn’t be long before her hunger would get her in trouble and she wouldn’t be on a stage anymore.
She carefully pulled a mirror from under the couch; on it sat a razor blade and a fine white residue. She poured a small amount from the bag onto the mirror and then ever so carefully cut it into tiny white lines, which she carefully separated until she was satisfied with their length and the space between them. She very carefully plugged her nose and snorted the first line, then the second, then the third. Powder clung to her nose which she gently wiped away and licked from her finger. Up until this point she wasn’t repulsive to me, she just had a sad sort of beauty and mourned the fact it would eventually melt away. Then she did something that at once repulsed me and killed any attraction toward her left. She licked the mirror, she licked the white residue clean from the mirrors surface and then from the razor blade itself.
She smiled with a sort of innocence that seemed wrong for the act she had just committed. It was possible I was over thinking things I suppose; I mean who am I to judge her when supposedly I’ve spent the last I don’t know how many years as an addict. None of this fucking sat well with me, the fact nobody ever used my fucking name, they called me Johnny, or lover boy; I don’t even like being called Johnny why would I ever tell her to call me that? As I stewed I get the feeling she sensed something was wrong. I felt guilty; it wasn’t her fault things were like this. I was just upset at the world and she happened to be the easiest target. She lay her head on my shoulder, even though she smelled of sweat and PVC there was some sort of flowery undertone to her smell, it smelled at first sweet. I didn’t mind her there even though a moment earlier she repulsed me to the core.
I don’t know what I was thinking at that moment, it was such a diluted mixture of feelings, peppered with anger and sadness. No matter that anyone here so far has said, none of this sat right with me at all. There was something so wrong about, it felt like all the answers were at my fingertips, just a well placed question away but I couldn’t begin to think of what to ask. I just needed to be alone to sort things out, I needed to be away from these people of my new life and put the pieces of my old life somewhere even if it wasn’t back where they were before. Until that point I can honestly admit I never once considered the future or what I would do tomorrow or hell a week from now when I’d wear out my welcome and need money.
I think she knew what was on my mind; I say this because she lifted her head wordlessly from my shoulder and whispered in my ear. “You’re going to be okay.” I can’t say why it was so comforting to hear that from a stripper who just snorted more cocaine than I’d seen in my entire life, I suppose it could be argued that it was comforting to hear that from a woman whose life was infinitesimally more fucked up than mine, especially considering I was a half step in front of her knowing that my life was fucked up and actively trying to change that fact; but that wasn’t the case. It was just hearing a woman who knew that I was in turmoil, everyone I’ve spoken to since yesterday didn’t seem to grasp the boiling sea of problems rising and falling below the surface. Something changed in me then. Though I had only just met this woman and went from finding her sadly beautiful, to repulsive in less time than it takes most people to fully wake up in the morning, I settled on a middle ground with her. She was a lot like me deep down, a sad survivor on the verge of order and chaos.

Chapter 6
I huddled as close to this stranger as he’d permit. I knew he’d take no action against me but I could feel him seething below the surface and I’ve known far too many men who were far too quick to anger to be completely comfortable. I mustered up a look as close to sympathy as I could get and nailed my next line.
“So tell me about Meagan, you’ve mentioned Gracie to me, but never Meagan.” He looked at me with a mixed look of shock and then immediate sadness. He took a while to speak, and while he considered his words, or worked over the memory of his infant daughter, I considered the roles that would be offered to me next. Lines like that never ended up on the cutting room floor, that’s for sure. I’d be remembered as the femme fatal who touched his heartstrings early and brought out the best in him. I would be overshadowed by his role to the public at large at first but then silently as those in the business saw my careful acting, and the way I looked oh so sincere, or the way I tackled the role of addict they’d be calling me all night fumbling over themselves to get me in for an audition.
I considered what I would say to my acting coach who, less than a year ago said I wasn’t fluid and that I never felt the character or some stupid shit like that. She’d eat her words when I was the leading actress in every blockbuster from her to the last millennia. I was so wrapped up with what I was thinking that it took me by surprise when he actually started talking. The pain was so fresh in his voice, so brutal that it brought me back the scene.
“Megan was born September 23, 2007 at 9:53 am. I remember the hospital, and Gracie crying begging me to make sure her baby was ok. Gracie suffered from frequent nightmares and they were at I believe their worst right before Meagan was born. Gracie had the normal dreams, mostly dreams of monster babies. The night before we went to the hospital to have her induced though, she dreamt she was giving birth and a shadow man came and took her baby from her,” he pause and laughed, some memory giving him joy still. “When she had the dream she told me it was a black man, I remember telling her that I didn’t think it would be fair if we segregated the hospital just to keep her fears at bay. She punched me hard and assured me that’s not what she had meant.
When I first held Meagan I was so sure she was an angel. There was no way she could be anything else in my eyes. Her beautiful hair, her smile, it seemed like it was impossible that Gracie and I could have possibly created something so fragile and perfect. I know every parent says that and I’m sure you felt the same way about Danny, but honestly it shook me to the core. I wanted to be that girls everything. Protect her from any harm that could ever wish to befall her and guide her along the twists and turns of life.” I sat and watched him; he struggled with the last few words, and then crumbled into a sloppy mess of sobs. I tried my best to hold the composed look of sympathy, painfully aware of the camera poised, but hidden well in the room. The contact I had given him before felt like too much when he was in such a fragile state, so I instead gently touched his shoulder and rubbed it, trying hard to comfort someone I’d never met as if I’d been their friend for years. “Tell me about when we met something to get my mind of Gracie and Meagan.”
This was a question I had been dreading, I wasn’t given a story about this one, I was told a good actress could improvise. Shit, I had to think of something fast.
“Well…” I stammered, “We met through Sophia, I was living here with her the first time you came by with her. I was getting ready for work and we talked, yeah. That’s about it really.” I blew it, the lines were shit.

When I heard that I nearly fell out of my chair, I saved the fall and spilled expensive corporate coffee on my slacks.
“Shit, oh she fucking didn’t forget… Tell me I didn’t just hear that,” I stared at the monitor not stopping the stream of curses toward the female figure on the tiny screen. I fumbled for my cell phone adjusting the volume of the monitor with a dial at my fingers so I could still hear the events unfolding in the room as I hastily dialed the person responsible for Hannah’s character. As it rang I heard him reply to her
“Oh. Yeah.” Fuck we were screwed, he wasn’t buying this shit coming out of her mouth I could hear it in his voice. The phone rang and clicked to voicemail. I dialed the number of the supervisor and listened as ‘Hannah’ fumbled out a slightly more elaborate story, obviously having taken more time to think it out. We were all hinging on her not fucking this up more than she already had.
“Ellen, I’m sure you know what time it is. This better be an emergency.” Doctor Yohaus answered; I could hear his wife in the background and knew this would be the last night he slept well.
“The fourth wall has been broken.” The line suddenly went dead. I expected as much, we had spoken at length about the potential problems and in the case of a slip, anything that would tip him off that this wasn’t real or that he was being watched. We called that a fourth wall slip and it was considered next to him dying the most serious issue we could possibly face in this exercise. He was on his way in any case.
Our man was up from the couch, now standing in the kitchen sans Hannah and drinking a cup of coffee. This girl messed up and bad, she was sitting on the couch staring at the ceiling, if she played this off well she might be able to get off saying she was fucked up, if she continued the less than deep conversation. Wherever she got off on asking about the guys kids I don’t fucking know but it was out of her scripting, she was supposed to introduce herself, maybe sit with him for a bit. Expose him to more of the drug life and then after a little banter go off somewhere. The original plan was for her to get a cell phone call that required her presence, but the call never came, mostly because she got him talking about things those lab rats wanted to hear.
Then, like a lightning bolt it hit me, she was buying airtime. By introducing deep topics she was cutting herself out a bigger slot of what she felt was potential airtime. I wrote down on the legal pad to let all of our future actors and actresses know that if anything of the sort happens again they would be fired and as per their contract. Not paid. Nothing hurt a starving artist more than work without pay and I was sure in this case that it would be enough to curb any more breaks in the wall. I checked the clock on the wall behind me, it would take Dr. Yohaus another 15 minutes at least to reach the office and another five to climb the flight of stairs, I cued the actresses’ phone call and she took her out. Thank god we wouldn’t have anymore similar slipups tonight.

When I poured the hot dark liquid into the coffee cup in front of me I could feel something in my head coming together. Something clicking together, it was something in her answer. I could see it in her eyes, she was calculating, whether she was trying so hard to think of what to say because she was high or because she didn’t know I wasn’t sure, but there was one thing I was sure of. Hannah wasn’t all she seemed. The knowledge of this made me disgusted with myself and her. Myself for spilling my heart out about Meagan and her, well for a reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I chewed on my finger, as I sometimes do when I’m deep in thought Something told me to go talk to Sophia and ask her how Hannah and I met.
I was completely silent as I walked upstairs and as I walked listening from door to door, trying to keep from waking the wrong person. I hadn’t heard the outside door open again since Hannah took that phone call and I was relieved I would get to do this questioning on my own. I listened and in one room, I heard the loud deep snores of a woman peacefully asleep, and in another I heard the soft breathing, what sounded like a single child off to the far side of the room. When I approached the first room I was greeted with light snoring, and something else, a sort of wheezing. It was hard for me to describe at first, but as I opened the door it was easier for me to understand. Sophia was laying in her bed, a comfortable looking if not somewhat plain bed, off in the the far corner of the room with a small CD player sitting on the nightstand playing the sounds of the ocean.
I ever so carefully tiptoed my way into her room, being sure to fully shut the door behind me. Gently I nudged her, not prepared for how quickly she’d wake, or how violently.
“Jesus!” She exclaimed fully out of breath, I was as well, more because she punched me directly in the ribcage. “Johnny you can’t just sneak up on people. Jesus mio you scared the shit out of me.”
“I couldn’t sleep; I just needed to ask you something to put my mind at ease.”
“Go ahead,” she said, rubbing the sleepiness out of her eyes.
“How did Hannah and I meet?”
“What a weird question to wake a girl up with Jesus. You took Hannah home one night from the club she was working at, liked her so much you talked us into letting her move in.” I cursed under my breath. I knew she was lying to me, but why lie about how we met. Especially if she still thought I knew. There would have been no way for her to possibly know I didn’t remember her.

Chapter 7
I grabbed what was left of my Macchiato that I picked up from an only vaguely friendly coffee chain and chucked it hard against the garbage can. That could have been the fucking end of the operation, and my job. One fucking day in and it fucked up already. The doctor walked in to the room and asked
“How bad is it?”
“Okay imagine as awful as it possibly could have been but still fixable with a lot of work right? Then our friend goes and investigates and makes it so we’re fucking stuck.” I elaborated the entire story out to him and he sat in silence for a long time. I expected as much, he wasn’t the head of this operation and as such, his ass was just as much on the line as mine was.
“This is what we’re going to do. We report a possible fourth wall break to the lab rats cease stressors until we hear from them. We may have to make Hannah disappear, victim of a drug overdose or something. It’ll give credibility to the idea she was just so fucked up she didn’t remember. We have to be extra tight here, no more leaks. Normally there is a margin for error but we basically just used it up. Anymore and he’ll catch on and that’s bad for all of us.”

I left Sophia to sleep, without telling her of my suspicions. The nagging feeling became all encompassing and it ate at me from the inside, driving me crazy. Even though my suspicions were mostly confirmed I was still left with a puzzle with only a single piece. I gulped from the coffee and felt it burn my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I took another gulp this time holding it in my mouth so lost in thought I was hardly aware of my surroundings. At least until I heard the first gunshot, and saw the second one rip through the screen and shatter the glass window landing somewhere to my right in the wall. My gut reaction was to hide and I did, I ran from the kitchen into the hallway and waited. It was completely silent; all I could hear was the blood pumping in my ears and then, the tapping of multiple feet from the upstairs. I bolted back outside and there lying on the pavement of the front walk was Hannah, blood was leaking from her pretty pink lingerie on to the pavement lit by the street lights. Who ever shot her hadn’t stayed to say hello.
I approached Hannah who was lying on the pavement, her face still staring at the street. When I reached her it was clear she was gone, her eyes were empty and lifeless. Subconsciously I knew, this was a very important piece of the puzzle, that her death should have been some sort of sign. I lacked the second sight or even an idea of what that sign could have been I was stuck there, staring at her still clutching her cell phone though there was no call in progress. I gingerly picked the phone from her hand, and dialed 9-1-1.
When the police arrived I was no longer sitting outside, I was inside the living room holding and comforting Sophia who was sobbing uncontrollably. Her body shivered with each sob and I felt each tear soaking into my shirt. Slowly she was recovering and able to present her self but she was still in shock and rightfully so. Hannah and Sophia had been close, though the extent of their friendship had been mostly alien to me, I didn’t know how I felt; I suppose I was worried that the same thing would happen to another of these people kind enough to take me into their homes and their lives when I needed people most.
The police meant well enough, the detective I spoke to put me at ease when he said he had leads already and he wasn’t as concerned with things like this happening in the neighborhood. He took my name and the names of those in the house and told me he would need an official statement in the morning related to her death. The detective put me at ease, it might have been the way he held himself or the way he helped even Sophia, who was still a wreck. There was something in his eyes, even Danny who I’m still not sure was even aware of the events unfolding around him really took to the officer. When he had left and the crime scene people were outside we were ushered inside where all we could do was sit and consider who was missing and what happens now. Sophia was silent and Rosa sat very still watching Danny who had chosen to take a nap on the shag carpeting of the living room. It was a long time before anyone said anything and so I did the only thing I could do I looked at Hannah’s phone.
The last dialed number was the number of Angel Valez, I didn’t know who it was but I had a feeling Sophia did. I looked at her for a moment and asked,
“Who is Angel?”
“He’s my ex-husband, why?” She asked snot still thick in her nose.
“Why would he have been the last person she called?”
“What do you mean?”
“I took her phone before the police came, why would Angel be the last number she spoke to?”
“He was her dealer; I would assume it’s over that.”
“That doesn’t make sense; dealers don’t kill the people they make money off of. That’s bad business sense at the least.” She didn’t laugh at my weak attempt at a joke. At a time like this I wouldn’t have either, and so it was again, we all sat there in total silence not even looking at each other still deep in thought or tears. It just didn’t make sense to me, but I think speaking to Angel might make things a bit clearer for me. Luckily as Sophia said we were still on good terms. As I sat there nothing became any clearer to me, in fact the waters were now muddled with the emotions of those around me, and the only thing that was immediately apparent was the lack of sleep I was suffering from.
I stood up from the couch and walked out into the kitchen, no amount of coffee was doing anything for me, and it was just causing my stomach to overflow with acid. I sighed and washed my dirty cup in the sink and looked at the bullet hole lodged in the wall beside the cabinet. It was small and dirty, I found it hard to believe something so insignificant could have taken the life of a girl who I had just met less than an hour before. I tried to remember her, as she was just before she died. Her long curly blonde hair falling like that of an angel, the tiny perky pink lingerie fitting her body so closely and snugly it could have been made for her body alone. I stopped, I knew what I was doing, I had been told at one point we were lovers and I was removing the bad from the equation. The dirty truth was, she was a stripper on a slippery slope, a woman who would have ended up this way eventually, and it was the only possible way she could have gone. Thinking of it that way made me less sad somehow and cleared my mind a bit. My gut told me there was more to her death than some sort of botched drug deal and I kept it in the back of my mind, my gut also told me that if I wanted answers Angel should be the first person I go to.

Chapter 8
My eyes were closed when I heard the gunshot through the speakers of my ear bud. At first I wasn’t sure what it was I was hearing exactly. Everything so far had been scheduled down to the second, and checked and rechecked and then it would come through to my desk where I would coordinate and report back to start the procedure all over again. That’s why I was so unprepared when I heard the gunshot, and when I saw ‘Hannah’ or Elizabeth’s body crumpled to the ground on the tiny monitor I nearly didn’t believe it. I did a double take. Then I called Harry on my cell switching my concentration to the ear bud in my other ear.
“Hello?” A voice came from the receiver, it was Harry.
“Elizabeth was just killed, care to explain.”
“The higher ups thought it was necessary to draw attention from the wall break this afternoon. It’s none of your concern.”
“This’ll just bring more attention to the break; he’s going to get suspicious. You can’t just kill off people.”
“That’s what you think sweetheart.” With that the line disconnected. This wasn’t right, none of this was right. I looked back to the screen to the people sitting there all of them saddened by the loss of a girl they knew even if only briefly. This wasn’t right, who would be next? It finally really hit me that if this experiment wasn’t a success they might actually kill our Jonathan Doe.
Something clicked at that second and I knew, no matter how stupid of an idea it was, I had to stop the experiment and get Jonathan Doe somewhere safe, without alerting anyone to the change. The idea of this sort of undertaking was terrifying but I knew it was absolutely necessary to change, no save that mans life. No matter what I knew deep down even if the operation went well from here on out every last person participating would die to keep this thing silent. I felt I knew where I could begin, I could have never planned it but thankfully he took Elizabeth’s phone with him.
I examined the room trying to figure out how I could manage to do all of this covertly. The room was large but had a very simple layout, when you entered the door directly in front of you was a very large wall of monitors and the ones at the top were gently tilted so it was easy to view many of them simultaneously. In front of the wall of monitors was a single metal and wood desk with a single keyboard perched on it. The desk itself was filled with paperwork and quite a few files were scattered on top of it. There were multiple dials and a numeric pad around the keyboard, for changing volumes and channels.
There were various file cabinets around the room and a couch I had placed behind her for when I found myself sick of sitting in the leather office chair. The wall facing away from the monitors was blank and the only window in the room was the left wall which was covered in floor to ceiling windows. It would be easy for me to hide in here and block off the door for as long as I needed. I considered the heft of the couch and examined the file cabinets for bolts, everything would be freely movable and I was fairly sure in a pinch I could push the cabinet in front of the door to buy myself more time if I needed.
I sat back at the desk after locking the wooden door. Unless I called for assistance I shouldn’t be bothered. I brought up the monitors to see Jonathan and Sophia standing out in the tiny backyard of the house embraced. I turned the dial to their channel and turned the volume way up because they were speaking in whispers.
“Something really wrong is going on here. I don’t think Hannah’s death and her telling me the wrong story is a coincidence. I’m worried it might happen to someone else if we don’t figure out what happened.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about Jonathan. I don’t know if we should be discussing this.” I knew she meant this as a way to keep in character and secure herself for falling into the same fate.
“I know you know what I mean, call me crazy but I have a gut feeling about all this, and I can read it in your eyes you know more than you’re letting on.” I can’t say I wasn’t proud of him, all I’d need to do is push him in the right direction and he’d figure it out all on his own, or so I hoped. I sat back and considered my next move. I looked to the cell phone and dialed the number marked Hannah.

Sophia drew away with me in shock as Hannah’s phone rang. I stepped back and looked at the screen to try and determine who it was before answering.
“Hello?”
“Jonathan, you don’t know me, but please just listen to me. Hannah’s death wasn’t a coincidence. Sophia knows more than she’s saying and you’re wife and daughter are fine and very worried about you. Don’t bother trying to call them because you’ll just talk to one of the people holding you here in this city. Don’t try to leave. Act as normally as possible until I can help.” With that the line went dead.
“Sophia we need to talk and we need to talk now, and somewhere quiet.” I motioned toward the door, she stared at me her eyes huge and owlish. “Please Sophia, I don’t want anything like what happened this evening to happen again and we need to find a way to stop it.” She looked at the ground for a long moment. The fear still showing in her face when she looked up at me,
“My bedroom,” her voice was nearly a whisper. She turned away from me and stroked her arms. I could see her silhouette shaking slightly as if chilled by the warm summer night air. I knew it was the fear of what I was asking her to do, but it’s what I didn’t know that scared me.
We climbed the flight of stairs and crept into her bedroom trying hard not to alert anyone to our presence. When we reached her bedroom we shut the door and sat on the far side of the room, far from any doors or windows where peepers might chose to lurk and hear more than we wanted. I calmly told her what the message had said.
“Now I need to know what you’re not telling me,” I said as calmly as I could manage. She still sat there quite silent and looked up at me.
“When I was hired on to this project I was told it was just some silly new idea for a reality show, like a spin off on that one where they trick him into coming into a house and believing actors are his friends and whatever. Hannah and I were hired on the same day, we thought this would be fun, either way they were very interested in us to play the two lead female roles. They had us participate in an intensive character camp. Hannah never took it very seriously. They had us sign these huge contracts, I suppose I didn’t take it seriously enough either, considering now she’s dead. I looked; she was the real kind of dead, not a prop.” With that Sophia crumpled into tears, it was so much for me to consider. This seemed impossible and I had a sneaking suspicion this has nothing to do with some sort of production crew or some new reality show.
I held her in silence as she cried and I considered my options and what I could possibly do now. I felt like since it had been the first sane and logical thing I’d heard all day I would listen to the message and sit tight until I could get more help, or an idea of what I could possibly do. Sophia felt so fragile then, I could smell her hair, a lovely mango smell. I couldn’t save Hannah, I know that now. I felt at that moment like I was in the calm before the storm and I knew I could save this woman if I was smart and acted with the calm it would take to do it properly. We ended up sleeping there, huddled together waiting for answers and scared.
When I woke the next morning my mouth was dry and I was alone there in Sophia’s bed. I heard a slight commotion downstairs. I sat up in bed and rubbed some of the sleepiness from my eyes. I thought I heard some sort of singing, coming from the downstairs. I meandered down the stairs and peered into the kitchen, and saw Sophia standing at the stove cooking something that smelled absolutely incredible. Her sister Rosa was working on something at the opposite counter and they were both laughing and singing. As I entered Rosa looked to me and smiled.
“Hey Johnny, come on in. Food’s good for the soul and we got plenty a’ soul here to fill.” I walked to her to see what she was cooking and she kissed me on the cheek. She felt almost like a mother then. She was dicing onions and tomatoes and mixing them with cheese. Sophia was mixing these into the most beautiful omelets I’d ever seen and putting them on plates for us.
“Angel is coming over this morning for breakfast. He should be here in about 30 minutes. Help set the table kiddo.” I grabbed the plates from the shelf above Rosa and set them gently on the kitchen table, adding silverware to each place. I was nearly finished when I heard the knock at the door. I can only assume Rosa let the guest in because when I reached the kitchen a young Latino man was standing there, speaking animatedly with Rosa. He looked at me and when he recognized me he smiled.
“Hey there you, S’happenin?” I smiled back and walked to him embracing him in my best bro hug.
“Not much, you?”
“Man, still in the fireworks.” I didn’t know what that meant per se, but I had a pretty good idea.
“I hear ya.” Something felt so right in that little kitchen this morning. Even though I had really just met these people, they gave me enough of a feeling of unity to soothe my tired soul and comfort me for the test ahead. Sophia plated the last of the Omelets and began shooing everyone into the dining area. We all took seats at the table and Rosa closed her eyes.
“For Hannah,” and she proceeded into what I can only assume is the lords prayer in Latin. I didn’t understand a word of it but Sophia and Angel followed along, muttering the prayer in a much lower voice. When the prayer was finished nobody spoke, we all picked at our omelet and then, I who was quite hungry at that moment dug in to the omelet. I’d like to believe I gave the rest of my companions the strength of spirit to eat how they secretly wanted to because when I looked up again everyone was chowing down.
“God, Sophia this is so good.” I said, trying to start a bit of conversation. She smiled at me, and covered a slice of Omelet with spicy salsa. Angel nodded his head in agreement.
“Princess, you still have your touch.” Angel said with a smile.
“Oh don’t flatter me boys.” She said blushing and chewing her bite. We ate the rest of our breakfast quietly, without any of the apprehension or tension that was thick in the air when we started. After breakfast Sophia volunteered to do the dishes, so Angel and I went outside to chit-chat and stay out of the ladies way. As I left the little house I looked at Sophia one last time, stewing invisible like a virus under the surface of this happy day was fear, and confusion.
Angel and I sat on the little porch steps, he taking longer than I and we watched the quickly brightening sky. My mind wasn’t on the here and now though, my mind wandered to days like this with Graciella. Angel looked at me,
“I can’t believe she’s really gone;” his voice was cracking and hoarse.
“Me either.”
“I loved that woman, when things didn’t work out with Sophia Hannah was there man. We were going to get married.” His voice sounded gruff and in that moment a little like my own. “What was your old lady like?”
I sighed hard and thought about the last time I had seen Gracie, the last moment with Grace that I could remember.

Chapter 10

Grace stood in the door to the hallway, her long blonde locks pulled against her head with a rubber band, a few stray pieces falling here and there on her shoulders. Her arms were folded on her chest, and neither of us spoke for a long time. When she did speak it was little more than a half whimper or a sound from her throat. She walked from the door way to where I was sitting on the bed never once looking at me, just still staring off away from me. I looked at her for a moment and my eyes and throat burned, not with pain, but with a boiling rage.
I stood from the bed and walked to where she had been standing in the doorway, I heard the muffled sounds of her weeping in the background. I didn’t look at her, I just mouthed,
“How could you do this to us, Grace how could you?” Her sniffled muffled weeping became a full blown storm of tears.
“How could I do this to you? You ignorant pig, everything happens for a reason, you never looked to yourself to figure out if this might have had something to do with you?” Her voice was biting; I knew I contributed some to the unhappiness of this marriage and this home. I could hear our daughter Meagan sleeping in the next room, the silence was almost unbearable.
“I know I haven’t been here much over the last few weeks but I’m trying, and generally people don’t go around spreading their legs like a whore for every guy who knocks at the door when their husband has a busy week at work.”
“You weren’t even there for your own daughters birth, who the fuck do you think you’re kidding. You work eighty hour weeks every week for the last year. I’m surprised you even acknowledge your own daughter, considering I’m fairly sure you have no idea what she looks like.” Her voice was nearly hoarse from shouting at me and I just blanked, I don’t really remember what happened next. “
Angel sat there, nodding his head every so often. I knew he had an idea of what I was talking about.
“Yeah man, there were times near the end of me and Sophia’s marriage where things were just tight you know man, they finally just snapped. Thank god she wasn’t hurt but I lost my own leg to the anger.” I nodded; subconsciously I knew exactly what he meant. I could feel those same feelings. I thought about the last time I saw Gracie and how just a couple of days ago it seemed so different in my head. I didn’t dwell on it though; I assumed it was just me feeling crazy. The last few days would have been enough to make any completely sane man feel more than a little insane.
“Hannah man, she was beautiful in a way I thought only angels could be,” he was lost in thought about Hannah again. Though this time it sounded less than platonic, I asked aloud,
“Why poison her then?”
“What are you talking about hombre?” I was losing my temper a bit, and I tried to reel it in. I didn’t want to make a scene where one was un-necessary.
“The coke, all of that shit, that shit, would have killed her eventually.”
“What the fuck are you trying to pin on me fucker, first off you have some nerve when you used to be the worst of those chicken heads; and second she had the hunger long before I met that girl. I didn’t force her into it, and I didn’t tell her no.” This was getting, and going nowhere fast. I could feel my blood boiling but I knew deep down, I didn’t know this guy. We weren’t friends and we had never met. He stood up as he was preparing to make his next point but I could still see the rage boiling, simmering toward the top. “Listen here you fucking chicken head, I don’t need no ethics lesson from some fucked up faggot like yourself. You have the least room out of anybody to be pointing fingers and shit. You’re the one that introduced her to the fucking stuff.” His anger was boiling over and he was holding the cane in his left hand raised his knuckles white from gripping it so hard.

I was very softly scouring the bottom of the frying pan and washing bits of half eaten omelet down the drain when I heard the voices outside getting louder. I didn’t concern myself with it, instead just continued, humming to myself a song that had played on the radio this morning. Rosa was standing near the little washer that stood in the kitchen and ate ice cream straight from the carton and hummed along with me. Even though I didn’t know her, we still had a sort of comfortable working relationship between each other that sometimes I believe only women can share in such a short time.
Well maybe that was bull shit but I was still comfortable with her here. The voices got louder outside, I began registering the sounds of an argument, I sincerely hoped the boys could work it out on their own. Even though that Angel guy never actually touched me, I was scared deep down of him when he got upset. The voices quieted, I took that as a chance to get out of the way of potentially having to intervene. I walked from the little kitchen through the dining room to the staircase. I slowly ascended the stairs totally lost in thought. I just couldn’t believe the girl I got hired with was dead.
I always found it sort of sad when a person I worked with left, or was fired. This wasn’t your normal layoff in any way shape or form. The fact that such a tragedy happened right here in our front walk shook me, and the fact nobody seemed broken up about it at all. Sure things were more tense than usual, but nobody seemed to be interested in mentally registering the fact that a girl they became close to died.
I entered the little room they offered me, and sat on the bed and laid down and yawned. I hadn’t slept the night before, there was too much on my mind, and Jonathan snored like a cave beast. Sure he was kind of a cute cave beast but still he was all growls and roars when he made it to bed. I stared blankly at the ceiling, trying in some way to grasp what was going on around me; things were spiraling so quickly out of control. I didn’t know what to do at all.
I spent what must have been twenty or thirty minutes just lying there thinking about my own mortality and how fragile my life really was. The whole feeling was washing over me like cold water, making my toes prickle. I wanted something anything, I wanted to go back home to my pretty little house and my mother and give up any idea of ever acting again. I had my fill of the idea of being famous or being some sort of actress sipping champagne in the back of limousines. I considered calling my mother for a long moment, and then I thought better of it. If there were people watching us, it wouldn’t be smart for me to talk to her and get her involved. I grabbed the phone off my dresser in any case and checked my missed calls. I stopped on one, Hannah’s phone called me while I was downstairs.
As I sat and clicked through my phone I noticed a new voicemail, I looked from side to side. I knew Jonathan had taken Hannah’s phone, so there was no way it could have possibly been a message from her. I dialed my own number and went through the hoops to listen to my voice mail. My heart was pounding in my ears. I might have just been paranoid or crazy but still.
The beginning of the message was a nearly silent line. Then Hannah’s voice came in clear,
“I didn’t fucking know, this shit is messing me up… yeah fine I’ll take my out and leave and go study…” Her voice would trail off as if she was listening to the other side of a conversation, a conversation that I was unable to hear. “What the fuck is that are you sending me a car? I thought I was…” then there was a deafening sound over the line, coupled with the telltale scream of a woman. The message was over, it had been sent to me this morning at 5 am. I was terrified, scared rigid. There was another message, and as I pressed the button to play the message my blood was already cold.

I was standing outside, staring Angel directly in the eye. We were both at a standstill and any amount of further talk between us would have resulted in a fight. Thankfully it was that second that Hannah’s phone rang. I winced, if Angel recognized the ringer this would be it, I pulled her phone out of my pocket and walked away from Angel as I answered it.
“Jonathan this is Ellen.”
“You find us an out yet?” Angel wasn’t going to intervene, and I was getting impatient being here waiting for answers from a woman who didn’t exactly seem quick to provide them.
“I’m done finding you a way out of there, but it’s not exactly easy. You don’t know how deep this goes.”
“I think I’m ready to be gone.” My voice was a hoarse whisper; it was getting progressively harder to make sure that Angel didn’t hear my voice.
“If you get caught as you leave, you and everyone else in this project will be erased from this earth, including Grace and your baby girl.” Those words stung more than anything she had said so far. I kept my mouth shut and thought for a moment.
“You and Sophia have to get in the car in 20 minutes, get in the car and drive toward the interstate; she should have an idea of where she is going. I know this is asking a lot of you, but trust me, once you get to the interstate I’ll know and I’ll call you.”
“Where is the car?” I asked, my voice cracking, I was at once elated and terrified; this was it the moment I would get some clarity, though it was also the beginning of something new and dangerous.
“You’ll find the car you should take parked two blocks north, the keys are in one of the kitchen drawers there, I think they are taped the inside of the silver wear drawer.” I shut the phone off when I heard the clicking of the line going dead. I tried hard to pace myself as I entered the little house and started sorting through the kitchen; I found a bowl from one of the top cabinets. I pulled a carton of ice cream from the freezer and began searching through the drawers for the silver wear. When I found the drawer I let my fingers run softly over the sides of the drawer, touching all of the sides gently until I felt cold metal and scotch tape. I smiled as I pulled the key from the inner wall of the drawer. I shut the drawer forsaking the idea of ice cream and I bolted upstairs, taking the creaky old steps two at a time trying to get to Sophia’s room.
I stopped when I reached the door to her room; very quietly I heard the sound of weeping coming from the little room. I pressed my ear gently to the door, I could hear Sophia crying, her tears muffled into a pillow. I knocked on the door and without waiting for a response let myself in. Sophia looked up at me, tears streaming down her face and mussing up her makeup.
“I know, I know. I know you need time, but we need to leave.” I held up the key so she could see. “I’ve gotten instructions on how we can get out of here, get a change of clothes and meet me outside in 10 minutes, tops Sophia. We’re running against a clock.” With that, I left the room before she had a chance to say anything at all to me, I jogged down the stairs and grabbed the dirty backpack, emptying the contents on the couch. The needles were gone, and so were all my clothes from yesterday.

Chapter 11

I ran into the kitchen and emptied as much food as possible into the little backpack pulling odd silver wear from the drawer and a can opener. I looked into my wallet to check how much money I had. I didn’t know when I could go home but I knew it wouldn’t be soon and I needed to be prepared for anything. Sophia came down the stairs and saw me, I hadn’t even managed to look in the wallet yet, she was standing there, her makeup smearing in almost embarrassing ways and a small pack at her side. She nodded to me and I shut my wallet without giving it another thought and we both went outside. Angel was gone, as I had expected, and Rosa had been nowhere to be found, but we still traveled quickly and quietly because we had no idea what or who could have been watching us as we sprinted down the pavement up blocks. We steadily passed houses, many of them looked like the one Sophia was living in, none of them had driveways instead the odd car was setting out parallel parked in the road. We ran up the road, still at full speed I was running out of steam though, my breath was burning in and out of my lungs and for a moment, I wondered what it was I was so scared of. If someone was watching us it was too late, they obviously had already seen us leave.
I took Sophia’s hand and we slowed our pace considerably. I pulled out the single key from my pocket. It wasn’t immediately apparent what car it went to until I turned it over. On the back, scratched into the key in permanent marker was a license plate number. I read the number again and again, H30IK2. I showed Sophia the key and we both looked up and down the street for a car with the same license. I saw the number on the license plate on an old beaten up truck I motioned to Sophia, my voice was oddly rough in my throat. We approached the truck from either side and I slid my key into the driver’s side door. This car was nearly the same as the one Grace and I bought years and years ago, when we had first gotten married. As I slid into the drivers seat I closed my eyes and thought of that time, it seemed like an eternity ago.

Chapter 12

Grace was the one that picked this truck; the truck already looked like it had been used for years before we even saw it here on the used car lot.
“Baby it’ll be perfect for you it looks so much like your fathers truck.” In that regard she was right, it looked nearly exactly like the truck my father was driving just before his death.
“I don’t know honey,” I said, trying to talk her out of this. “It’s kind of beaten up, and I thought you wanted something big and safe for our kids? This thing doesn’t exactly fit that bill.”
“Don’t be silly, we’ll need a second car anyway and this one will be for you. It fits you perfectly.” I shot her a questioning look. “I mean that even though it looks beaten down on the outside, if you come inside the car is good and strong. There is beauty in the way the leather has stood up so well to the years of use.” As I listened to her I looked around the interior of the truck, the thing had held up remarkably well, but it was way under our price range. I looked at her as she was carefully inspecting the seating and the interior of the car. Arguing with her would only be slightly more fruitful than trying to knock down the Great Wall of China with a single punch. Grace had always been a woman with a strong personality but she bordered on bullheadedness when she wanted her way. The chances of her actually listening to a word I had to say were slim even when she was in a good mood and feeling particularly open to new ideas. I loved this about her because it made life simpler sometimes, and let me devote myself to what she wanted and needed.
“Alright, I’ll consider getting the truck if we go look for a car within our price range and you give it a chance first.” That would have been enough to stray her attention from this truck to something else, hopefully something within our price range that we could use even when our children grew old. I knew better though, her heart was set on buying this truck and that’s exactly what happened. We purchased that truck that day.