Conscience Read online

  In the end, what’s the difference? Dead is dead. And life is just rehearsal.

  I leave the Chevy at the curb – easy come, easy go – and start to stroll down the street, making my way through the walking wounded. The homeless. The hammered. The broken. The babbling. The struggling. The shambling. The lost and enraged.

  It’s amazing how much ambulatory schizophrenia there is. How many people walking around, talking to themselves. Or, more particularly, talking to ghosts: specters of people who once wronged them, long ago.

  If I had a nickel for every time I watched a shattered soul crutching down the sidewalk, angrily running the past through their minds like a tape loop: shouting at the person who devastated their lives; reconstructing the actual moment they snapped; refining the thing that they wish they had said, to an audience of vapor, over and over...

  ...well, I wouldn’t need to kill people for money, and that much is for certain.

  It would break my heart, if I still had one going. As it is, I just roll my eyes: writing off the losses, and flipping off God. As I move toward my favorite L.A. skyscraper.

  The Hotel Bonaventure. Here’s why.

  I must confess: I am an Andrew Portman fan. To me, he is one of the greatest modern architects. (Responsible, in no small part, for the glorious Atlanta skyline: one of the most beautiful, futuristic skylines in America.)

  Just for starters: he’s the guy who put those cool glass pod- like elevators on the outside of buildings, replicating the science fiction visions of my youth with streamlined elegance and grace. When I look at his shimmering hotels and office buildings, I imagine a sky full of people with rocket packs, flying to work or delivering mail.

  I don’t know why they make me so happy. Maybe it’s because I always wanted a rocket pack. Maybe it’s because they’re like walk-through installation pieces: standing reminders of that long-lost, space-age dream. Maybe it’s because I just like how theylook.

  Doesn’t matter. I like ’em. And there’s one now!

  Two blocks away and closing, the Bonaventure looms. It’s not alone. As I head up 6th, the mean streets recede, and the money rears its ugly head skyward: Citigroup, Wells Fargo, the Mellon Bank Center, all clustered, each building thirty stories or higher. These are the forks at the heart of the cup, all in bold colors, arrogantly jutting out as if to pierce the sun.

  This is where all the business gets done.

  I kinda like the KPMG building. It’s a triangle, a big glass wedge of cheese: wide at one end, then winnowing down to a point. It reminds me of the Flatiron in New York, only with none of its old-school class.

  But the building I love is the sleeper in the batch. At least during the day. Tinted black, to buck the crowd, it has no sharp angles. Just a great glass cylinder (the hub of the structure), ringed by four glass towers (designated red, blue, green, and yellow). You can tell which is which by the colored neon rings at the base of the elevators that zoom up and down its length.

  During the day, it looks sharp. But at night, it’s amazing. Just one more reason why I wish it were already tonight.

  Be that as it may, I pause outside it, take a deep breath of smog, and exhale pleasure. Andrew Portman’s Bonaventure is as cool as I’d remembered. It glistens in the harsh sun, but it barely hurts my eyes.

  I think maybe it’s time for a drink, and a comb through the L.A. Times.

  The lobby inside is every bit as gorgeous. Actually more so. It teems with luxuriant detail. There are vast sprawling fountains, surrounding the center, with water-blowing fish made of sculpted stone. They make an island of the bar in the middle, where classy people drink up and chuckle urbanely.

  The glass elevators launch from the fountains in the lobby, go several stories high before emerging outside. Said lobby is at least six stories tall, with mezzanines that stripe its height in symmetrical, dizzying waves. I suspect that it inspired L.A.’s subway design – at least in terms of the Time Tunnel effect – except that it’s not just light, but layers of weirdly curving balconies, receding up into the heights.

  With my beat-up bags and nondescript clothing, I’m not instantly mistaken for the upper crust. But the bartender likes my $100 bill just fine, as I settle into my seat on the island. Take out my paper. And start to peruse.

  Lo and behold: on page 5 of the Los Angeles section, David Marcus pops up. It seems he was murdered, some time yesterday; and police have already rounded up a suspect. The implications lead to a ring of male prostitution, and a jilted male lover (name as yet unreleased).

  I don’t mean to suggest that I have an anti-gay bias – easily half the art I love was made by men who loved to suck dick – but I have to admit I find this funny as hell. Anybody stupid enough to fall in love with the God of Nipples deserves, quite frankly, whatever they get.

  Not to mention the fact that it takes the heat off of me.

  Relaxing a bit, I skim through the world news. Evidently, God can only make the headlines when another Palestinian blows himself up. Meanwhile, everybody wants a nuclear weapon. The way I’ve been feeling, I could use one myself.

  It isn’t until I hit the Weekender’s section that I find a mention of Liam Pathe. Evidently, saving the world is an entertainment option: one of the many fun things one can do while in L.A. So if Ted Nugent is sold out at the House of Blues, and you missed the shuttle to the Getty Museum, and you don’t care what happened when The Real World hit Cancun, you can always hold a rally to usher in the New Age.

  Over sixty thousand yo-yos are expected to attend this event. Ol’ Liam is only one of the dozens of entertainers posing as deep thinkers and/or saviors to us all. But he must be shelling out buttloads of moolah on pr, because he gobbles easily forty percent of the ink on the page.

  And here is what the wise man has to say to us heathens:

  “‘Mankind, left to its own devices, doesn’t know how to move beyond mayhem. We don’t know how to fix what we’ve broken, so what do we do? We destroy it some more...’”

  Blah blah blah. I skim ahead, with a minimum of patience.

  “‘What we’re now being given is an opportunity to face ourselves. We’ve been given a mirror that we can’t turn away from.’”

  Well, hell, Liam! That’s been your story all along. You’ve never seen a mirror that you could turn away from, cuz it had your picture in it. You could look at that all day.

  “‘When we find ourselves confronted with who we really are, and what we’re really doing to ourselves and each other, we will stop what we’re doing. And chart ourselves a higher path.’”

  To which I say, once again: well, hell, Liam! You’re about six or seven hours from testing out that theory yourself. Cuz I just happen to have a big fat mirror that’s got your name all over it.

  Let’s see how you like what you see, when your prophecy comes true.

  And it’s weird, because I don’t disagree with him. I just think he’s an asshole; so, coming from him, it sounds lame. So patronizing. So immensely self-important.

  It’s moments like this that make me think that Mort is not so bad.

  I’m not saying Mort isn’t a monstrous asshole – he just paid me to whack his fucking ex-girlfriend, fercrissake – but his business is all about constructing that mirror, then threatening to shine it out at the world.

  You’ve gotta be smart, to pull off such a thing. To do so, and not have been butchered already. You have to be sopping with some kind of purpose, be savvy and savage and tougher than nails.

  If Mort somehow worked for the forces of good, he wouldn’t agree to bury the mirror for cash. He’d just play all those cards, and let God sort it out. He’d unleash the deep oceans of scum he’s uncovered, let them septically sluice out over all the land.

  At that point, he’d be doing what Liam endorses. Whether Lovely Liam liked it or not.

  At that point, of course, Mort would also be killed, from so many directions that it’s not even funny. He would be deader than a roast shit sandwich, pretty much withi
n the hour.

  Which pretty much puts a damper on that idea.

  And which, in fact, underscores exactly why Liam is so utterly crap. Because it ain’t gonna happen, and that’s all there is to it. Not in a million, trillion years. All institutional power – which is to say, all real power – that exists on the earth is dependent on secrecy.

  Make that muscle and secrecy, forever entwined.

  Liam seems to think that if we see the truth, we will act on the truth; and, in the process, be set free. But we won’t be set free, because we won’t act on the truth. And if we do, we will be squashed like bugs. The Powers That Be have worked hard to get there, and they won’t give it up without a fight. They are also very, very good at fighting.

  Fighting dirty, in particular.

  And now I must be painfully honest with myself (a thing I claim to like, but really avoid whenever possible); because the hard fact is this.

  If I honestly believed – if I honestly believed – that holding up the mirror right now, in the right way, would turn the tide of history, I would do it in a second. I would do it this second. I would down my shot and stand. I would ride to the top of the Hotel Bonaventure, find the stairwell that leads to the roof, drag that mirror up the stairs, and hold it up over my head. Revealing all of Los Angeles to itself. And letting Los Angeles hold the mirror up to the world.

  I would do that. I swear to God I would.

  And if the government – or the Mafia, or the scum at Fox News – sent a black helicopter out to kill me, I would stand there till the bullets cut me in half. I would hold up that mirror like fucking Iwo Jima. I wouldn’t drop it until I was dead.

  I would die like a terrorist, with a bomb strapped to his belly. Fully committed. Truly devoted to my cause.

  Except I wouldn’t be a terrorist, because I would be doing no harm.

  The fact is that I am a terrorist now. I kill people. That’s what I do. I spread terror and mayhem wherever I roam. I take fucked-up situations and fuck them up harder.

  And the truth is – at last – that I hate myself. I can’t believe what I have become. I can’t believe that the skinny kid who loved his dog wound up like this. I can’t believe it.

  I also can’t believe that I am starting to cry.

  But here I am – only one drink in, at the center of the Hotel Bonaventure – and the newsprint on the table is beginning to blotch and blur, like my vision, as the tear drops cascade. Whatever other nonsense Liam might have had to say is gone now, or at least illegible.

  And I think about what I am going to do. And I think about poor sweet Angela. I think about her brains, leaking out of her head. I think about how much I used to love her, and still do...

  ...and my bleary gaze lifts away from the swimming ink, away from my trembling hands. It lifts up to those glass elevators, ascending through the mezzanine clouds...

  ...and that’s when I spot the figure, waving and smiling, as it launches toward heaven.

  I thought that I would never see you again.

  This is not good.

  This is not good at all.

  FIFTEEN

  In a flash, I am out of my seat: wiping my eyes, while my heartbeat races. Already, the elevator has left the building, outside now as it blasts toward the summit. I stare up at its yellow neon ass-ring, through the black metal spokes in the lobby’s glass ceiling.

  Oh, no, I think – my drink forgotten – as I grab my bags and move.

  I don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t know that you’re doing anything. I don’t even really believe you exist, but I am terrified that you might.

  If you do, then you know what I’ve been thinking. Even worse, you might just have believed me. Taking my guilt-ridden trip as a license.

  A license to ruin everything...

  I can’t believe how fucking long it takes for another elevator to open its doors. By then, you have settled on the 32nd floor. Are you heading for the stairs? What the hell are you doing?

  The doors close. I hit 32, instantaneously airlift. Balconies whicker past me, loosely packed with meandering people. They turn tiny as ants. I look down, six stories high...

  ...and then pass through the airlock, ringed with porous concrete...

  ...and the next thing I know, I am outside the building: all of Los Angeles splayed out before me, spreading farther and farther as my glass bullet soars...

  ...and vertigo strikes me, my fear of heights conjoining with the speed at which I’m rising, my fear of the madness overtaking me now, my terrible fear of you...

  ...and I let go of the railing reluctantly, back away from the window glass, press myself flush against the elevator doors, trying to get as far away from the feeling of falling as I possibly can...

  ...because this is the thing: I don’t feel like I’m rising. I feel like I’m falling already: like a wingless bug that has crawled too high, and is going to slip at any moment...

  ...and this is a panic attack, so full-blown that I’m beyond being embarrassed. If I ever calm down – if it ever stops – I will be more than humiliated. But I can barely even think about that, because I feel so small, and so scared, and so doomed...

  ...and I say to myself, “I am Charley Weber! Nobody fucks with me...!”

  ...and it is the hollowest sentiment that I have ever heard. The sniveling whine of a man-bitch, pathetic in its defiance, wrapped around absolute nothingness. I didn’t even know my voice could go that high...

  ...and all at once, the elevator stops.

  I take a great whooping breath, try to steady myself, in the moment before the doors slide open. It occurs to me that I am not going to die this second. It is an enormous relief.

  As the doors slide open, the sweat pours off me. The panic spell is broken. The shame descends, but I brush it aside. I remember my purpose.

  I will not fail.

  My bags are still up by the rail, where I dropped them. Having stopped, it’s not as scary to step forward. I pick them up, turn around, head toward the open doorway.

  You are in the next elevator, right beside mine.

  “WOOOOO! That was GREAT!” you exclaim, as your own doors close, and you start to descend.

  “MOTHERFUCKER!!!” I howl, as you again smile and wave.

  Now my own doors are closing behind me. I let them, pushing the Lobby button, then turning to watch you plummet.

  You look insanely happy, and I do not know why. My first guess is that you just love fucking with me, but I honestly don’t believe that’s right.

  My second guess is: you’re enjoying the ride. And this is a truly embarrassing thought.

  I think about amusement parks that I have sampled, throughout my life. I think about the difference between the ones I hated and the ones I liked. More often than not, it had less to do with the rides themselves than it did with me.

  When I’m scared of dying, roller coasters are no fun. They don’t distract me. They just up the voltage. I feel helpless, and out of control, and I hate that feeling more than anything.

  But when I’m happy, roller coasters are fun. I feel out of control, but I like it a lot.

  What pisses me off is that you’re having fun, and I am so utterly not. It makes me feel like the Siamese twin that got all of the rotten personality traits.

  This Charley is full of fun! He understands the meaning and value of life! Watch him frolic through the wasteland with a song in his heart! Watch him delight in the details, without ever sinking into the swamp!

  Then watch ME: the Charley who forgot how to live! Terrified, skulking, alone, he’s the predatory shadow that drapes darkness over light! THRILL, as he utterly misses the point! RECOIL IN HORROR, as he kills without remorse!

  What kind of asshole am I, really? And how did I become my own Doppelganger? These thoughts pummel me, as I drop toward the ground.

  I have never hated anyone more.

  Fuck Liam. Fuck Angela. Fuck Mort and his pals. Fuck David and Donald. Fuck my own fucking Dad. Fuck my Mom,
who I never even met, because she was dead by the time I was torn from her womb.

  Fuck my brother: the first person I killed. Fuck the trailer park he rode in on. Fuck the linoleum that soaked in his blood, when I finally got around to slitting his throat.

  Fuck God. Fuck you. Fuck me.

  But, mostly, fuck you.

  As the elevator stops.

  And I am back on solid ground, again.

  SIXTEEN

  By the time the elevator doors open, you are long gone. Doesn’t matter. Let us cut to the chase.

  I do a circle of the first floor lobby, see nothing but people who don’t even count. The carpet is burgundy, with interlocking circular patterns of silver and orange. Like chain links, interconnecting to infinity.

  You are not here, so I look up. The mezzanine balconies loom. On the second floor, I see someone who looks just like me.

  I head for the nearest way up.

  In the blue zone, a spiral staircase beckons. The tiles are brown and irregular, like the scales on a crocodile’s back. I take them two at a time, while trying not to be noticed.

  The first business I run into is empty and closed. I briefly wonder what happened, will certainly never know. Moving forward, I pass the National Association of Women Business Owners. They are also not open, but do not seem shut down. On vacation? Out of town, for some meeting? What the fuck do I care? I suspect you’re not a member.

  There’s a gift shop, as I hit the green tower. You are not buying gum. I look up.

  There you are.

  Surrounding the cylinder that is the hotel’s body proper, the third floor sports an inner mezzanine ring. It has pods sticking out, like twenty-foot polyps with guardrails. You smile down at me, from one of them.

  I race toward the nearest spiraling stairs, with all of my baggage in hand.

  Winding up and up and up, I arrive at the third floor, but you are no longer there. I find myself staring at my own sweaty, pissed-off reflection in the window of the Bonaventure Health Spa, which offers spectacular deals. For a mere $250, I could get the “Refresh Package”: back or neck massage, a twenty-minute facial, aromatherapy, sauna, some other foofy frills.