How Lucky: A Novel Read online

  Hang up the phone, Marjani. He will never, ever hear any of that.

  I have heard Marjani say more words in the last week, I think, than in the last year I’ve known her. The world is getting crazier. The center cannot hold. She’s shook. Marjani being spooked and nervous and babbling scares me.

  She leans down, lifts my chin, and puts my head in her hands. Staring straight into my eyes, she purses her lips and grits through her teeth: “Be. Careful. Daniel.”

  I will be fine.

  Then she wheels me over to my computer, because we both know I have to write him back.

  “I will try to see you this evening,” she says, but I’m already staring at the screen.

  45.

  I am not actually a detective, so I do not know what to think right now. Jonathan obviously has access to the same Google Translate that I do. But what would be the point of sending me an email in Chinese like that? Did he think that because I hadn’t written him back, I didn’t believe him or something? Why did he feel that he needs to sell me on this being real? He has no reason to think I don’t believe him. He has no idea that I’ve talked to Officer Anderson and learned that he likes to make up stories about himself. As far as I know, in his eyes, everything he has said to me is on the level.

  There is being lonely and needing attention and a friend. This feels like something different.

  Like maybe he has her. He’s had her the whole time.

  And maybe our correspondence has put her more in danger. Officer Anderson said I could stay in contact with him. So I could just ask, straight up. They’ll never see that coming. But if it turns out Ai-Chin is there, that will just put her in even more danger. Then again, he can see what emails his account has sent, right? Perhaps the middle ground: ignore the Chinese email, but put some cards on the table.

  jon—

  i wanna be cool about this. ive liked our conversation. i really do think we can help each other. but i was honest with you. so i want you to be honest with me. i will be even more honest.

  i talked to a cop about you and he said you like to call them a lot and say you did stuff like this. sorry about calling a cop but you understand of course. i did really see ai-chin get taken. i assumed it was you when you emailed me but when the cop already knew you that made sense to me too. so you dont have to do this anymore. you dont have to pretend you have her. if you are pretending.

  its ok. it really is. i think that you are right. i think that being alone sucks. i think that not being able to talk to people is hard. i think that feeling like everyone thinks youre stupid or an asshole is the worst. i get it man. i too have felt like the guy from punch drunk love.

  so lets stop it ok and talk for real. you dont really have ai-chin. that wasnt really her. you can tell me. i wont be like that cop. i wont make fun of you. im on your side. just gimme the truth. im cool. i promise. shes not there. right?

  right? right?

  Daniel

  I hit Send and am, not long after, alerted to fingers snapping in my face and the unmistakable odor of marijuana.

  “Uh . . . what have you been up to, man? You still talking to that dipshit?”

  “This is what happens when I leave you alone for the day, see,” Travis says, popping several Zaxby’s chicken nuggets in his mouth at once. You know it’s Sunday because no one in their right mind would ever opt for Zaxby’s over Chick-fil-A unless it were Sunday and they had no choice.

  Travis makes me a carrot banana smoothie, a combination he came up with a few years ago just to see if he could gross me out that ended up becoming a specialty, and puts the straw in my mouth as he scrolls past my Jonathan correspondence. He reads for a few seconds, shakes his head, reads for a few more, mouths a What the fuck a time or two, and reads a while longer. He finishes, whistles, puts down my smoothie cup, and looks me in the eye.

  “I don’t know if this guy is crazy or not,” he says, “but he’s definitely a fuckwit.”

  I laugh, and it feels good. Laughing hurts a little, but it makes me feel a little more awake.

  Where the hell have you been, anyway?

  Travis does something I have never seen him do before: he blushes. He stands up, takes my smoothie cup to the sink, rinses it out, makes me another one, rolls on the balls of his feet for a while, clicks his tongue, shuts off the blender, pours it in the glass, puts the straw in my mouth, heads to use the bathroom, stays in there a smidge too long, washes his hands slowly and meticulously, and then comes back and sits down.

  He pauses again, and then breaks into a grin as wide as Texas.

  “Dude, I’ve been with Jennifer, like, the whole time!” His voice gradually rises as he says this, like saying it aloud confirms that it’s real, that telling another person assures him that he hasn’t imagined the whole thing. “We just went back to her place after the game, and, well . . . I finally left her room about an hour ago. We didn’t even look at our phones! I can never get girls not to stare at their phones!”

  I glower at him. He had many messages from me when he finally got around to looking at his phone.

  “Oh, yeah, uh, sorry about that,” he says. “I suppose I should have been keeping a closer eye out after all that shit Friday.”

  It’s cool. I’m fine.

  Except for your lunatic email buddy. And that you look like shit. Have you slept at all?

  A lot, actually.

  Really?

  I think so? I honestly have no idea.

  I finish my second smoothie. I shake my head when Travis asks me if I want another, even though I do. If I have a third, I’ll wake up constantly to pee. And I can’t help but feel like I still need more sleep. I hadn’t realized how desperately I needed sleep until I woke up after sleeping too long. I suppose that’s how it works.

  Travis wipes my chin, takes me to the bathroom, and then changes my clothes for pajamas. He actually wipes off some eye black that is still on me from my game-day costume the day before, which is embarrassing. He then carries me to bed.

  I am not ready to sleep yet. Put me back in my chair. I want to see if he wrote back.

  What exactly is the plan here?

  I think he needs someone to talk to, and he’s talking to me. And we’ve come this far, right?

  So what, so you can arrest him and throw him in Daniel Jail?

  Travis clicks the top of his tongue and looks at me skeptically.

  “I think I should probably stay here tonight,” he says.

  I shake my head as hard as I can.

  I’m fine. It’s fine. We’re just emailing. I’m going to see if he wrote back, and then I’m going to go to sleep. Charles or . . . the other guy will be here . . . later. Later? I think? What time is it?

  It’s early dinnertime. We just had early dinner. Are you OK?

  I got this. The orderly will be here overnight, and Marjani will surely be here in the morning. Go get with your girl. I like her.

  Travis frowns, looks down, clicks his tongue again, stands up, and pats me on the head. “You need to let me know what’s going on, see,” he says. “Forward me all those emails. And Skype me the second anything weird happens. I’ll be back by tomorrow morning.” He leans down and stares hard at me.

  I am not sure you know what you are doing.

  Who ever does?

  But I got your back. You know that.

  Always.

  He wipes my sweaty brow, wheels me back to the computer, and eyes me warily as he backs out of the room. I hear him pass across my front porch, and I hear him open his car door, and before the engine even starts, I nod off in my chair, the glow of the computer taunting me, warmly, my friend till the end.

  46.

  There’s a woman, and she’s looking at me, sadly, almost disappointed, like she wants me to catch up with her and can’t understand why I can’t. She looks a little like Kim, actually, but she’s older. Not old, not a grandmother, not even Marjani, but older, like she’s aged twice as fast as I have in the last ten years: she looks like s
he’s lived well over the last twenty and wouldn’t change a thing but is still very tired. She beckons. She waves me on. Come here, you.

  I can always run in my dreams, and before you start thinking How wonderful, like it’s some sort of wish fulfillment, that I am freed of my earthly constraints, know that it is really not all that exciting to be able to walk and is in fact rather hard. Walking is hard! It breaks down your knees and wrinkles your back and destroys your feet. Every force of gravity that has existed on the planet for eons and eons is doing everything it can to drag you to the ground, and it is you, the walker, who must put forth all the effort just to fight centuries of natural environmental order. The world does not want you to walk. It wants you to crumple. It wants you to look like me.

  No. Screw walking. I should be able to fly in my dreams. I want to be free from all of it, my limbs floating off in all directions, lifting off with no constraints, no gravity, no force. I take it as a personal insult from my subconscious, an active reminder of my lack of imagination, that I can’t fly in my dreams. I should be wafting toward Kim. I should be whooshing through the air, hair flapping behind me, my teeth chattering, the wind whipping through my toes, a supersonic surge—

  WHOOOSH!

  . . . until I am there, until I am with her, until she sees me for who I am, who I was then, not what I have become. Who is she now, this forty-five-year-old woman who has seen so much since we were teenagers and we could almost convince ourselves that we were the same, that this could be real, that we could be one in this little moment by this little pond in this little camp in this little town? Does she see me as a freak? Did she see me as one then? Does it matter? She is here now, and she wants me to come to her, and I can’t make it. I’m just plodding along, the earth pulling me toward it, grabbing my feet tighter with each step I take. Why can’t I fly? Why can’t I fly to her? Why can’t I now, in my dream, have this one goddamned thing?

  She looks at me and frowns. I jump to fly to her and am yanked down harder. I am, as always, going nowhere. And, as always, she is gone.

  I try to scream to her, and then there is a loud beep, and then another one, and then a louder chime, and then finally a blare. And then I am awake.

  There is a blinking message on my screen.

  Several.

  You have been invited to a Google Hangout by user “aichinisnear2011” Please click here to accept the invitation to chat, or click here to block this user.

  47.

  I appear to have fallen asleep in the chair again. Time remains very confusing. It’s dark. Sort of. Dusk? Or maybe the lights are just off.

  This is the third time this week I have fallen asleep in this chair, an extremely dangerous activity for me. Sleeping upright requires more effort from my lungs, and it increases the possibility of a clot forming in my trachea, getting caught in there, and choking me on my own blood. It’s the sort of offense that even Travis yells at me for. It’s just a bad idea across the board.

  But it’s been an insane few days.

  The Google Hangout requests have actually been coming in for the last hour. Jonathan is apparently not pleased by the fact that I was ignoring them, and him. There are five emails in my box, all one paragraph.

  20:25 We should take this rare opportunity to chat, Daniel. I’ve built a Google Hangout for us. Here is the link: Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts!

  20:41 There is no need to worry. We don’t have to video chat or anything like that. I just want to talk. Why wait for emails? You’re right there! I’m right here! Let us be friends, Daniel. We should be friends. Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts!

  21:02 I do not know why I am putting forth such energy trying to get you to talk to me. It is an unnatural power that I have given you.

  21:19 I am now concerned that you are trapped under a rock. Did a meteor hit you? Moments ago you were so eager to please, so hopeful that we could connect. And now: Bupkis. So I am worried for you. I would like you to tell me you are OK. We musn’t waste this. Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts!

  21:38 Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts! Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts! Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts! Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts! Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts! Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts! Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts! Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts! Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts! Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts! Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts! Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts!

  I’m a semiregular on Google Hangouts. My boss at Spectrum Air corresponds with me throughout the day on there, checking in on how I’m doing, updating me on any particularly egregious delays, occasionally sending me weird right-wing memes. I only respond to him when it’s necessary, or when I have to get approval for the official account to block someone: I’m not authorized to execute such a high-level corporate maneuver. There’s also a Quentin Tarantino fan group in there that I used to play around with. Travis and I used to communicate through Gchat before they shut it down a few years ago, and sometimes I forget he doesn’t use Google Hangouts anymore and send him a funny link or story—he usually responds, like, a year later, saying, “shit i forgot this was still here sorry hahahahahaha dude.”

  I only use the chat function, even though there’s a video call and an audio call, for reasons I presume are obvious.

  And now Jonathan wants to chat.

  Let’s Hang Out on Hangouts!

  I check my phone. There are two texts from Marjani, checking in, seeing if Travis is here yet, and one from my mom, telling me she watched the game from Jamaica and GO DAWGS LOVE YOU. No texts from Travis. All quiet. Nothing to see here.

  I could put you through a whole moral quandary here, if I wanted to. We could have a Socratic debate about the pros and cons of chatting with Jonathan. I could lay out the reasons it’s a good idea, and the (much longer) list of reasons why it’s a bad idea. You could tell me all the things I should do, how I should just block the guy and shut down my computer and maybe go back to sleep, and maybe I’ll be able to fly this time. You would be right, whatever you said, and I would agree with you on all your points, but you have traveled with me this long so you know exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to click that link and Hang Out on Hangouts.

  48.

  flagpolesitta1993

  22:11 hello.

  22:13 hello.

  22:15 i am sorry. i was sleeping. its a sunday. its a good day to sleep hahahahahahaha.

  Several minutes pass. I thought this guy was in a hurry. Another ten minutes. You know that feeling when you’re particularly obsessed by something, and your heart is pounding, and you’re sweating, and it’s so intense and absorbing that it almost makes you fall asleep? Like, your body just decides nope, too much for me, I’m checking out, and engages Operation Shutdown? No? Just me?

  Then a MEOW, the message alert sound on my computer. Whatever, I always wanted a cat.

  aichinisnear2011

  22:32 Well. Hello there. I was worried you had decided to end our chats just as they were beginning.

  flagpolesitta1993

  22:33 naw

  22:34 naw man

  22:35 im here. just took a little nap. whats up? new phone who dis hahahahahaahahaaha.

  aichinisnear2011

  22:36 Ha, yeah. Well, I think we both know why you are here.

  flagpolesitta1993

  22:37 oh? whys that?

  aichinisnear2011

  22:41 This is exciting, right? I think it might be sort of exciting. I like this. You like this. It honestly is pleasant to have someone to share this with, to find someone who understands what it feels like to be on the outside, someone who is not so terribly judgmental. You are not judgmental. Judgmental is so boring, Daniel.

  flagpolesitta1993

  22:42 im just trying to figure out whats going on.

  aichinisnear2011

  22:52 Oh, stop.

  22:52 I’ll confess I have no idea how I missed you. It is weird that I missed you. But that makes no difference now. You saw me. It has been more than a week since Ai-Chin got in my car, and
no one knows anything about it but you . . . well, other than me, of course.

  22:53 And now you are running this game, acting like you don’t know what’s going on. You know. YOU KNOW.

  22:54 Are you scared of me? That makes a certain amount of sense. I have proven myself capable of, at the minimum, kidnapping, and that alone is more than I suspect you are accustomed to. And frankly more than I am accustomed to. And as far as you know, that is only the start of it. What more might I be capable of?

  flagpolesitta1993

  23:00 thats what im trying to figure out.

  23:00 but go on

  aichinisnear2011

  23:06 I think, Daniel, that you are restless. Like me! I think you have seen enough of this town, and this world, and its relentless sameness, and when you were confronted with something different, something new, something REAL, you found it irresistible.

  23:07 And I think you understand where I am coming from. I think we’re not so different. I think you are alone. Isn’t that all we keep talking about? Being alone? Not a lot of people understand, truly understand, what that is like. You do. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think you were out getting girls in your car or anything. But that’s why we could talk. I think that’s why you saw me in the first place. I think it was fate.

  23:12 It’s lonely out here. I think it’s lonely for you too. I think you only wish you could do what I did.

  flagpolesitta1993

  23:14 you are wrong

  aichinisnear2011

  23:21 Am I, Daniel? You want to know what it is like to do something like I have. To go out and change the world, to make something beautiful, to upset what you all sleepwalk through every day of your lives. To get someone who understands. To see someone who will finally fucking listen. You see it, don’t you, Daniel? You see that what I did has value. That I am not like other people. Because you are not like other people either, Daniel. You recognize this. You might not be like me. But you wish you were. You wish you could do what I do.