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tango-uniformed · 6 years ago

Text

Tango first 5000 words

August, 2018

5:00 PM

Amtrak en route from Baltimore MD to Greenville SC

Vivienne Bastian considered himself a fan of public transportation. He knew how to drive, but rarely did so, preferring to walk when he could or take the metro or the bus when he couldn't. He disliked riding bicycles; he had tried to get into it in college but after nearly swerving into traffic and getting hit by a dump truck, he'd given up on all that. The best kind of public transportation was riding the train. Especially long train rides. He liked to sit by the window and watch the landscape change. He liked talking to the strangers who he would never see again. It was all so terribly romantic. He fancied himself a character from one of those black and white noir movies, one of those reporters who talked like Humphrey Bogart and got into trouble and solved the mystery and saved the day.

Those guys always carried around old fashioned recording equipment and talked into it as they moved the story from act to act. It would be interesting if he started to do that, to move his own story along as he moved through it. Or, he thought, he could be like Dale Cooper and treat his recording equipment like a friend or co-worker and act like he was bouncing ideas off of it. Was that strange? It wasn't strange, was it?

To do something like that, of course, he would have to have access to the recording equipment on his phone. And the ability to speak without his uptight, insane brother ranting at him on the phone from hundreds of miles away.

"I think you've really lost it," his brother was saying in his nasally faux-New Englander voice which was an affectation he had picked up to get him further along in his career. "You pick up and leave in the middle of the night and get on a train to Tennessee of all places? I mean, I know you don't have a job to worry about, but you're an adult, you can't just abandon all your responsibilities like that. Are you having a nervous breakdown?"

"I have a job, Will," Viv said, for the thousandth time. He was sitting comfortably by himself on the train. There weren’t many passengers at, despite the fact that it was early summer and the schools were still out. "I make things and people pay me for it."

"On the internet," Will said derisively.

Viv smiled and imagined how much better life would be if he had been smart enough to not call this prissy sad sack of a man in the first place. Once Will knew where he was, it was only a matter of time before he bypassed his self-imposed oath to never talk to their parents again, and then go snitch.

"I think you're having a nervous breakdown because the theater fired you."

"That was a year ago and I am not having a nervous breakdown, you're totally projecting." Would a person who was having a nervous breakdown bother to pack a week's worth of clothes that were all planned out, outfit by outfit? Viv had even researched the weather in Chattanooga and packed accordingly. Supposedly it was pretty humid there. Would a person who was having a nervous breakdown call a friend to take care of their plants for a week? Would a person who was having a nervous breakdown even call their brother to let him know they were ok? No, no, and no. If anyone was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, it was his recently divorced brother. "I told you that I'm just trying to find Christian, I'm following the clues he left me and--"

"--You're living in an insane fantasy world--"

"--since it's clear he's tracking his old buddies down, the closest one was Virgil Osborn, who went back to his hometown in Tennessee after the service." Talking to Will was like talking to a sea-urchin. Every little thing made him spiky and defensive. Impossible. He was worse than Dad.

He was only an hour away from Greenville. Once he got there, he planned on renting a hotel for the night. He'd put the final touches on the episode-- the first episode of a series, he hoped-- and then upload it. That would really set the whole thing into motion. It was what would make it real. Once he put his intentions out there, into the universe and into the public, there was no going back. He'd have to follow through.

The only thing Viv knew about Greenville was that they had a big theater that Hamilton would be coming to later in the year. He hoped that meant they were ok with gay black people. He anticipated it being more accepting than Jeptha, the Eastern Tennessee town of 2000 he was on his way towards the next day.

Will was still ranting at him. Viv tuned back in. "Christian isn't missing. Christian is never missing, or hurt, or in trouble, or what have you. He's just him. He ran away. Again. He'll turn up when he wants to turn up. He's the only one of us who gets away with everything, and you're a fool for falling for his bullshit again. It's like you're the youngest brother or something, instead of us all being born at the same time."

"If you read the Google Docs he left--"

"--You mean his obviously PTSD fueled manifestos--"

"--There's all this shit about what happened in Kandahar, with him and Blue and the others before they all got discharged. And I think-- I mean, I'm guessing-- there was some kind of cover up that goes back to the OVA. Or the OVA found out about it through a military leak, I don't know. Christian must have thought it was a big deal, so when Osborn and Jankowski turn up dead a few months ago, he freaked out and thought this big conspiracy was behind it. And yeah, after reading it, I'm inclined to think so too." Viv took a big gulp of the canned Starbucks Frappuccino he had bought at the last stop. He needed the caffeine. He wondered if he could vape on the train. He hadn't seen any signs saying that he couldn't. Would it set off the fire alarms or something? He took his Juul out of his pants pocket and looked around for any attendants or other passengers who looked like they would complain.

"Yeah, PTSD fueled manifestos," Will said dryly. "The OVA only deals with magic. Why would he think they care about some idiots who got drunk in Afghanistan one night and only narrowly avoided getting court-martialed?"

The only passenger nearby was a middle aged white lady who looked like she had taken about a hundred valium. Viv surreptitiously took a drag on his electronic cigarette. The pod he was using was green apple flavored. He felt his nerves immediately calm and hoped that he wasn't addicted to nicotine. That couldn't happen with vapes, right? He exhaled and fanned the air a little bit as he kept talking, in a more lowered voice. "Did he tell you what happened in Kandahar?"

"He told me what he thought happened."

"With the, the black slime that started moving up from his fingernails and the way he couldn't remember any of it?" Viv thought about his own fingernails and felt the need to take another drag from his vape.

Will was silent.

"You still there?"

"Why didn't you go to Boston to see Blue if you think Christian's army buddies are showing up dead?" Will asked, staunchly changing the subject away from dissociative periods and black slime. He never liked to talk about it. Not even when it was right there in front of him affecting him. "If there really was a pattern and Osborn and Jankowski's deaths are connected, wouldn't he be next? Or wouldn't Christian have gone to him first since he's so close?"

The few times that Viv met Blue had been deeply uncomfortable since he had introduced himself under the assumption that Christian was dating him. Which was ridiculous in retrospect, since Christian had never dated anybody. But Blue had a variance that allowed him to control his own heart rate, so at least it had been fun to trick his mother into thinking the guy had fallen over dead at her table.

"There wasn't as much on him," Viv said lamely. "Just some articles from 2015 when that girl tried to rob the place he was working at and put him in the ICU for 3 days."

"I forgot about that."

"Yeah." The vapor around Viv looked a little thick. He kept waving it away and glancing around for employees. "Anyway. I don't know. It'll be interesting, an interesting story. I think people will like it."

"Don't you mean 'I think I'll find my missing brother'?" Will asked, and laughed cruelly. He laughed through his nose for some reason. Nobody else in the family laughed through their nose.

Viv wanted to put a knife into this particular brother and then twist it. "How's Emmy?" he asked.

That took all the pompousness right out of him. "Good. Almost walking," Will said, deflated. "I had her this weekend. I have to see Jennifer's attorney to finalize custody next Friday."

Hopefully that meant Jennifer would be getting more custody of Emily than Will was. His brother's ex wife was fun, attentive, and thoughtful in a corn-fed Midwesterner kind of way. She didn't need to be subjected to the dysfunctions of the Bastian family any more than she needed to be. And the baby definitely didn't need to be around any of them.

"That sucks," Viv said, as fakely as possible. "I guess I'll have to go over to your-- I mean to Jennifer's house the next time I want to babysit my niece. I'll send you pictures of her."

Without so much as a 'fuck you', Will hung up.

Viv shook his head. So dramatic. It was sad that he had to punch below the belt like that, but sometimes Will forced his hand. At least Christian never mocked him.

The last time he had seen Christian was almost a month previously. He had shown up at Viv's apartment in the middle of the night without warning, soaked with sweat and ranting about how they-- the Bastian triplets-- were not safe. That was when he had shared the Google documents with Vivienne. It was nearly 3 gigabytes of information, most of it incomprehensible. It was not the first time he had shown up out of nowhere like that, but it was the first time that he had proof to back up his claims. Most of Christian's collection of documents were information accessible from the public-- articles, screenshots from twitter, videoclips, even basic information from Wikipedia. But some of it was from the Office of Variant Affairs, as well as from the military and looked...official. He wouldn't answer any of his brother's questions, he was too amped up, just repeating that they weren't safe. By the time Viv had gotten him to de-escalate, Christian had determined that he had to go. He said that he was off to Tennessee, where Osborn had died 4 months ago, and left.

Still, Viv had not reported his brother missing. Nor had Will. Nor had their parents-- not that Christian had any contact with them recently. But surely they knew. There was no way that they were going about their lives unaware that nobody had seen one of their sons for an entire month, could they?

He had heard that if someone was missing over 30 days, they weren’t really missing any more. That was when you were supposed to send the authorities their dental records. Viv had no intention of doing that either. He knew his brother wasn’t dead, Christian was too….Christian for that. He had just Gone Girl-ed himself for whatever reason and was probably in trouble.

So he hadn’t filed a missing persons report. And he wouldn’t.

It wasn't because he didn't trust the cops to find Christian. It was because he wanted to find him himself. It was a better story that way.

Contemplating this, Viv took another long drag from his vape and exhaled.

And just like that, the smoke alarm went off.

********

ETN.ORG

APRIL 15 2018

JEPTHA MAN FOUND DEAD AT STILLWATER MOTEL DIED OF DRUG OVERDOSE

Shelly Asburn

JEPTHA- A 32 year old man who died earlier this week at the Stillwater Motel overdosed on drugs, says county medical examiner.

Virgil Alexander Osborn, of Jeptha, Tenn. was found the morning of April 13 in a car in the motel's parking lot, according to county medical examiner, Jerry Xi, who conducted the man's April 14 autopsy. The car, parked in the westward lot, was running, Xi wrote in his report, and the heat was on high.

The toxicology report has not been released. Autopsy reports show Osborn's manner of death was accidental.

County Sheriff's Office deputies found Osborn dead inside the vehicle just after 8:00 am after responding to the motel for a medical call.

Sheriff Brian Craddock had previously said foul play was not suspected in the death.

Reach Shelly Asburn at Shasburn(at)ETN.com and follow her on twitter (at)ShellyAsburnETN

*******

August, 2018

7:45 PM

Greenville, SC

The hotel Viv checked into after disembarking the train (thoroughly humiliated and publicly shamed by an attendant for vaping) was actually pretty nice. Greenville wasn't the pit of despair he had imagined it to be. It was located on a river, which he had walked next to while scoping out the big theater, the Peace Center. The place wasn't like Baltimore, but it was pretty good for the South.

Well, for what he imagined the South to be like. He had never been down there, unless you counted trips to Miami to visit his father's sister. The rest of his extended family all lived in Cuba (his father's family) or Haiti (his mother's). Between that and Viv's own dismissal of every part of the United States that wasn't California, Florida, or located above Maryland and below Maine, he didn't have much room in his heart for travel.

But Greenville was very nice. If he had more time there, he could see himself maybe going to a play and checking out some of the local restaurants. He did not have time. The bus that would drive him to Chattanooga was leaving at 8:00 in the morning, so all he could do was wind down in his hotel room.

He reclined on the bed, wearing the terrycloth robe that came with the room. The bed was comfortable, more comfortable than the one he had at home. Hotel beds always were. Viv had his headphones on and his laptop perched on top of his round stomach, carefully finalizing his edits of episode 50 of his podcast, "Slack". It was a...variety show. Most of the time he just talked about music and invited guest speakers to discuss politics or pop culture with him. Sometimes he did some investigative journalism-- mostly having to do with the arts scene or true crime. He really hadn't found his niche, but had enough listeners to scrape together barely enough to live by on Patreon. Sure, it wasn't the same as when he had been in charge of sound design at the Owensby, but it was enough.

Plus, he was his boss and could do whatever he wanted now. He had total creative control. That's what counted.

If Viv thought too hard about what Will said about him finally having a nervous breakdown over being fired, he actually would have a nervous breakdown, so he focused on work. The sound of his own voice was already starting to irritate him. He sounded very Maryland and very gay, neither of which were affectations.

"I'll keep you guys updated on this story as it unfolds," his recorded voice from 3 days ago was saying. "And for Patrons of a $10 level or more, I'll be uploading some of the documents my brother left for me-- the ones I feel safe doing so with that is." Viv rolled his own eyes at himself and tugged off his headphones.

For a few minutes he blindly surfed the internet until he found himself watching a video of a squirrel getting stuck in a bagpipe for no reason. He exited Google Chrome.

He used the remote to turn on the tv. Whoever had stayed in the room before him had left the channel on Fox News, which was like kryptonite for Viv. He stared at it for a moment, transfixed in horror. A Republican Representative from Indiana was talking, clearly begging for her seat as mid-terms approached.

"I'm just saying," she told the camera, all big teeth and dead black eyes. "There are people out there who have the inherent ability to kill others using nothing but their minds, and the OVA does nothing to regulate this. Sure, these school shootings get a ton of press, but what about the guy who goes postal and snaps his wife's neck telekinetically? What about the people who can create fires just by blinking? Shouldn't everyone else have the right to protect themselves using firearms?"

An image of his father, who had walked with a cane since the age of 35 after his left leg was irreparably mangled by gunfire during his service came to Viv's mind. He shook himself from his trance and flipped the channel to Real Housewives of Orange County.

He exited out of the sound editing software on his laptop and pulled up Christian's Google docs, scanning through them to see if anything new caught his eye. So far, he had only organized them into sections. One section pertained only to Tennessee and Virgil Osborn. Another contained information about Monty Jankowski's death in California. One section was about Blue. One was just for Christian-- for some reason, his discharge papers and medical records were all scanned in there, although there was nothing out of the ordinary there. But Christian had also included his report cards from Elementary school, as well as notes from 2008 when he had been forced to see a therapist. Then there were miscellaneous bits and bobs of information. There were emails Christian had exchanged with thauma-slurry distilling factories from some big company, Proverge. There were old scanned paper documents in Russian that Viv couldn't make heads or tails of. Academic studies from the OVA's disease prevention branch coupled with Wikipedia pages on biological warfare. Every single episode of his podcast. A video of their mother playing the piano at a concert in Germany during the 1980's. A photograph of their father when he was young, surrounded by smiling people. Will's medical records. A copy of Jennifer's sonogram when she was pregnant with Emily. A copy of the pink slip Viv had received when he got fired.

How did an ex-military chump turned security consultant like Christian get his hands on all this?

He clicked on Osborn's files and rapidly began going through them again, preparing himself for the next day. The toxicology report had not been released yet, but Christian's notes emphasized that he had died overdosing a methamphetamine-fentanyl speedball. Since Christian seemed to know everything these days, Viv believed him. His brother had even narrowed down Osborn's dealer from blurry convenience store camera footage; a tall young woman called Arlene Kennelly who was involved in the local criminal organization.

The puzzle pieces were all there but it was up to him to put them together. He was less good at detective work than he had once assumed, and it frustrated him. He clicked out of Osborn's files.

Viv watched the video of his mother playing the piano, hoping that it would calm him down. It was from before she had triplets, and she was beautiful and happy. She was a better pianist than anyone he had ever paid to see, it was no wonder that she had gone all over the world when she was in her 20's. In the video, Maya Bastian (for some strange reason, Viv's father had taken her name and let go of his name, Perez) played the solo piano part of Rhapsody in Blue in front of a crowd of people in uniform. Her hair hid her face from the camera.

Hearing her play made him feel a little bit better. It reminded him of being a kid, when she was teaching him and his brothers. It made him think of the way she would guide his hands on the keyboard, and the way that everything seemed right in those moments.

It made him feel better but not better enough to forget that at one point Christian had rooted through his garbage like a psychotic raccoon in order to retrieve his pink slip.

Thinking about that made him feel itchy. He snapped his laptop shut and grabbed the room service menu, eyeing the mac and cheese. Food was good. Food would make him feel better, along with a hot shower. He had another long drive in the morning, to a probably terrible little town that nobody had heard of. Viv needed his rest.

I AM NOT TORTURING MYSELF BY WRITING VIV BEING ANNOYING FOREVER JUST PRETEND IM WRITING THINGS THAT ARE SIGNIFICANT AND I'LL FILL IT IN LATER I GUESS. I’M JUST GOING TO SKIP AROUND.

********

ROBERT RAPHAEL KENNELLY

Booking Number: ########

Booking on: 05/26/2010

County: Hamilton

Date Of Birth: 01/15/1989

Charges 1. Violation Description: FELONY POSSESSION SCH II CS

Bond Amount: $50,000

********

In his dream, Viv looked at himself in the mirror in the bathroom of his childhood home and saw that he was 7 again. The child version of him was fatter than he was at 32, and wore his hair in a little afro because his mother thought it was cute. He wore a t shirt with a dinosaur on it and red sneakers. But Viv was only looking at his face. His child-self's face. He was unable to look away, or even break the gaze from his own big brown eyes.

And in his dream his nose and mouth were covered with thick black slime.

*********

US ARMY DD214 PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT

BASTIAN, CHRISTIAN MATEO ######### ########

ARMY RA ######### 02 SEPT 2007

######### MARYLAND 30 MAY 1986

OTH ########## ##########

######### ########## ##########

######### ########## #########

AFGHANISTAN 02 SEPT 07-- 13 JAN 08

#############

*******

August, 2018

8:00 AM

Stillwater Motel, Jeptha, TN

There was no free continental breakfast at the Stillwater, but the woman at the front desk noticed how dead on his feet Viv looked, and made him a fresh pot of coffee. She even poured it for him and seemed to want to sit and chat as he drank it. Her name tag read "Beth". She was exactly what Viv imagined when he thought of someone who would work at a crappy motel in Appalachia. A white woman in her 50's with a weathered face, badly bleached hair, and a big smile that he couldn't quite let himself trust. Her features were slightly abnormal in the way that people who were exposed to certain kinds of magic became. Sharp teeth, big ears. Her sandpapery skin was mottled green on her neck and hands, as if she was permanently bruised. As if she was rotting.

"What you here for?" she asked him as he took his first sip of coffee. It was surprisingly good. She had added two creams and two sugars just like he had asked. Underneath her accent was the distinct lisp that anyone whose mouth and teeth were affected by magic got. "The only thing 'round here for visitors to do is hunt, and the season don't start for months."

Did he look like the kind of guy who went blowing holes in defenseless animals? He was wearing dark wash jeans, sneakers, a black t shirt and a light grey hoodie over it; his 'dressed down' look. He was trying to keep any hint at flamboyancy out of his voice. Was he that good at acting or was this lady making fun of him?

“Well,” said Viv, thinking wildly as he drank his excellent coffee. He might as well try to find the girl who sold Osborn the drugs that killed him. Waving a picture of Christian and asking if anyone had seen him seemed less effective, more disastrous. He would save that for further along in this particular excursion, when he had some solid ground to base his assumptions on. “Well. I’m looking up my friend who I met on the internet.”

“Ah,” said the desk woman, Beth. She smelled like tobacco. “How millenial.”

He decided to just go for it. This was a town of 2000, after all. The chance that any given person he talked to knew someone who he actually needed to talk to was phenomenal. “Do you know an Arlene Kennelly?”

“I know some Kennellys. Not sure about an Arlene,” said Beth. She unfolded a local newspaper, appearing uninterested. “There’s a whole hive of Kennellys around here.” For a second she looked up and made eye contact with Viv, just long enough to be meaningful. “Not sure ‘bout your friend, but my mama wouldn’t let me play with nobody from that family when I was coming up.”

What the fuck did that mean.

Viv backtracked. “My friend is very nice,” he said, knowing for a fact that that was not true. Well, he was guessing it was true. The woman he was looking for didn’t have anything in Christian’s collection, as far as he knew, and cursory google search of her name had brought up no arrest records. On the other hand, it was clear that she was a drug dealer partially responsible for the death of Virgil Osborn, and, according to Christian, involved with the whole plot. “Thanks for the information, though. And the coffee.”

“Anytime, sugar.”

He retreated to his room to get ready for the day and to make sense of what the desk woman had meant. Since he planned on staying in the area for more than a few nights, he didn’t want to piss any service employees off. Hopefully she would make him coffee again tomorrow, and maybe they would talk again and he would bounce some things off of her local knowledge.

In Viv’s room was the following: all he had packed since he got on the train to come south. 7 outfits. His pajamas. 2 pairs of shoes. Toiletries. His laptop, his headphones, and the cords for both of those objects. Nothing else. It made him feel like he was a foreign journalist in Malaysia or something. Living rough.

As he paused to grab his phone charger, he caught a glimpse of himself in the old mirror that hung above the room’s dresser. It was something that had been bought in the 80’s or 90’s, with a yellowing trim and warped face. Viv usually avoided looking at himself in mirrors, for a myriad of reasons, but he decided to right then. He looked tired. There were bags under his eyes like he had not slept. His skin looked dry. He was not smiling, not excited.

There was nothing to be done about it.

********

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

8700 Beverly Blvd

Los Angeles, CA

90048

###-###-####

######@##########

March 17, 2005

Levi Monday

############

Los Angeles, California, 661

Dear Mr. Monday,

Our repeated attempts to collect the balance due on your mother's account which you cosigned for have been ignored. Your account has been referred to an outside collection agency, ####### Collection Agency Services. In order to prevent negative marks on your credit history, we suggest you contact us immediately to make a payment. We accept MasterCard, VISA, and Discover.

If your payment is already on its way, we thank you and ask that you please disregard this notice. If not, we would appreciate receipt of your payment as soon as possible. If you are unable to make payment in full due to financial difficulties, a reasonable payment plan is available so you can satisfy your obligation and keep your account in good standing. If you would like to further discuss the details of your account, please do not hesitate to call patient billing at ###-###-####.

Sincerely,

Patient Billing

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

**********

August, 2018

11:30 AM

Main Street, Jeptha, TN

At least the weather was nice.

That was the only good thing Viv could say about this small town, after wandering around it all morning. It was balmy outside. Not too hot, not too windy, barely humid at all. A moderate summer day. Pleasant. He had been expecting more heat, but really, it was not much different than it was back home.

“Ok,” he said, speaking into the recorder on his phone and hoping that he came off as more of a ‘Dale Cooper’ than an insane man who was talking to himself. He thought about naming his imaginary audience. Who could be his Diane? He liked the name ‘Francis’ but was leaning towards the more classic ‘Dear Listeners’. “It’s been hours now and I haven’t learned anything apart from everyone in this town knows a Kennelly or two. I just haven’t found the one I’m looking for. Getting frustrated. I feel like I did when I was canvassing in college.”

He was sitting on a bench in the downtown area of Jeptha. If you could call it a downtown area. There were a few little stores lining Main Street-- a hardware store, a diner, a pawn shop and the like-- but nothing of any real interest and nothing that would lure in tourists. The whole place was run down. From what he could tell, most of the town’s jobs came from a nearby factory, the boiled cabbage like fumes of which he could smell and were making him ill. It was a place that would have made him sad, if he had sat down and thought about it. But Viv only had room in his mind for his purpose there and shoved any contemplative thoughts to the back of his mind for later, when he would need them for adding flavor to his story.

“Thinking about getting lunch,” he said into his phone. A stretched-out looking teenage boy wearing a Black Sabbath shirt walked by him and made eye contact. Viv didn’t look away from him. He wasn’t scared of any redneck high schooler, variant or not. “There’s a Bojangles near the motel. And there’s a diner. I don’t know, it looks like some local flavor. Maybe I can ask around in there. And there’s probably pie, that’s always a plus.”

#writing

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