7 – To the Zone Again

“So, here we are again. My dark web posts have enticed a couple of poseurs who will pay handsomely to be taken to ‘the Zone.’ One calls himself Prof88, the other Journa14. Hehe.”

Steamer makes arrangements to meet them on the following day, where he will lay out his rules. One can get into all sorts of trouble in the Zone, and he doesn’t want to be associated with any disobedient fools. One is often judged by the company they keep. Others never consider that they might be strangers, as there is no way for them to know. He rests in hope of restoring his energy.

 

After a fitful sleep, Steamer is shocked to find Mairin, his former lover, who left him years ago, sitting in his sleeping quarters. She is unaware of how she got there. Terrified by her presence, Steamer also sees that other "guests" begin appearing at random.

Steamer: “ ..... Mairin?”

Mairin, looking around, disoriented: “How did I get here? I was somewhere else. Then I wasn’t. And now; this is your room.”

Steamer: “You shouldn’t be here. You can’t be here.”

Mairin: “I agree. But I am.”

Steamer, steps back, as if distance might restore logic: “You left. Years ago. You walked out the door and didn’t look back.”

Mairin: “I remember leaving. I don’t remember arriving.”

Steamer: “This place doesn’t give gifts. It takes shapes. It imitates. It tests.”

Mairin: “So you think I’m ..... what? A copy?”

Steamer: “I think you’re impossible.”

Mairin: “Impossible doesn’t explain why you’re shaking.”

Steamer: “I’m not shaking.”

Mairin: “You are.”

Steamer notices movement in the corner; another “guest” flickering into existence. He says: “Not now. Not again.” Turning to Mairin, he adds: “Stay where you are. Don’t touch anything. Don’t speak to anyone who isn’t me.”

Mairin: “Anyone who isn’t you? Steamer; who else is here?” She vanishes.

 

That evening, Mairin again appears in Steamer's quarters. This time, he calmly accepts her and they fall asleep together in an embrace.

Mairin materializes again, quietly, as if she had always been sitting there.

Steamer: “You came back.”

Mairin: “I didn’t choose to. I just ..... arrived. Like waking up in the wrong part of a dream.”

Steamer: “I’m not afraid this time.”

Mairin: “I know. You’re tired of fighting the shape of things.” She sits beside him. He doesn’t move away.

Steamer: “If you’re here, then be here. Just don’t vanish while I’m asleep.”

Mairin: “I’m neither here nor there. But, I won’t.” Beat. “Unless I do.”

They lie down. Her breathing syncs to his. The room stays still.

 

Mairin panics when Steamer briefly leaves her alone in the room, and injures herself attempting to escape. He had stepped out briefly to fetch water. When he returned, the room was in chaos; Mairin had tried to force the door open.

Steamer: “Mairin; stop. You’ll hurt yourself.”

Mairin: “You left. You left me alone. I can’t be alone here. It presses on me. It feels like drowning.”

Steamer: “I was gone for thirty seconds.”

Mairin: “That’s enough.” She collapses. Her arm is gashed from the metal frame.

Steamer: “Hold still. Let me see ..... “ But before he can give first aid, her injuries spontaneously heal before his eyes. The wound had knit itself shut, skin sealing as if rewinding. “That’s not possible.”

Steamer wonders if he had created Mairin from his memories of her. The Mairin present, though possibly not human, thinks and feels as though she were.

Mairin is terrified: “I felt it. I felt the pain. I felt the blood. And then; nothing. Like someone erased it.”

Steamer: “Maybe I made you. Maybe you’re built out of whatever I remember.”

Mairin: “If I’m made of your memory, why does it hurt?”

 

In time, Mairin becomes more human and independent and is able to exist away from Steamer's presence without panicking. She learns by reading Steamer’s mind, that the original Mairin had left Steamer years ago because he was already engaged to Emma.

Mairin sits alone, calmer now, reading Steamer’s thoughts without meaning to.

Mairin: “So that’s why I left.” Quietly, almost embarrassed, she adds: “Emma.”

Steamer: “You weren’t supposed to know that.”

Mairin: “I didn’t mean to look. It’s just that your mind is loud.” Beat. “I wasn’t real then either, was I? Not to you.”

Steamer: “You were real. Too real.”

Mairin: “And now I’m not.” She smiles sadly, before adding: “At least this time I know it.”

 

Later, while alone, again thinking that she is not real, Mairin kills herself by drinking liquid oxygen, only to painfully resurrect after a few minutes. On the surface of the water, the ocean begins to steam and swirl faster producing a funnel.

Steamer finds her on the floor, frost forming around her mouth, the shattered LOX canister beside her. He says: “Mairin, no. No, no, no.”

Mairin convulses, then inhales sharply as her lungs thaw and restart. Whispering through pain she says: “I tried to end it cleanly. But even that isn’t mine to choose.”

Steamer: “Why would you do this?”

Mairin: “Because I won’t be the thing that ruins your life twice.”

Steamer: “Something so good and special should never die! It’s so rare, it must be deferred to more than an endangered species. I love you, Mairin. I need you. I want you. ...... Don’t ever go.”

Baby Please Don't Go

 

Van Morrison

 

Baby, please don't go

Baby, please don't go

Baby, please don't go

Down to New Orleans

You know I love you so

Baby please don't go

You hurt me so.

 

Baby, your mind done gone

Well, your mind done gone

Well, your mind done gone

Left the county farm

You had the shackles on

Baby, please don't go

You hurt me so.

 

Before I be your dog

Before I be your dog

Before I be your dog

To git you way down here

I make you walk alone

Baby, please don't go

You hurt me so.

Hey

 

Baby, please don't go

Baby, please don't go

Baby, please don't go

Down to New Orleans

You know I love you so

Baby, please don't go

You hurt me so.

 

Before I be your dog

Before I be your dog

Before I be your dog

Git you way down here

Make you walk alone

Baby, please don't go

You hurt me so.

 

Know how I feel right now

My baby leavin', on that midnight train

And I'm cryin'

You hurt me so.

 

Baby, please don't go

Oh, baby please don't go

Baby, please don't go

Down to New Orleans

You know I love you so

Baby, please don't go

Let's go

 

Before I be your dog

Before I be your dog

Before I be your dog

To git you way down here

I make you walk alone

Baby, please don't go

You hurt me so.

Yeah

 

Alright

 

Written by Van Morrison

 

The ocean outside churned, the steam rising. The funnel seemed to have fallen from the sky, and further seemed content to resolutely sit on the water; big end up, small end down.

Steamer falls ill and goes to sleep. He dreams of his mother as a young woman, washing away dirt or scabs from his arm. When he awakens, Mairin is gone. Steamer reads her farewell note, in which she explains why she had to end things again; how she doesn’t want to be seen, more or less, as an eventually disdained homewrecker; which she sees as inevitable if she stays.

Steamer wakes, sweating, from the dream of his mother. Mairin is gone. Her note lies on the pillow.

Mairin’s voice, as Steamer reads silently says: “I love you enough to leave you again. I won’t be the shadow that follows you home. I won’t be the excuse you use to avoid the life you promised someone else.

If I stay, I become the villain in a story I never asked to be part of.

Forgive me for going.

Forgive yourself for letting me.”

Steamer folds the note. The room is unbearably quiet.

Steamer: “You were real enough.”

 

Trudging along, Steamer had chosen the meeting place with his paying Zone bound crew deliberately; the unobtrusive back room of a shuttered bait and tackle shop on the edge of the industrial waterfront. The front windows were papered over with old news print. Steamer took particular note of how despite the obvious fact that the other old stories had yellowed, crinkled, and curled; the one reporting Huey Long’s assassination seemed as fresh as it was on its September 1st, 1935 issuance; as if the powers that be considered it timelessly relevant, and preserved it for almost one hundred years, running and still going. Steamer considered it plausible that the “OPERATED ON” ending of the headline was an early veiled reference to Huey being shot by the son of a jewish doctor who somehow managed to break through tons of Long “security” with a loaded pistol, and was now in the hands of another jewish doctor; no other choice available.

Kingfish

 

Randy Newman

 

There's a hundred-thousand Frenchmen in New Orleans

In New Orleans there are Frenchmen everywhere

But your house could fall down

Your baby could drown

Wouldn't none of those Frenchmen care

 

Everybody gather 'round

Loosen up your suspenders

Hunker down on the ground

I'm a cracker and you’re one too

But don't I take good care of you

 

Who built the highway to Baton Rouge?

Who put up the hospital and built the schools?

Who looks after shit-kickers like you?

The Kingfish do

 

Who gave a party at the Roosevelt Hotel?

And invited the whole north half of the state

down there for free

The people in the city had their eyes bugging out

Cause everyone of you looked just like me

 

Kingfish, Kingfish

Everybody sing

Kingfish, Kingfish

Every man a king

 

Who took on the Standard Oil men

And whipped their ass just like he promised he'd do?

Ain't no Standard Oil men gonna run this state

Gonna be run by little folks like me and you

 

Kingfish, Kingfish

Friend of the working man

Kingfish, Kingfish

The Kingfish gonna save this land

 

Written by Randy Newman

 

Inside, the only light came from a single bulb hanging from a wire, swaying slightly whenever a truck rolled past on the street outside. The room smelled faintly of brine, old rope, and the metallic tang of rust.

Steamer had arrived early, as always was his habit. He sat at a folding table that had once been white but now bore the stains of a hundred forgotten projects. He wore his usual business uniform; heavy canvas jacket, jeans, and boots that had seen real terrain. His face was weathered in a way that didn’t come from age so much as exposure; to weather, to disappointment, to the Zone itself.

He waited.

Prof88 arrived next.

He was exactly what Steamer expected, more or less; a man in his late thirties with the posture and pallor of someone who had spent too much time online and in the classroom, and not enough time outdoors. He wore a black turtleneck under a blazer, as if he were giving a TED Talk about the metaphysics of courage. His hair was styled with precision, and he carried a leather satchel that he placed on the table with theatrical care.

“Prof88,” Prof88 said, extending a hand.

Steamer didn’t take it. He said; “Sit,” not in a rude or commanding way, but in a voice that may have betrayed his desirously hidden, level of disinterest; in this case supplemented by the mercenary “reward” expected.

Prof88 sat, clearing his throat in a way that suggested he thought this moment would be recorded someday.

Journa14 arrived five minutes later.

She was younger, maybe late twenties, with a sharp, restless energy. She wore a green field jacket that still had the creases from shipping. Her boots were too clean. Her Acer Aspire 1 Notebook was already open in her hand, her index finger poised like a weapon.

“You’re late,” Steamer said.

“I’m here,” she replied, sliding into the chair. “Traffic.”

Steamer stared at her. Guessing, he said; “You came by bus.”

She blinked. He had her pegged already.

Steamer folded his hands on the table.

“Here’s how this works. You want the Zone. You pay. You follow my rules. You don’t improvise. You don’t wander. You don’t talk to the Survivalists. You don’t touch anything unless I tell you that you can. And you don’t; under any circumstances, go into the room at the center unless you’re prepared for what it does.”

Prof88 leaned forward, smiling like a man who believed he was immune to consequences. “I’ve read extensively about anomalous environments. I’m prepared.”

Steamer looked at him the way a mechanic looks at a customer who insists he knows what that rattling noise is, and merely wants a functionary to silent it cheaply.

“You’re not prepared,” Steamer said, apparently oblivious to vague insults from needy inferiors. “You’re barely oriented.”

Journa14 jumped in. “What exactly happens in the room? The stories are contradictory.”

“That’s because the people who come out don’t talk about it,” Steamer said. “And the ones who don’t come out can’t.”

Prof88 scoffed. “Come on. That’s mythology.”

Steamer leaned back, studying him. “You think I’m selling you a ghost story.”

“I think,” Prof88 said, “that the Zone is a psychological phenomenon amplified by Jung’s folklore and ...... ”

Steamer cut him off. “You think whatever you want. But when the ground starts humming under your feet, and the air folds in on itself, and you hear something that sounds like your own voice coming from behind you, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Journa14 scribbled furiously. “Is that literal or metaphorical?”

“Yes,” Steamer said.

She stopped writing.

Prof88 tapped his satchel. “I brought equipment. Sensors. Cameras. A thermal rig. I assume that’s allowed.”

“No,” Steamer said.

“But ..... ”

“No.”

Journa14 raised her hand slightly, as if in a classroom. “What about documentation? Notes? Audio?”

“No.”

She frowned. “Then what exactly are we paying for?”

“To survive.” Steamer said. “Beyond that, you tell me.”

Prof88 laughed, a brittle sound. His lips seemed stationary as the words “Surely you exaggerate,” popped out of somewhere in space.

Steamer leaned forward, voice low and even. “You two are tourists. Paying tourists. The Zone doesn’t like tourists. It doesn’t like people who come in with agendas. It doesn’t like people who think they’re going to extract something from it. The Zone is older than your theories and smarter than your questions. You go in clean or you don’t go in at all.”

Journa14 swallowed. Prof88 tried to hold his smile but it faltered. He said; “How do you know so much about the Zone?”

“I’ve been there a few times, and Crocker told me the rest.”

Prof88 said; “Crocker? Who is this Crocker?”

“Your research is deficient.”

Prof88 said; “I know. That’s why I want to experience the Zone. At our worst, we intellectuals study, study, and study; write papers that are later debunked, and pretend that the currently circulating ones won’t be. ...... But, they always have been and always will be. It’s stupid to pretend otherwise.”

Journa14 said; “Nobody asked me, but I’d like to respond in kind. I want to win a Pulitzer. It’s no big deal, as many jerks have. I want the attendant remuneration while they kiss my ass. This is an investment.”

Steamer stood. He said; “You meet me here tomorrow at dawn. Bring nothing but water, boots, and sufficiently clipped conversation. If either of you shows up with gear, or attitude, or a plan, I walk. And you don’t get your money back.”

He paused at the door.

“And one more thing. If either of you runs once we’re inside, I don’t chase you. The Zone will handle it, and you probably won’t like the putcome.”

He left them sitting there, the bulb swaying overhead, the room suddenly feeling much larger and much emptier.

 

Steamer had some business to first attend to; a talk with his soon to be four year old son, Zarry, who was already precociously withdrawing from the world.

Steamer paused outside the small bedroom, hand hovering over the half closed door. He could already hear the soft rustle of paper; Zarry turning another page of his stamp album, slow and methodical, as if the world outside those tiny squares of color didn’t exist. He stepped inside. He called out as far as his diminished voice could go; “Hey, kiddo.”

Zarry didn’t look up. His legs were folded beneath him on the floor, the stamp album balanced on his lap. He seemed most interested in tracing the edge of a faded blue stamp, a 1968 issued, Polish commemorative, with one fingertip, eyes distant.

 

Steamer lowered himself to the floor beside him, joints protesting. “That one’s from the old coast routes, right? You showed me that a while back.”

A small nod. Barely. “I did? I don’t remember.”

Steamer exhaled through his nose. “Zarry ..... look at me for a second.”

It took a moment, but Zarry finally lifted his head. His eyes were unfocused, as if he were trying to remember who Steamer was; or why he should care.

Steamer forced a smile. “There you are. I’ve missed seeing those eyes.”

Zarry blinked once, then looked back down at the stamp.

Steamer swallowed. “I’m your dad, you know. Steamer. I know things have been ..... heavy for you. Hard to feel connected. But I’m right here.”

Zarry’s fingers stilled on the page. Not a response, but not nothing.

Steamer continued, voice low and steady. “I need to tell you something. I’m heading back to the Zone.”

That got a reaction; Zarry’s shoulders tightened, just slightly.

“I don’t want to go,” Steamer said. “If I had any other way to keep us afloat, I’d take it. But money’s tight, and the Zone pays. Not well, not safely, but enough. ...... Well, the Zone doesn’t pay anything; it’s the people who want to be led there who do.”

Zarry’s voice came out thin, almost unused. “You ..... have to?”

“Yeah,” Steamer admitted. “I wish I didn’t. But I do.”

Zarry’s gaze drifted to the corner of the room, unfocused again. “People don’t come back from there.”

Steamer felt that like a punch. “Some don’t. But I will. I have. And I’ve got you to come back to.”

Zarry’s lip trembled, just barely. “You don’t have to come back for me.”

Steamer shook his head. “That’s exactly why I’m coming back. Because you’re my son. Even when you feel far away. Even when you forget. Even when you think you don’t matter.”

Zarry’s fingers curled into the page of the album, wrinkling it.

Steamer gently placed his hand over Zarry’s. “I’m not leaving you. Not really. I’ll be gone for a bit, but I’m coming home. And when I do, I want to hear about every stamp you found while I was gone.”

A long silence stretched between them.

Then Zarry whispered, “Don’t get lost.”

Steamer’s throat tightened. “I won’t. I promise.”

He didn’t know if it was a promise he could keep; but he knew it was one he had to make.