Planet Fever (35 page)

Neither Eddie nor EZ mentioned this observation to Fillono. They knew that he knew and they knew that he had prodded them to sniff out in that direction without giving away that he was covertly directing them. A good director knows how to get his actors to do the right thing, seamlessly.

“Eddie. You know you are-a-welcome here any time. And when you finish your book, you come and be a guest lecturer, no?” Fillono smiled, sipping his espresso.

Ed nodded. “You bet.”

“Scoot safely,” EZ said.

They finished their coffees, shook hands, hugged, and Ed grabbed his backpack and made way toward the parking garage to his truck.

The truck started and sounded good; EZ had asked one of the mechanics at the resort to fix it up. He drove out of the parking garage and down the road. This time, he noticed all the cameras
and
tiny satellite dishes everywhere.

On the way out, a billboard sign flashed:
Leaving Whynot. Thank You. Have a Swell Day
. He opted for the main highway rather than the mountain pass “shortcut” he had taken on the way in. Out of habit, he went to put a tape into the deck before remembering he had, on the way there, gutted the thing when it had eaten its final tape. He dialed into the radio and found a static-ridden frequency for the local classical music station. Wagner’s
Das Rheingold
cracked out of the speakers into the cab.

The first leg of the drive was uneventful and scenic. Eddie was jazzed-up on the espresso and sweating more than normal, but was generally enjoying himself, taking care to watch his speed. He hit the Utah state line mid-afternoon and made certain to
really
watch his speed. He passed a sign reading “Zion” and had flashes of his adventures there. He wondered what the young couple, Eliza and JD, was doing, and he pondered if they, in fact, existed.

As the lines in the road cruised by, his mind raced and reeled and he claims to have experienced a spiritual kinship with Jack Kerouac as words and ideas and rhythms poured forth from his mind into the ether. Too bad he was driving, because he knew that these words would be lost forever. But, accompanied by the static (no radio signals existed out here), the din of the cab and the drone of the engine, he mused a jazzy poem to nobody but the passing desert, the sky, the air, the highway and any invisible beings he didn’t know about who happened to be eavesdropping upon him, in that moment, and, like jazz, a one-off piece that existed only in
that
moment in time.

When he stopped to take a leak and gas up, he put forth the attempt to catch that proverbial “lightning in a bottle” by jotting it down in the notebook, but the energy and freshness of it was lost. It was indeed relegated to the ether for time immemorial.

The following is that proverbial “lightning in a bottle” poem titled “if I were you”:

if I were you:

I would: get with it….

make certain there is an escape route….

take her by the hand and let her know….

wonder what it would be like to be me….

get the fuck back to Dodge and fight like a man….

get the fuck out of Dodge and flee like a wise man….

investigate the way….

wiretap the truth….

eyeball the life….

and run down the dirty bastard who sold you that second hand dream.

Ed had no idea where that poem would fit into the story, so he put it here.

The sun was setting and he was about halfway through Utah. The full moon was out and becoming brighter as the sky grew darker. He tried the radio and miraculously got another classical station. His hairs stood up when Carl Orf’s
O Fortuna
tumbled out of the speakers.

He pulled into a rest area and finished listening to the song. He clicked off the radio and turned off the truck. He crashed out there in the cab of his pickup.

THE EARLY
sun crept over Ed and he woke up from a sound sleep. Aside from waking up a few times during the night because of the seatbelt jabbing into his side, or the thunderous engine of a big-rig truck that had entered the rest area, the night had been uneventful.

It seemed like his life was finally on track. No more pesky disturbances from doctors, strange military brass, or upside-down inter-dimensional men suspended in mid-air. He possibly had a girlfriend awaiting him, or an imposter posing as one. Either way, Eddie felt fine with that—if she was the real deal, he would be happy. If she was not, he would be fine, for he would be able to utilize her character for his own creative designs. That’s the way he made himself feel better with that option. But in all actuality, he hoped that she was an imposter that had actually fallen in love with him.

Yes, he knew how campy that sounded. But that is really how he felt about the whole thing.

He ate a protein bar and drank some water before hitting the restroom. En route, a peculiar gentleman approached him; his eyes locked onto Eddie’s for his entire approach. The guy looked to be in his thirties and seemingly very out of place out there in the middle of the Utah desert: for he was clad in a black, three-piece business suit, polished shoes and perfect hair. As they walked by one another he continued his unblinking stare, boring into Eddie.

Hot damn—the guy on the Greyhound who was bird-dogging me back in St. George….
Eddie thought.

“Howdy,” Eddie said as they passed, letting him know he wasn’t to be easily intimidated.

The man said nothing. He just stared. Once they passed, Ed imagined the guy was still staring at him from behind.

Screw that guy
, Ed thought and went into the restroom, took a leak, washed his hands, brushed his teeth with his finger and splashed cold water on his face and hair.

He went back outside and the guy was gone.

Bring it on,
Eddie thought.

He hit Vegas at around two in the afternoon and wondered if he should pay a visit to the good Colonel or his lackey psychiatrist. He opted against it. Better to pass right on by than get sucked into that vortex. Stick to the plan. Roughly five more hours until he’d be safely back inside the dirty belly of good ol’ Los Angeles.

HE CLIMBED
up the stairs and unlocked the door to his apartment. A flash of déjà vu hit him as he entered, as though he had been through this exact scenario before. The place was clean, relatively cool, and smelled nice.

“Hi!” Mona, who had died her hair black, arose from behind a painting she was working on and came and gave him a big hug. “You look good. And tired. But good tired.”

Eddie smiled. She was still there. It was nice to hug her and it was nice to be back in his place. “I feel recharged and ready to get busy finishing this novel, start a new one, maybe crank out some short stories and screenplays. Hell, maybe I even have a stage play or two in me. Time to get out of the bush leagues and become a pro’s pro. I’ve got a new lease on life.”

Mona whistled. “Wow.”

“It was a helluva trip.” He set his backpack down on the couch and went to the fridge. “We got anything to drink that won’t mess me up?”

Ed could tell she was relieved at his question, and he opened the fridge to reveal some apple juice, milk and cola. He opted for a glass of milk and asked her if she wanted anything.

“No thanks,” she said.

He walked over to the couch and sat down. She sat in the recliner across from him. He finished his milk and set it on the coffee table, then unzipped his backpack, taking out some of his notebooks and the dusty old book he had found in the desert.

Mona straightened up into an attentive posture when she saw him brandish the book. “What is
that
old thing? It looks like it’s been buried in the desert for who knows how long.”

“That’s because it has.” He took great care in opening the cover to the first page.

She leaned closer. “What is it?”

“Listen closely, because this is going to sound completely crazy. But I’m trusting you with this information, so I hope you give me the benefit of the doubt.”

Her eyes widened. She nodded and gestured with her hands for Ed to continue.

He took in a deep breath and pondered where to begin. “This is the key in bringing down the New (and Improved) Interstellar Syndicate. I know they are monitoring this right now, but I don’t care, because I have
this
.” He held up the book. “And, I have you. They can take neither from me, because I love this book and I love you.”

Her face registered slight confusion, shock, empathy and her cheeks blushed a bit.

He took a sip of milk and continued, “This is, quite literally,
My Book of Life
, given to me by the Author of All That Is, Atoz Al Ways. He has imbued upon me Reality Authorship, whereupon I am co-author of the universe, so long as I don’t sell or give the rights to my material away to those who wish to seize control of it. So, in a nutshell, I’m crazy and solipsistic and control the entire universe.”

She smiled. “Um, you have a little milk on your lip.”

Great. So Eddie had a milk mustache during his speech. Classic.

She got up and sat next to him, putting her hand on his knee. “Eddie, in a weird way, you’re totally correct. You
are
in control of an entire universe.”

Where was she going with this? A knot tightened in his throat.

“…and you’re right. If you do not let go of these realities you have manufactured, or authored, you will not be able to get out of them. You will inhabit them for the rest of your life. As far as what I mean to you….”

He wasn’t sure he liked where this was headed. He sensed danger. He took another sip of milk and set the glass down on the table.

She wiped the new milk mustache away from his lips. “Eddie, do you recall how and when we met?”

He thought about it hard. “The first instance is the bar, that night, where your boyfriend smashed a beer mug over my head….”

She grabbed one of his notebooks he had taken out from his backpack and the tiny stub of a pencil and began to doodle on one of the pages. “Do you remember a place called ‘A to Z Research and Clinical Trials’? It’s where you and I met. You went in there because you read an ad in the paper and needed money. I was an aspiring actress with a minor in nursing so I was able to work there part-time. It was a good job that helped pay off student loans and allowed me time off when I needed to go audition. You were there, a nice guy and funny but a little shy and a little self-doubtful, but that’s beside the point. They were having you take some highly powerful drug that acted beyond what hallucinogens do. Once they realized that you could actually
read
people’s minds while on the drug, and began meticulously writing about how this entire organization was a CIA Manchurian Candidate Lab, they quickly ushered everyone working close to you to a secret facility by the base in Las Vegas. I didn’t even know the place I had been working was a front, I just thought it was a normal pharmaceuticaltesting facility.”

Ed leaned back and absorbed what she was saying.

She continued: “Eddie, they gave us a choice: sign on with the ‘Project’ and we would be rewarded handsomely, such as an acting career for me, or else be silenced, for good. Obviously, I chose the career path that involved speaking.”