End Vision, page 11
Brice answered on the fourth ring.
“Ramon! Amigo!” Loud music and talking echoed through the connection.
“Hello, Brice. Where are you? It is super loud.”
“De Ja Crew, buddy! You should get over here. Lots of celebs out tonight.”
“Not tonight, man.”
“Oh, man. I’m at a table next to Adam and Suzie!” Brice broke away from the conversation. Ramon could hear him making side talk. “Hey, guys. No, no...I know! Wasn’t that wild!”
“Brice...Can you step away for a second? I have something I need to talk to you about.”
“Ah, I know, I know. You really have to be more careful. Once that shit is out, that shit is out! You gotta do it right. You gotta do it the right way. You know what I mean?”
“Brice! Damnit! Step away for one fucking second.”
“Ok. Ok. I’m back. That was Adam and Suzie! Did you hear about Catie’s photo hack?”
“Brice, I read the article.”
“I can’t believe she would put those out there like that. You just know that she did. Hack my ass…”
“Wait?...What?...Your article, Brice. The VerMas article that you wrote.”
“Oh, yah! It was great. Thanks for that. I’m getting tons of young model types asking how to get on the new show. I keep telling them, ‘sometimes you gotta get off to get on.’” He burst into laughter.
“That’s a good one,” Ramon said flatly. “I need to ask you about one of the comments.”
“The comments? What do you mean?”
“One of the people on the street that commented on the article, about what the show might possibly be.”
“Good touch, right? I needed some filler for my word count. That’s an easy little trick to make length and get ads in.”
“Who was the J.J.? Do you remember?”
“J.J.? What are you talking about?”
The noise from De Ja Crew throbbed into Ramon’s head.
“The commenter, J.J. The person that commented about it being a celebrity rodeo.”
“Yah, I remember her. What about her?”
“So, it was a woman?”
“Yah. A blonde. Mid-twenties maybe. It's hard to tell with these girls these days...Fucking Sofia turned forty-six this year! Can you believe that?”
“It wasn’t Jenni?” Ramon strained to hear through the noise. “I think I’m losing the connection, or you need to speak up or go someplace a little quieter.”
“Who?” screamed Brice.
“Jenni Jarmusch. It wasn’t Jenni Jarmusch?”
“Jenni? No. No way. This woman was a blonde waitress from Lazo’s. Definitely not Jenni Jarmusch.”
“What did she look like? Did you get her full name?”
Brice had begun another side conversation. “No. No, I go to Juan Martín...Fabrizio is a hack literally and figuratively.”
“Brice! I’m losing connection, I think. Hello? Did you get her name?”
“I’m sorry, buddy. Its crazy in here tonight! No. I’m sure I have a name written down somewhere, but I’ll need to dig it up. I might could help you tomorrow.”
“What? Brice? I’m having connection issues.”
“Alright, buddy. I’m going. But you should really get dressed and get over here.”
“That’s alright, man. I’ll try to see you tomorrow.”
“Did Brad just leave with Alisson?!”
“What?”
“Holy shit!...Ramon, I gotta let you go.”
The call dropped, and the room went silent. Ramon needed to regain some sense of understanding about the events piling up around him. He couldn’t say what it was, but something felt off.
He reclined on his lumbar supported Spine-Form© swivel chair with his hands clasped behind his head. Search: The Celebrity Viewer, thought Ramon to the void. The Viewer’s webpage opened across his Vision. Search: Brice Strickland articles. Open: Reality Western.
Ramon scanned the document. His eyes fastened to the words evoked onto his sight. Maybe I missed something, thought Ramon. There was nothing. Andrew was just on edge. He was drinking too much. His nerves were shot. But what about J.J? A female with those initials who knew the specific details about the rodeo, but wasn’t Jenni? That was too much of a coincidence.
J.J… Occam’s razor. Search: Jenni Jarmusch. 200+ Jenni Jarmusch Profiles | LinkedIn; Jenni Jarmusch Profiles⏐Facebook; Images of Jenni Jarmusch; Connect with Jenni Jarmusch!: Phone Number, Email, Address… Open. 954 people named Jenni Jarmusch found in Texas, California, and 50 other states. Click a state below to find Jenni more easily. California. 62 people named Jenni Jarmusch found in Lake Elsinore, San Diego and 28 other cities. Click a location below to find Jenni more easily. Los Angeles. 2 people named Jenni Jarmusch found in Los Angeles. Two profiles.
Bingo. There she was. Jenni C. Jarmusch. Female, age 23. Relatives: James, Patricia, Blake. Locations: Riverside, CA; Santa Barbara, CA. Social Profiles, 8. Court Records, 0. Historical Records, 0. Contact Information, 5. Open: Contact Information. A new tab opened, blocking Ramon’s view of the contact page:
PICK YOUR OPTION
Full Name Report
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YOUR SATISFACTION IS IMPORTANT TO US!
Purchase: Full Name Report. A confirmation blinked in Ramon’s periphery: ‘Thank you for your purchase, Ramon Ramos! Click here to access your full membership profile!’
Ramon opened the link and found Jenni’s profile once again. Connect with Jenni. Her information spread across his lense in all its prepackaged glory. The leather Nimbus650© Spine-Form© SwivelDelux© rocked back and forth with WhisperQuiet© technology.
Not a sound.
Jenni C. Jarmusch. VerMas Media Consultant. 324 Oceanside Dr., Santa Barbara, CA. jjarmusch@vermasmedia.com. 951-903-7652.
An image file at the page’s bottom collected all known social media pictures of Jenni into one easily-accessible location. Ramon downloaded all the images and used a FaceRecognition© technology to pull any and all pictures located online that could possibly be Jenni C. Jarmusch. The pictures rained down across his Vision. Tagged photos, those with the highest likelihood of being Jenni C. Jarmusch displayed above untagged pictures that, according to the FaceRecognition© Technology, had people with a face similar to Jenni’s.
Ramon scrolled, the pictures becoming less likely to be his Jenni C. Jarmusch as he dove deeper into the file.
WhisperQuiet© Technology allows the user to work at all hours without having to disturb those around you! So quiet, no one will even know you’re working!
There were pictures of Jenni out to lunch, sipping cocktails with friends, in the background at weddings, at house parties, dressed to the nines, at the beach, pictures obviously scanned from printed versions, a high school yearbook photo.
Ramon stopped and hovered over a specific image.
Open.
A house party. A friendly get-together in an expensive-looking living room. Inside the image, people stood in small groups of three to four, drinks in hand. In one of the groups stood Robert and Jenni. Robert held a highball glass in his left hand, his right arm seized in mid-storytelling gesture. Jenni, captured at his side, laughed, her right hand resting gently on Robert’s left forearm. At first glance, Ramon thought nothing of it. A VerMas office party, perhaps. He scanned the other convivial groups of partygoers. There was Andrew, the center of attention as usual, surrounded by a group of about five. Shelly smiling up at him with eyes very much in love. But who was that in the back corner by the appetizers, unseen, body half-hidden by a line of hungry partygoers placing tooth-picked finger-foods onto clear glass plates?
Zoom: right.
Ramon stopped rocking without a squeak. Why, it was Cara Carson, standing alone, wine glass in hand, eyes laser-focused at Robert and Jenni, frozen in time, not looking one bit the happy camper.
Zoom.
And behind Cara, shielded by her torso, someone else, too blurry from the magnification to make out clearly, but a person nonetheless, reaching into what to Ramon looked very much like a safe or some sort of cubby hole in the room’s wall.
Save Image.
Ramon left the office, made his way back to his bedroom, tucked back into the Nimbus 3000© and made himself a cover cocoon, the bed’s temperature now perfect and set just for him. J.J. wasn’t Jenni. Brice knew Shelly. He wouldn’t forget Shelly. But what about Cara? And with the sound of a mountain creek trickling through his head, Ramon’s eyes grew heavy.
He slept.
The hallway was dark. The fluorescent lights overhead switched on as he passed under them and shut off after he was past so that only one light remained on at any given time. Through the blinking glow Ramon saw that he was in a long white hallway with a lone blue door at the end. He walked slowly toward the door with sharp-sounding steps that beat him the hundred yards to the door and echoed back in loud baaahhhhs. He felt drawn to the blue door and moved toward it unconsciously. As he approached, (Baaahhh), he noticed there were no other doors in the hallway. (Baaahhh.) He turned his head to look behind at an infinity of blackness. Turning back around, he continued forward. (Baaahhh.) The echoes from his steps rushing back in tighter intervals as he got closer to the blue door were sucked up into the blackness behind him. (Baaahhh...Baaahhh.) He could not stop himself from moving toward the door. Through his nerves, he could feel the edges of his stomach. (Baaahhh...Baaahhh.) He was almost there. (Baaahhh…Baaahhhh....Baaahhh…) The brass of the door’s handle, cool and smooth in his grip. Now it was the thumping of his heart. (Thump. Thump...Thump. Thump.) Could the echoes have just been his heart in the first place? The door swung open without a sound. He whispered “WhisperQuiet.” (Thump. Thump...Thump. Thump.) A dark room. He ran his hands along the wall and found a switch. (Thump. Thump...Thump. Thump.) He flipped it. A recliner facing away from him. A person sitting in the recliner. He moved toward the person in the chair. (Thump. Thump...Thump. Thump.) “Hello.” Nothing. “Hello. Do you know who I am?” (Thump. Thump...Thump. Thump) “Let me know if you can see me.” The hum of a projector switching on. An image projected onto the wall. The chair was on a swivel. “I’m going to turn the chair, okay?” Ramon grabbed the back of the chair and began to rotate it toward him. (Thump. Thump...Thump. Thump.) A door slammed shut behind him. He spun around. She stood there smiling at him. (Thump. Thump...Thump. Thump.) Not saying a word. Smiling from ear-to-ear. (Thump. Thump...Thump. Thump.) She brought her right leg forward, then her left. Her eyes focused into his. Smiling from ear-to-ear. (Thump. Thump...Thump. Thump.) She closed the distance. Slowly. Until she stood two inches from his face. “I KNOW WHO YOU ARE,” she screamed. (Thump. Thump...Thump. Thump.) Ramon grabbed the sides of his head. “What are you doing in here, Ramon?” “You asked me to be here,” he replied. “Who is in the chair?” Somehow, her smile grew. He smelled wine on her breath as she spoke. “What are you looking for?” she asked. (Thump. Thump...Thump. Thump.) “I guess I’ll just have to look and see.” She grabbed the back of his head, pulled his face to hers, and looked deeply into his eyes.
Ramon jerked awake.
“Heart rate level high! Heart rate level high!” warned the Nimbus 3000©.
08, Dec. 2017
Many Tiny Threads
If it seemed odd that he had been drinking pretty much nonstop since the Silver Turtle and was now slipping into the VerMas Media offices early on this clear, warm Friday morning, it was only because Andrew wanted to avoid being seen by large groups of coworkers. Emotionally, he couldn’t handle a face-to-face with anyone who had been at the meeting. Worse would be the looks from coworkers he barely even knew. Each look or giggle would be an admission that they knew, and that they were talking about him behind his back.
Or, God forbid, what if he saw Shelly? What could he say to her at work? What would the others think if he said nothing or anything? What would Shelly say if she saw him in the same clothes he had worn to Monday morning’s meeting, now reeking of stale beer and cigarettes? He had tried to de-wrinkle them by hanging them off the towel hook in the motel’s bathroom while he took a scalding shower, hoping in his wet brain that the steam would somehow freshen up the ensemble.
No… He couldn’t handle any of that, so he had taken the bus in early with other down-and-outs, all crammed together on the hard plastic seats. The Los Angeles DoT had decided the plastic would be easiest to hose the bus out after a full day of winter-coat-in-summer-wearing, look-complete-strangers-in-eye-silently, ten-plus-plastic-shopping-bag-suitcase-having passengers for whom half-yelled insults and non-sequiturs mixed with unfortunate, sour, moldy, bodily-function ridden odors passed off as bus ride banter. His nerves had wanted none of it, and so the nerves had declined to accompany him into work today.
The VerMas building’s large glass doors were locked. Andrew went through his three keys (one for the apartment, one for the VerMas front door, one for the office door) and shakily keyed-in to the building’s lobby. Even the three keys depressed him. His whole life in three keys. One of which was now all but useless, since he had not been home since Monday’s meeting. He hadn’t gone back to pack his bags. He wondered what Shelly thought about that. Then he remembered that she had neither called nor texted him, which told him what he needed to know.
The lobby floor was made of imported Italian marble, and his footsteps echoed as he walked toward the elevator at its center. Empty, the space sounded much larger than it actually was. An elevator waited with the doors open, typically not called to duty until around seven.
Andrew entered and pressed the button for the 6th floor. His hands shook. Beads of sweat fell from his sideburns. He felt sticky, like a lizard in the hot desert sun. The elevator slid upward, then stopped, opening directly into the VerMas Media lobby — a space containing a receptionist’s desk, small sofas, outdated magazines, and leather chairs. The lobby acted as an admitting space to the VerMas Media offices proper, and within them, the Department of Vision. The lights were dimmed, but when Andrew tried the door leading to the offices the handle turned. It was unlocked. The VerMas Media offices reminded him of the 1970s newsrooms he had seen in movies. A central nervous system of cubicles and computers in the room’s center connected to hallways that spoked-out in all directions. At the end of each spoke were the conference rooms and the Offices of the Important.
The lights were off in the main room, and Andrew walked quietly to his cubicle. He sat in his swivel chair and booted up his laptop. He opened his bottom desk drawer and moved aside a large stack of papers. Underneath, he found a worn, brown paper bag with a half empty pint of rum nestled inside. He always used the same bag. He’d learned to by watching his father sneak sips from his Evan Williams. After a few bottles, the paper bag became soft from use, smooth, quiet to the touch. It reminded Andrew of a stone in a creek, or the large turtle shell shaped rocks north of Amarillo that were polished smooth from millions of years of blowing sand. He could grip the bottle and avoid the loud crunching sound of paper that might draw unwanted attention his way as he poured little nips into the coffee mug he kept at his workstation for mornings like this one. Mornings when he needed to level off, steady his shakes, dry the sweat caused by the pulsing heat that radiated from his head.
He took a pull straight from the bottle and felt the contractions from his stomach try to push the burning poison back out. His spit was thick and gelatinous, and Andrew had to use his front teeth to scrape it from his tongue then spit it into the black wastebasket at his feet. The liquid burned inside his empty stomach. Andrew hovered closely at the wastebasket’s rim and dry-heaved with heavy convulsions that flowed across his body from his toes to his face in steady rolling waves. Water. He needed water if he was going to hold the bile down. His mug had ‘My Son is a Puckett Panther Honor Student’ across the side. He took it and hurried to the adjacent hallway to fill it from the drinking fountain. He filled it halfway and took a long drink. The water tasted like rum. He spit the contents into the fountain and rinsed his mouth and mug.
As he took a long drink from the faucet, Andrew heard voices at the end of the hallway. Cara’s office. Cara’s voice, and also the voice of a man, in muffled conversation. The water settled his stomach, and he filled his clean mug and returned to his cubicle. He drank the water down to half and topped it with a two-second pour of the rum.
Better, but not great.
Andrew went to the break room three doors down from Cara’s office and found a bottle of water in the refrigerator. The voices in Cara’s office had soft edges. Andrew could not make out what they were saying, but it sounded as if Cara were giving a stern lecture. The cadence of her voice reminded Andrew of being reprimanded by his mother for a bad test grade when he was a boy. He listened intently and tried to give shape to the words, but it was no use. The conversation might as well be coming through a feather pillow. Andrew returned to his cubicle. He took a sip from his mug, wretched, chased the bile down with the bottled water, waited for his stomach to settle, and repeated the process. The rum, combined with the dimness and silence of the room, calmed him and protected him from whatever might happen in the remainder of his day. The rum was his bulwark. His breakwall against the incoming tide.
