Two Rooms

I am currently writing this memoir at Bull Street Mental Asylum under the influence of a considerable amount of alcohol, because the voices have a lower tolerance than I do. I am writing this before the voices from the other room build up a tolerance in which they will forever babel the present and the future, and I will no longer be able to have a conscious thought without them saying it first.

__________

The year was 2006, and it was another one of those squelching, hot summers in South Carolina. My partner and I had been commissioned to investigate the disappearance of a young girl in her early twenties, Samantha was her name, Samantha Burns. It became quite clear as the investigation drew on that we were not searching for Sam anymore. We were only interested in her abductor. Following a lead we had received from the Richland County Police Department, we went to Ed’s Editions off of Meeting Street, just on the other side of the Congaree Bridge from Columbia, which on the Columbia side became Gervais Street.

The lead really wasn’t much, but our client, Mr. Edward Burns, the grandfather of Sam, was paying us a lot of money, and we really had no other leads. In fact, for the past week we had really been sitting around filling out pointless paperwork, watching YouTube videos, and working on other commissions (mostly following around cheating spouses or teens suspected of doing drugs; the usual). The only reason we were hired was because of Rueben’s remarkable military skills and my strange intuitions that often, more so than not, were spot-on. The girl had been missing for two months, a week, three days, and nine hours (at least, that’s when the missing person’s report was made, thus, not including the twenty-four plus hours before the official report was filed). Mr. Burns turned to us because he had heard by word of mouth that we were some of the best locally, and he felt Richland County PD had not done all they could do to find her.

It struck me as quite odd that morning that Richland County PD had even given us a lead to follow. Why they wouldn’t follow it themselves really isn’t a concern of mine. Perhaps they were swamped with the Bull Street killings this morning, in which four people were found dead under Washington Street Methodist Church. There are already dead bodies down there to begin with, graves under the church (even a girl, whose name no one is quite certain of, encased in a glass “flesh eater”), but to find fresh ones with multiple stab wounds, the county police must have their hands full.

I often frequented Ed’s Editions myself. Rueben wasn’t much of a reader of anything in hard print. He was always more of a fan of internet forums and amalgamation news sites; that and the Bible. He’s Opus Dei. We were only told to check Ed’s Editions, nothing more. Since I liked the store and with nothing else to do, I didn’t really question the lead. Entering the store we found it in its usual condition: piles of old and used books everywhere, on the floor, on carts, stacked on top of shelved books, on top of bookcases, tucked into every conceivable corner imaginable; one can start to imagine why I was particular to such a place. We perused, looking for something out of the ordinary, and considering nothing there was exactly orderly, it’s hard to imagine what ordinary was in two rooms of categorized chaos. I mostly found myself looking for any good purchases. Rueben mostly wandered mindlessly, half seeing the faded print on the spine of the books.

Usually whenever I visited Ed’s I went over to the ancient philosophy and natural science section, which consisted of one narrow case filled with Plato, Tacitus, Aristotle, Newton, Huygen, Homer, Pliny, Marcus Aurelius, et cetera. Now I have found something unusual. On a normal day the books are pulled

forward so all the spines are visible, since some books are not as deep as others. But in this case of books all the volumes were pushed to the very back of the deep shelf so that every single book touched the backing of the case. Every book except one, The Complete Works of Horace, published in 1936, which was pulled forward slightly. I did my usual: check the year of publication, then the price, and finally the condition of the text. Upon inspection of the volume I noticed one page was dog-eared. Once flipped to that page I called out to Rueben, “He’s still three steps ahead of us!”

__________

Jump back a month ago, the third day of taking on the Burns Case. We were covering our bases on this case and decided to backtrack and revisit everything the Richland County PD had looked into. We weren’t released all the information at once, given police bureaucracy and politics. We were at a house up on a hill off of August Road, right down the street from the Flea Market, secluded in the woods with not another neighboring driveway or street east or west for about an eighth of a mile. The suspect at the time, and now the primary suspect today is a Dr. Jacob Ellsworth Esquire. He taught electrical engineering at the University of South Carolina. He had originally worked as a lawyer, but after ten years of practice went back to school and decided to pursue the wonders of electromagnetism. We had seen his office and home the day before, and now were investigating his other house. It was bequeathed to him by his late parents. We cut the police tape securing the front door with an escorting officer remaining outside drinking his coffee, and we proceeded to enter into the circular foyer with its winding staircase and 1950’s pink-felt wallpaper. Rueben wandered into the dining room to the right, then into the kitchen, around into the living room, and back into the foyer. I went upstairs. It appeared that Dr. Ellsworth Esq. only used three rooms, the kitchen for cooking, the bathroom for the toilet and shower, and what is presumed to be his childhood bedroom. There wasn’t much to it, a bed, a dresser, a wall mirror, some old children’s clothes in the closet (most likely his from adolescence), a few toys, a Bible, a stack of papers, and a charger to a laptop.

His personal laptop had been found and confiscated as evidence at his primary residence on Pickens Street. Police found no other personal computer, and determined the charger was the exact same make and model for his only laptop. I assumed before he disappeared he was here and took his laptop to his house, but left the charger here. Why? I haven’t the faintest clue. I thumbed through the stack of papers, most of which were recent research publications on Tesla Coils, Faraday Cages, and a copy of Hofstadter’s PhD dissertation on the behavior of electromagnetic fields while passing through crystals. This must have been something the police had not deemed worthy to bag as evidence.

Rueben came upstairs and asked if I had found anything, to which I muttered that none of it was of much interest. Apparently he only asked the question out of formality so he could tell me he found something out of the ordinary. I followed him downstairs and into the kitchen. There he showed me several stacks of pages with Sir Isaac Newton’s translation of the Tabula Smaragdina, Newton’s alchemical plan of King Solomon’s Temple, excerpts from the section on gems from Albertus Mangus’s Book of Secrets, an excerpt on the structure of the heavens from the apocryphal Book of Enoch, an image of the Kabbalah Tree of Life with personal notes scribbled on the side in what appears to be Coptic, and other esoteric science literature. What exactly did he have these for? It is quite clear that these pages were recently printed, as they had very little dust on them. And even if the police had moved them there, they were not discolored or faded from sitting in a closet for a decade (his parents had passed ten years ago), so clearly they were his.

I looked at Rueben and asked, “Have you seen a printer around here?” To which he inquired why I was looking for a printer. “A hunch. Look around and see if you see a printer.” As Rueben searched for a printer, I dug into my bag and pulled out a black light, which came equipped with red and blue LEDs as well. I took one of the pages to the bathroom and closed the door without turning on the lights. I held the blue light to the paper to barely be able to make out the little yellow dots, the printer’s fingerprints. Rueben confirmed a suspicion of mine, as there was no printer in the house.

My hunch was building and I wandered back upstairs to the bedroom. The desk where the computer sat seemed fairly clear of dust (except that which had built up since the police were last here), obviously from using the desk. But the dresser where the stack of electrical publications was laying was covered in dust, perhaps a year’s worth of microscopic particles. I lifted the stack of papers and saw that these papers were recently placed here, seeing the dust under the papers was consistent with the rest of the dresser.

“What’s up?” Rueben asked. “The police evidence files, are they in the car?” “Nope. They’re back at the office. Got another one of those intuitions you never seem to explain

to me?” “Perhaps. Grab that stack of mystic bullshit in the kitchen. We’re going back to the office.” Our office was on the second floor of an old brick building on Lady Street. We started renting the

place when we joined forces back in winter of 1997. Rueben originally worked in a crappy Post-Modern office building over in Forest Acres, while I worked in a more 1990’s styled building in an office park in Lexington. We knew we found the place to start our firm when the realtor told us, without us asking, that it was most definitely not haunted, and the ground floor originally had a private investigator’s office, but was now an architecture firm. Surprise, the place was haunted, or, at least, strange things happen there from time to time. Laurel, our secretary, usually enjoyed hanging out late. She had a fascination with ghosts. I didn’t really believe in ghosts. I can always find something to explain unusual occurrences.

Arriving back at the office, climbing those old, creaky wooden stairs, I pulled up the forensics on the papers confiscated as evidence from Dr. Ellsworth’s primary residence. The forensics work on the printed documents was incomplete, and there was note to find out which printer printed these. I had Laurel call RCPD and see if they had the forensics back on that, to which they claimed, “It’s too time consuming to confirm evidence for something that can be easily deduced to being printed with his home and or office printer.” Typical police work.

“What are you after, Gil?” Rueben inquired. “Something doesn’t add up, or at least doesn’t feel like it adds up. The dust content on the dress,

the dust content under the papers on the desk, the papers in the kitchen… I don’t feel right about it.” “Not every suspect is a criminal mastermind. You remember how you were convinced there was

something not right about the Mann case two years ago, and it turned out she was cheating on her husband with two men, not one.” Rueben had a knack for ignoring the remarkable – remarkable even to me – number of times my gut has been right when looking at extraordinarily mundane details.

“Yeah, well, you also remember the Williams case last Tuesday.” “Yeah, I do, and it turned out their son was gay, not doing drugs.” “Which I deduced from his stride.” “That one was pretty strange thing to deduce, especially since you were just following what the

parents suspected,” Laurel chimed in. “He liked to be buggered in the rear! How is that strange?!” Rueben exclaimed.

“Well, you didn’t catch it,” I retorted. “That because I don’t have gay-dar. Whatever, I have to get to Saint Joe’s.” “Before you do, can you run these printer marks so we can find some leads?” “Do it yourself, Gil. I can’t miss afternoon Mass. Here’s the number of a friend who owes me

one. He works at EFF. Drop my name and he’ll have it done before the end of business hours.” He did his usual scribble where his 4’s looked like 9’s, 1’s looked like 2’s, then ran downstairs.

When Rueben got back he had a sandwich from the café across the street. Apparently making him a few seconds late for Mass earned me not getting a sandwich on his dime. He prayed, crossed himself, and proceeded to stuff his face. I then began to inform him that his friend at EFF claimed he didn’t owe him anything, but ran the codes anyway. In fact, there were four codes, one from his home printer, a HP, one from his office, an Epson, and two from Lexington Public Library, both Xerox.

“Why would he go to Lexington?” “Well, his parent’s house is in Lexington. The pages with that esoteric crap and the

electromagnetic research were printed at Lexington. Well, except for the Hofstadter document. That was printed at USC.”

“And?” Rueben asked with a mouth-full. “And we’re going to Lexington once you’re done with your sandwich.” Laurel, bored with playing Solitaire, had to ask, “What’s with these printers anyway? What

codes?” Rueben put down his sandwich, took a sip of his Jones Co. soda and answered, “When the world

switched from typewriters to computers, there needed to be some way of tracking down where documents came from. Every typewriter was unique. Each had its own unique idiosyncrasies and imperfections. This made is possible for an investigator to connect a specific document to the typewriter that typed it. But computers made everything uniform, so there had to be some way of being able to track down the printer that printed a document. So ever printer has a built-in fingerprint, which consists of single yellow dots, which against a white back ground are imperceptible to the human eye. These can be seen under a blue LED light, and, when scanned, the code holds about seventeen bytes of data that tells the serial number and time and date of the print. With that information you can track down the retailer and, if they use a credit card, the buyer. Apparently Gil here thinks there something special to printing at Lexington Public. But we have nothing better to do for the day, so we’re going to go check it out.”

Before we left I had Laurel call Lexington Country PD to assist us in our investigation in cooperation with Richland County, to ask for permission (or request a court order) to view the security footage during the times and dates given to us by our friend at EFF. When we arrived at the library – just right down the street from the suspect’s other house we were at earlier this morning – they we very cooperative. They already had pulled up the archived security footages for those days and times ready for us to view.

While I scanned the footage viewing one of the printers at one of the times one of the documents was being printed, Rueben was crosschecking with the assistance of an IT personnel which computers the documents had been printed from. Sure enough, there was our suspect. He was slender with a hint of a gut, graying with some balding. He walked the way I imagine a Buddhist monk would walk. I don’t know why a Buddhist monk and not a Christian monk, but there was something deliberate and contemplative about his posture, the manner in which his arms swayed, and each and every step. After view the footage and determining which computers those documents printed from (the footage wasn’t necessary, but one

has to check these sorts of things, just in case we missed something), we went to access those computers and check where Dr. Ellsworth Esq. had taken them in the digital universe.

He had only used three computers. The IT personnel, Reggie, scanned the computers for Dr. Ellsworth Esq.’s usage, two of which yielded little more than confirming he had searched periodical databases for research on electromagnet devices, esoteric texts, alchemical treatises, and Sir Isaac Newton. The third computer, strangely enough was last used exactly six months, six days, and six hours, almost to the second, prior to our investigation at the library. Besides cookies, there was one file found on the computer’s hard drive he had left there. It was a .txt file. When we opened it all it said was:

216: P.I. Rueben Lewis and P.I. Gilbert Donati, best of luck to you both.

Rueben’s jaw practically hit the floor. I actually wonder as to what the look on my face was, and I

even considered looking at the library’s security footage to find out. Reggie looked at us both and asked, “Is this a joke?” He knew our names five months prior to our involvement in this case. It’s as if he knew we would be involved in a case for a kidnapping he had yet to commit for another four months. Reggie pointed out that file had not been opened or altered at any date other than when it was created and at the present moment.

“What is going on here, Gil?” He had a sort of terrified tone in his voice, which says a lot for someone who was in the Gulf War. It was a terror I had only heard in his voice twice before, the first time when his wife attempted suicide, and the second when his wife succeeded in committing suicide.

“Rue, I haven’t the slightest idea. What’s the 216 mean?” “Number of the Beast. Number of Creation. A number for God, and a number for man. Six times

six times six, and he left this six months, six days, and six hours ago. I swear this is weirder than your supposed gut feeling on following those printer fingerprints.”

“It’s interesting you use the word ‘weird,’ considering the word literally means ‘fate.’ Something which I’m having a strange suspicion of right now.”

“That’s saying a lot for an atheist.” __________

I had been looking for a nice antiquity copy of Horace anyway, though this wasn’t as old as I was

hoping for, but for $6, it was worth it. Not to mention it was evidence. On the page dog-eared was a note, transcribed on what appeared to be handmade paper. It was typed on an old-fashion typewriter. It read:

6 June 2006:

Hello again fellow investigators. This is starting to become rather strange for

you both, since this has clearly lead P.I. Gilbert Donati to drinking. Don’t

worry, this is last one. Soon you will find the girl, or, rather she will find

you, and I assure you both she is fine and healthy. See you both real soon on

the Road. Until then, take care, and good luck.

“You have got to be kidding me. Again? Really? Are we going to track down the typewriter that

wrote this, and have forensics do a chemical analysis of the paper to determine where it was made? Is that handmade? What is going on, Gil?” He sounded more annoyed than surprised, considering this is the fourth time our suspect has done this to us.

“You are a question machine, aren’t you? I’m betting some good money that this book was brought in here prior to the kidnapping. But I have to be skeptical, I mean, he could have come in yesterday and placed the note in there, and probably the same time when he pushed all these books back, except this one.”

I approached Ed’s son, Ben, who was running the store at the time and asked if he knew when the book was brought into the store and if anyone had been in that section lately. They were still running things old-fashion style at this bookstore (part of its charm); they still used a calculator to add up the prices and add taxes, as well as hand-wrote the receipts, and even used an old leather bound ledger to keep track of what books they had, when they received them, when they were sold, and what price. If they wanted to know who bought them, they had to go through receipts. While Ben did this Rueben and I went out for a cigarette.

“It’s going to be another one of those whiskey nights,” I said to Rueben. “I don’t blame you. Hell, this makes me want to drink. It’s like he knows who we are, where we

are, and how we’re going to be doing months before the conditions ever arise to put us in those places. Do you think he’s psychic?”

“Ha!” I cried, “I doubt it. There’s no such thing. Don’t be a fool, Rue. You’re Catholic. You’re not supposed to believe in such things.”

“Contrariwise, we can believe they exist, but it is they who go to Hell for practicing fortunetelling. Minos tosses them into the fourth ditch of the eighth circle of Hell, where they are cursed to have their heads on backwards; punishment for being fraudulent soothsayers looking forward into the future.”

“I’ve read the Divine Comedy, Rue. You don’t need to explain the whole thing to me, again. Anyway, I thought you couldn’t read non-canonical works.”

“We can read whatever we want, as long as the Church never announced it was heresy. The Divine Comedy was never deemed so. It’s the Holy Scripture we cannot read at our leisure, in which we only read what we are told to read.”

“But wasn’t Dante declared a heretic? Wouldn’t that make the work heretical?” “No, he was exiled from Florence. Doesn’t mean he was excommunicated. In fact, Pope Boniface

VIII rather liked Dante. He even asked Dante to stay in Rome with him. Dante was kicked out when the Ghibellines took back Florence and exiled the Guelphs. Dante was a White Guelph, which meant…”

“I know the story, Rue. I just thought he was excommunicated.” “Come on, Gil, we have nothing better to talk about until Ben finds some information on that

book. Humor me, will ya?” Rueben was looking through the window at Ed’s son, who was on the phone. I suppose Rueben figured that meant this was going to take longer than he thought and decided to light up another. I followed suit and lit another as well.

Instead of humoring him, I went inside, didn’t even bother to put out my cigarette, and told Ben we were going across the street to get some coffee; if he found anything to call the café and ask for us. I assumed he had their number. Anyone who still runs a business with calculators and a ledger probably still memorizes phone numbers.

We sat down at House Coffee. Rueben had that look in his eyes of reminiscing. We used to come here when it was under different management and a different name, back when you could smoke inside. Rueben ordered a coffee from some country or another and a Danish pastry. I had a plane bagel and a cappuccino. We started to discuss the case, particularly the strange parts of it, which pretty much meant the whole thing. What was of particular interest was not my intuitions that lead us to strange leads, that

was typical in almost any case. What was of interest was how Dr. Ellsworth Esq. could know so much about things that are yet to happen, far in the future. What is most strange is that the weird notes only crop up when we investigate something together, which is rare. Part of the reason we formed the firm together was so we could do more work at once. Even in this case we investigated things separately. But the few times we have gone to look at something together we got notes from the suspect. Come to think of it, these four times we received the notes were the only four times on this case where we investigated something together. Dr. Ellsworth Esq. said this note was the last. What this the last time Rueben and I would be investigating something together?

Since Rueben often had to go to church, he would stop off at this place or that place, check out this or that on the way to or from church. Sometimes we go whole days without see each other. That’s why we hired Laurel, so she could pass off messages between us, since neither of us are good about leaving voice mails, emails, or written notes. Like any of those would matter, considering our voice and email mailboxes are filled with so much other business, and the office is a wreck, cluttered with documents and files. About the only thing that’s organized is the safe with our guns in them. Rueben is kind of superstitious about no one else using his guns and ammo except him. He says their “spirits” contaminate them; whatever that means.

Our server’s name was Dinah. Sweet young girl, had a complexion similar to our missing girl. Then Rueben started to get that look on his face, that look when he’s trying to understand something, but just couldn’t quite figure out how to explain it mentally to himself, which normally meant he had no way of putting it into words. Clearly I have worked with the man for too long, which I actually considered a good thing. He announced, as if he had to tell the whole coffee shop (which was okay, considering we were the only customers), that he had to go to the bathroom. Once he had left, Dinah brought our food. As I was spreading some cream cheese on my bagel, which was toasted perfectly even, by the way, Dinah inquired about Rueben. She simply asked if he was Opus Dei.

“Are you Catholic?” I asked. She replied, “No, I just noticed his pendent. I only know about Opus Dei from that movie Da

Vinci Code.” I gave her one of those looks, not to be snarky, it’s just I find Dan Brown’s depiction of Opus Dei somewhat skewed and poorly defines who they are and what they’re about. I may be an atheist, but I still have an enormous respect for Opus Dei. So much, in fact, that I decided to be a Cooperative. I suppose she didn’t want to come off like a nitwit and asked, “So does he do the whole cat-of-nine tales and wear the thing around his leg?”

“The discipline and the cilice, no. Only Numenaries do that. They’re essentially the priests and bishops of Opus Dei. He used to be a numenary when he lived in DC. But since Opus Dei doesn’t have a center in Columbia he became an Associate.”

“So what exactly does he do then?” “He goes to church a lot. He prays a lot too. In fact, he’s more Christ-like than any other Christian

I’ve ever met. I had always thought my grandmother was the most Christ-like Christian I had ever known, that is, until I met Rue.”

“Are you Opus Dei as well? You seem to know a lot.” “I’m a private investigator, sweetheart. It’s my business to know stuff about people.” She

apparently didn’t like being called sweetheart, which, I must admit, had a sardonic overtone to it. I kept talking in order to lighten the snarkiness of both my glare and speech. “I’m not officially Opus Dei, but I am not Catholic. In fact, I’m actually an atheist. I’m not officially Opus Dei because I’m only a Cooperative. I participate in Opus Dei activities whenever they’re hosted and if I’m near a center, and

occasionally I donate money, which strictly stays in Opus Dei. None of the donations they receive go to maintaining that ungodly monstrosity, which was at one time a brothel, they call the Vatican. Sounds strange, I know, but that’s what I like about Opus Dei; they are the only organization in the Catholic Church that allows non-Catholics, even non-Christians to be a part of the organization. We met in D.C., funny story by the way, and I was so amazed at how good of person he was as opposed to most Christians I had known throughout my life, I wanted to contribute to an organization in Catholicism that has never had a single incident of child molestation. That’s when he told me I could be a Cooperative.”

She seemed to have forgiven by snarkiness and lightened up a bit. She had a rather pleasant smile. She asked, “How is it funny how you two met?”

“Oh boy. Someone with money and nothing better to do hired us both to follow each other around. Problem is that P.I.s know each other in a given locality, or at the very least we know of each other. I just decided to call him and ask why someone would hire me to keep tabs on him, to which he responded, ‘Probably the same reason someone hired me to follow you.’ We took the commission money we had received as upfront down payments, and went out for lunch. Best commission I ever had. Two years later he moved here with his wife. I got sick of D.C., needed a change of scenery, and moved here. I don’t know why. I guess I wanted to be some place where I had at least one good friend. D.C. is filled with nothing but liars and scum, if they’re not liars or scum, they’re aspiring to be lying scum. I hated it. After running my own firm for about six months I said, ‘Screw it,’ closed up show and asked Rue if he wanted to start a P.I. firm together. We’ve been following cheating spouses and obnoxious children since.”

She was leaning against Rueben’s chair with one arm. That’s when I noticed the pubic hair under her arm, which I found mildly attractive, not in all cases, but on her it was nice. She asked, “I noticed you two smoking cigarettes before you came in. Isn’t that like, I don’t know, against Opus Dei or Catholic teachings?”

I chuckled, “Funny thing is when Escrivá started Opus Dei, none of the three priests he ordained were smokers, which was very uncommon in the 1940’s in Spain. He told them one of them had to start smoking or else the organization would appear even stranger than it already was receiving a reputation of being. One of them did start smoking, Alvaro del Portillo, who Rue named his dog after.”

She laughed at that last part. She certainly had a wonderful smile. At this time Rueben was coming back. He still had that look on his face, but this time he seemed more troubled. Dinah smiled and walked away. Rueben then started a rant, clearly trying to work out what he was thinking about.

“Okay, so follow me, Gil. My name is Rueben. My father named me after Jacob’s first child, son of Leah. The guy we’re hunting down, his name is Jacob, Rueben’s father… though not my father, the Biblical Jacob and Rueben. My father’s name is Allan. Anyway, our waitress’s name is Dinah. That Jacob’s only daughter! Not to mention Dr. Ellsworth was quite interested in Isaac Newton… Isaac, the father of Jacob! And the kid at the bookstore, his name was Ben… Ben for Benjamin, who was Jacob’s youngest son, born of Rachael. Ben, Dinah, Rueben, Jacob, Isaac… Gil, I’m getting a weird feeling about this case.”

“Rue, don’t lose your mind over these things. They’re just names. Coincidences.” “No, Gil, you don’t understand, there is different between coincidence and this stuff! I mean, our

suspect knows where we are going to be months before we even get there. As if he knew when and at what rate we would find and follow leads. I mean, how does he know we are going to be somewhere at an exact hour, but months in advance?! I mean, dude, really… really, like one time… kind of spooky. But, Gil, four times he’s done it.”

“Calm down Gil! Fucking get a hold of yourself. Come on, man, we make a good team and we’re both good at what we do because we know how to not freak out. Shit happens, and there has to be an explanation for this. Now, take a deep breath… yes, I know it’s cliché, but do it. Good. Now, let’s work this out.”

“All I’m saying is that this all can’t be coincidence. The statistics are too unlikely. I’m not going to start doing probability calculations in my head right now, but I’m pretty certain that the probability of some guy predicting where we will be months before we ever go there, that’s pretty slim.” He was starting to calm down. “If it is a coincidence, it’s a meaningful one.”

“You’re referring to Jung.” “Synchronicity, where there is causal events and acausal events. All things in nature require an

opposite. We have electrons and protons, up and down, albinoism and melanism, male and female…” “Well what about photons? They don’t have opposites.” “That because photons are their own opposite, Gil. You know that. I may be Catholic, but it

doesn’t mean I’m stupid, which you know that as well. I’m just saying, if there are causal forces in the word, then acausal must exist as well. They are coincidences that have meaning to us, though one thing did not cause the other, at least not directly. You’ve read Jung, stop playing stupid and humor me!”

“I just don’t buy the theory of acausality and meaningful coincidences, that’s all. I’ll agree with Jung on the Collective Unconscious, considering I take a more structuralist point of view in psychology, but I won’t for one minute buy a theory that states that the entities of the unconscious mind are responsible for two coinciding, non-related events.”

The fact is that I’m not a purist. I don’t believe in purism. Rueben is almost completely a structuralist, with a slight tendency towards behaviorism. He loves Jung and Freud and Adler, but more especially Jung. In Rueben’s opinion most people lean toward Freud because everything has to do with sex and the Oedipus Complex. How isn’t that attractive? Humans are instinctual, and we love sex. How is a psychologist’s point of view that everything is about sex not attractive? Rueben always liked Jung because Jung took Freud’s idea and made it even weirder. Humans are highly instinctual; most of the things we do in everyday life are reactionary; we just don’t think about the majority of choices we make. For the reader of this memoir, when you reach the end of this page you have a choice: turn the page or don’t. But because you are getting into the story and you want it to continue, you really don’t have a choice at all; you will flip the page without even thinking about. But that’s not purely instinctual, because it is also socially conditioned. We humans naturally enjoy stories, as we have enjoyed them for thousands of years. But we are more instinctually drawn to stories conveyed orally. A book we must be conditioned to a degree to enjoy. Our mothers reading stories from books to us as children, naturally as we mature, we realize we can have that same thrill by some effort on our part to learn to read on our own. Jung took the Collective Unconscious too far, I think, but B. F. Skinner took behaviorism too far as well. I consider myself right in the middle with a slight more appreciation towards structuralism. Rueben, on the other hand, pretty much believed Jung was right about everything. Anything as weird, if not weirder than Jung, Rueben loved it.

Our conversation continued. Rueben retorted with, “It sounds farfetched, but don’t tell me for one minute you don’t agree with Collective Unconscious as a rudimentary foundation for all psychic action.”

“You’re not listening to me, Rue. I like the Collective Unconscious, and it is highly plausible. But even Jung had trouble with it. Sometimes he raised the idea to be root of everything; the answer to all psychological problems, such as the Collective Unconscious being the source for acausal events. Then, at other times, he demeans it to being little more than just some basic components of the mind that are

helpful to be familiar with in clinical psychology. The fact that all myths and religions have striking similarities, even in geographically isolated cultures, should demonstrate some evidence toward Jung’s hypothesis.”

“The monomyth,” Rueben said, as if it was some sort of catch-all phrase. “Or Adolf Bastian’s elementargedanken, or Leo Frobenius’s cultural monad. Call it what you

will. I know you like the term monomyth, but I think James Joyce was a pretentious prick who somehow felt he was a justifiable genius because he rewrote Homer’s Odyssey with different names and places.”

“Well, I know the term comes from Joyce, but I get it from Campbell.” “I know you do. Campbell was like Descartes or Malcolm Gladwell or Richard Dawkins, he

never contributed anything new. He was just really good at packaging preexisting ideas, mass marked them, and popularized those ideas.” I paused to collect myself. I know this intellectual debate was starting to calm Rueben a bit, so I was fine with us getting off topic, but I had to bring it back on track. “None of this is really the point. The point is this: you can’t attribute the powers of the mind to violations of the laws of information conservation. The mind cannot know something, like guessing which shape is on a card, when the card won’t even be flipped over for another twenty-four hours. Jung even demonstrates that his horoscope data, which was proportionally skewed by how enthusiastic he was about doing all the data crunching. The laws of probability are not violated; it’s how we perceive the data that skews how we interpret the laws of probability.”

“So how can this guy know something that has yet to happen? Just like how can those ESP subjects in those studies were able to guess, with a significantly higher accuracy than is statistically probable, which shape will be on which card, when the cards are actually 5,000 miles away and will be flipped over tomorrow?” He paused, as if he remembered something and was trying to figure out how it is even relevant. “Did you ever read Julian Jaynes theory of bicamerality?”

“Oh, that load of shit? Really, Rue? Really? What? No… well, I only read the first two chapters. I think it’s completely full of it.”

“Well, it is either a complete load of horse pucky, or one of the most groundbreaking texts of the Twentieth Century. Jaynes posits something similar to what Jung posits, in that the mind it capable of collecting and processing all neurological stimuli it receives. It is only the conscious mind that cannot process it all, but the unconscious mind can, which is demonstrated in a number of ways. Wipe that look off your face, and hear me out. Like Jung, Jaynes claims that the unconscious mind is hypersensitive to all stimuli, and can collect and process a lot of data. The metaphor that the brain is essentially an organic computer I find myopic. In a sense it is, but it’s an organic quantum computer, capable of processing a lot of data simultaneous, yet in multiple states. If the brain is hypersensitive, and the conscious mind does ignore a lot of excess stimuli, and the unconscious mind is capable of calculating a lot of complex sensory data, then it could be possible for the unconscious brain to seemingly predict near future events, when, in fact, it only doing a significant amount of complex data calculation. All the while we are unaware what the mind is doing, because our conscious mind thinks it is doing all the work and ignores everything else.”

I leaned forward, and only once I had done so did I realize that I was vaguely interested in what Rueben was saying, but I was still hoping to play it off as if I was only humoring him. He had a point, in a Rueben sort of way. The brain is immensely complex, capable of reconfiguring its own structure, something it does autonomously to better process certain cognitive processes. Given that the brain actually does Fourie Transformations to simplify sensory data, while still maintaining all the original complexity, it is possible for the brain to absorb and store all data it receives. If the brain does calculus

naturally, why can’t it also naturally compute complex data to predict future outcomes? I mean, that’s what the frontal lobe is for. It is capable of simulating experiences before they happen. We don’t need to actually eat liver and onion ice cream to guess how bad it will taste. But I had to disagree with Rueben.

“But this guy is predicting events far into the future; months into the future. I can understand something simple and in the near future, like if I drop and apple into the road, a car will run over it and the apple will explode. As long as I time it right, we will have a good laugh. But what this guy is doing, he is either planning it, which is the simplest answer, or, if what you’re suggesting is true, then this guy has somehow tapped into how the break the laws of physics.”

“Not break, Gil, he has tapped into unprecedented laws. They have always been there, waiting to be born, like God waiting for Abraham. God did not exist before Abraham, but rather waited in a sort of limbo, waiting to be discovered as the God on Most High. These are all potentials, potentials waiting to be unleashed.” He sighed, which usually meant he was frustrated or tired. “I’m getting a bit over my head with this one. But thankfully I know a guy. You would call him a charlatan, but he’s a genius. I met him by chance in D.C. He looked like he was tripping on a considerable amount of psychoactive drugs, but he seemed incredibly lucid. He’s not insane, but he’s definitely a bit eccentric. I think he can help.”

“Who is he?” At this time Dinah came back over. She asked how our pastries and coffee was, and then

informed us that we had a call. I got up, went to the counter and picked up the phone. It was Ben, he informed us he had found when the book was brought in, and he spoke to his father about it. His father, Ed, remembered that book, because it had a rather unusual smell to it. Apparently it didn’t have that same old book smell most books have. In fact, it smelled kind of sweet and rubbery. Anyway, the book had been in the back under a pile of other books when it was brought in, which was June 6th, 2005, a year ago exactly. Once brought in it lay there forgotten until he found it earlier that day. “That is great news, Ben! We’ll be back over in a few minutes.”

It was good news indeed. Rarely do people remember something as trivial as a 1936 publication of Horace. But an unusual smell for an old book would better stimulate the olfactory senses quite well, and therefore memory. It also meant there must be some chemical on it that would give it a sweet scent, which means it might be traceable. But the question of the books being pushed back except Horace, as well as the book being brought in exactly a year ago all remained a mystery. Dr. Ellsworth Esq. was still messing with us.

I put the phone back, and looked over at Dinah. I was feeling good, and with this potential lead, I was feeling lucky. “So, Dinah, speaking of phones, do you have a phone number?” It was lame, but she giggled and wrote her cell number down for me. I never got a chance to call her. I would see her again, but by that point getting laid was the last thing on mind, if I had a mind at all left.

We headed back across the street to Ed’s Editions, made a few inquiries, purchased the book, as well as an 1872 publication of Aristotle’s Ethics, and then went back to the office. Business hours were over, and Laurel had already gone home. I broke out my whiskey and a glass, and proceeded to start off another one of those nights. I would have offered some to Rueben, but he rarely drank, and if he did it was only wine.

I had to ask, “So, Rue, where were you going with the whole bicamerality theory and your crazy buddy from D.C.?”

“I told you,” Rueben responded sort of frustrated, “he’s not crazy, just eccentric; albeit, I’m totally fine with you calling him a mad scientist. He fits the profile.” He had that look on his face that he usually wears when he knows he’s forgetting something, but just can’t place it. I didn’t want to tell him

he had not done his evening prayers and rosary bead counting. He can just do a few Hail Mary’s later. I’m sure that if there was a God, he would understand.

I was intrigued by this statement. A mad scientist; now that was intriguing. I love those old black and white horror and science fiction movies: Doctor Frankenstein, Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, Rotwang in Metropolis, or Doctor Strangelove. But there is a difference between being a doctor and eccentric, and being a mad scientist. In the former you obey ethics, laws, and regulations in pursuit of the betterment of humankind. In the latter you disregard all things in order to probe at how far the laws of nature can be twisted, but not for any other purpose than to see if it can be done. “What qualifies him as a mad scientist?”

“Give me some of that whiskey and I’ll tell you.” I was actually stunned he asked for any, not because he usually doesn’t drink, but because I always had him tagged as a vodka sort of man. I pulled out of the drawer another glass I keep just for him, like a letter you wrote to someone but never delivered it, and have no intension of doing so. You keep it just for the sake of having it. He grabbed the glass, didn’t even smell it, whirl it around, none of the usual. He simply downed it and asked for another. “He is a doctor of academic psychology, but the stuff he works on is what some would consider being on the fringe, stuff like the Noetic sciences. He’s a friend of Paul Temple, and worked with Edgar Mitchell on some studies with human psychic potential when they started the Institute of Noetic Sciences. He experimented with LSD-50, scopolamine, psilocybin, muscaria, lithium, and other psychotropics, as well as anti-psychotics. What he was after was expanding the human psyche’s potential to see the future. Now, I know you largely consider ESP ability to be the stuff of charlatans, but he believed ESP had a causal relationship to the events, not acausal.”

I took a swig of my whiskey, leaned forward and encouraged him to proceed. “Now we’re getting somewhere: an actual explanation. Continue.” I poured him another glass, which he downed in one swallow.

“He was the one who introduced to me Jaynes’s theory of bicameralism. The term, since you speak Latin, as you well know means ‘two rooms.’ It postulates that at one time humans had two minds, a conscious one, and a sort of divine one, which was part of the unconscious. The divine mind would talk to the other mind, which Jaynes says is where the gods came from. Essentially we hallucinated the gods quite literally. But we only projected them outwards, when, in fact, the gods originated from within. Joseph… damn, there’s another son of Jacob…”

“Is this your mad scientist friend?” Rueben nodded, to which I just had to ask, “What his last name Mengele?”

“No, it’s Elliot. Dr. Joseph Elliot. There’s another one! Ellsworth starts will e-l-l, and Elliot starts with e-l-l. Not to mention our client’s given name is Edward, and we were also at Ed’s Editions earlier. I think I’m starting to get used to this.” He held out his glass for another pour, but he didn’t down it. He just held it and continued. “Joseph, following some research conducted back in the 70’s and 80’s was looking into how to stimulate the second mind. He had found, along with some Jaynes’s research, that some schizophrenics, which might be a remnant of bicameralism, will hear their auditory hallucination predict future events. Joseph didn’t really think the mind was predicting the future, but it was doing some complex calculations and assumptions to predict something in the near future, like predicting that we will see Laurel come upstairs in a minute. If she did come upstairs, we would think the voices predicted it, but they are merely assessing a plethora of complex stimuli to make such a prediction.” He paused to sip his drink, and waited. I suppose he wanted to see if Laurel would come upstairs, but she never did. “Anyway, this other mind would talk to the conscious mind. Jaynes postulated there was a hypothetical synaptic

bridge that connected two regions between the two lobes. I don’t remember what they’re called, but they talked to each other. In one schizophrenic his auditory hallucinations actually would read everything to him before he even got the chance to read it himself. The voices would describe everything to him. If Laurel came upstairs, the voices would say, ‘Laurel.’ If Laurel was to greet you, the voices would repeat exactly what she was saying. It drove the guy nuts.”

I think Rueben had an attraction toward Laurel. I would often catch him checking her out. I suppose he’s been quite lonely since Anna-Bell died.

“So did Dr. Elliot ever figure out how to get this supposed other mind to talk?” “Hard to say. I think he tested a lot of his drugs on himself. Like I said, when I first met him I

thought he was tripping. He said the voices can be activated by electrically stimulating some part of the brain responsible for speech. Something like that. But when the voices awaken, that’s how he put it, they only babel. It is as if you turn on a switch in the brain that starts chattering multiple entities that all speak in different languages. Sounds a bit like the Tower of Babel story. They talk to each other, arguing, conversing, but the conscious mind can’t understand what they’re saying. Joseph figured he could find a serum, some concoction of psychotropic drugs that would clear up the babel; make it so someone could more easily understand what they’re saying, and in your own tongue. I have no idea if he was successful. I moved here about a year after meeting the guy. I still have his office number. I’ll give him a call in the morning. Perhaps he can assist us.”

“Sounds good, I suppose. I never thought in a million years I would hear ‘a mad scientist will assist us in our investigation.’” We both chuckled at that. It was good to see him relaxing. He had been high strung all day.

“Well, I need to get home. I forgot to count my rosary and say my evening prayer. I’ll just go to confession tomorrow. I need to read some scripture and get some rest. Take care, Gil. I’ll see you in the morning.”

He walked downstairs and was gone for the evening. I decided to catch up on some paperwork and look up some background on this Dr. Elliot. It’s my business to know these things.

__________

The next three days were excoriatingly slow. Rueben informed me that Dr. Elliot was in Portland attending a conference, but would be flying back to the East Coast on Saturday to see some family in Atlanta. Dr. Elliot agreed to stop off in Columbia to speak with us. Until then, I decided this would be the perfect time to try and cut through all the red tape with the Richland County Police. They eventually agreed to hand the investigation primarily over to us, since now the cases was technically a cold case. They had little interest in it. It wasn’t exactly the Lindbergh Baby sort of case, and they still had their hands full with the murders at Washington Street Methodist Church. They still required any information we found on the case, and kept it as an ongoing investigation. All that meant was they didn’t want to deal with the family anymore, and it was simply a cold case they technically couldn’t shut yet. Whatever, we had free reign on the case without any more police bureaucracy.

My daughter stopped by the office that Thursday. I had not seen her in about two weeks. She had been in Florence looking for a house with her fiancé, which they were moving into in a few days. She had received a position as a nurse at the Women’s Tower at Florence Hospital, right near the train station. She had been by my house and noticed the fridge was empty, a sink full of dirty dishes, and the house strewn with papers and files. She told me she cleaned up the kitchen and went to the grocery store to stock the fridge and pantry. Thankfully she left my files alone. That’s part of the reason her mother and I divorced,

the woman could not understand that chaos is how I work. That mess of papers and files were more organized to me than any filing system she could come up with. But, I suppose she had a reason to worry about me.

“How’s your mother?” “Do you even care?” “Not particularly. Just asking out of formality.” “I’m your daughter; you don’t need to be formal with me. Have you been sleeping here?” “Not really. I did last night, but that’s because I didn’t feel like going home. That’s why I keep a

cot in the back. I was catching up on paperwork, saw how late it was and decided to stay here.” “No,” she snapped, “You were too drunk to drive home, and were miraculously sensible enough

not to.” I’m so proud of her. It truly is amazing to have seen her grow up, and to watch her turn into the

most amazing person I have ever known. But it is rather sad when your child grows up to be someone you just couldn’t be more proud of, but you turn out to be the last thing they will ever be proud of.

“Dad, go home, get some real sleep and eat something. Get a shower while you’re at it. Laurel’s not even here, so I’m assuming you don’t have to be here.”

“I will go home when business hours are over. Laurel’s out to lunch, and Rueben went to Mass. There is still some stuff I have to take care of before Saturday.” She gave me that look she used to give when she was eight years old, when she sensed I was making false promises. I suppose she gets that gene from me.

“I promise, Elizabeth, I will go home when business hours are over. Five o’ clock I will be out this door, in rush hour traffic, and off to make a real dinner for myself. Maybe you would like to come over. I can make us a mean stew.”

“No thanks, Dad. Rob and I having dinner at Diane’s tonight. I can’t cancel those reservations.” “On Devine? Fancy. Am I going to be seeing a grandkid anytime soon?” She actually smiled at that, which made me smile. She tries so hard to act miserable around me. “Not until we’re settled down in Florence. I need to go, Dad. Try and take care of yourself.” “Send my regards to your mother.” She didn’t respond. She just left. I had a strong suspicion, that

strange intuition of mine that I would never see my daughter again. __________

Monday came slowly, but it arrived nonetheless and on time, as if Monday could really do

otherwise. Dr. Elliot cut time short with visiting family just to see his old friend Rueben, and he was every bit as eccentric as I could imagine.

He was not one of those scientists who couldn’t get their minds off their work. Contrariwise, he seems to never think about his work. If he was working, he was talking about other things. And if he wasn’t working, he never seemed to bring up his work, that is, unless what he’s working on is brought up. He seemed incredibly lucid for a man that it is quite obvious has taken one too many drugs in his life. In fact, he seemed to be in a constant state of contentment; never upset or angry, nor ever really euphoric. He was very gestural. He spoke with his hands, waving them around and doing all sorts of finger movements. He also loved the Grateful Dead. That was the first thing Rueben did for him when they got to the office, he got out the old record player, clean one of his old vinyls, and played it. Rueben and Dr. Elliot chatted about the days back in D.C., while I finished up this ungodly mundane paperwork. I had to add into the record, for police personnel, that Dr. Elliot would be assisting us as a consult for this investigation.

Once I had finished up I made a pot of coffee. I offered some to the Doctor, but he refused, saying, “Caffeine is not an aesthetically pleasing molecule.” Whatever that was supposed to mean. I sat down with the two chatter boxes and decided to get down to business.

“Dr. Elliot…” I started, but the Doctor interrupted me. “Please, good sir, call me Joseph. And don’t call me doctor-anything. I hate the formality. But

don’t call me Joe. My lovely parents named me Joseph for a reason, a reason which I can’t quite place, but a reason none the less. I prefer Joseph.”

“Alright Joseph, I would like to get down to brass tacks… if you don’t mind.” He shook his head fervently and gestured to go on. “We are way over our heads on this one. Our suspect seems, for lack of a better term, to be psychically capable of seeing the future.”

“Nonsense! We are not the Red Queen remember the future! We cannot see things that have not yet happened. We can only simulate in our minds, with a given amount of accuracy, what might happen. But, I’m sorry, do go on.”

“Well, he has been playing games with us,” to which Dr. Elliot muttered something (I believe, “Don’t we all play games with each other.”) He was really good at interrupting. “He plays these games, where he leaves us notes, in seemingly random, well-hidden places, and we always seem to find them at an exact time he has predicted we would find them, often placing these notes months in advance.”

Rueben chimed in, “And three of them have something to do with the Number of the Beast. The first note had the number 216 written on it, along with our names. We found that note six months, six days, and six hours after he had left it for us. The second only had the date we would receive it, May 30th, 2006, along with a salutation. The third had the number 666 written on it, as well as some Egyptian hieroglyphs, which say, ‘The river flows past the life being’s earth.’ We still have no idea what that means. And the third was received June 6th, 2006, on Tuesday. He had left it for us exactly a year before.”

The Doctor scratched his head, rocked a bit in his chair, and then said, “Hmm, that is quite curious. Curious indeed. Assuming he hasn’t actually figured out how to make something as silly and impossible as ESP suddenly possible, I would say the man is very hypersensitive to stimuli. Every little detail, every nuance he is receptive to, and can somehow calculate seemingly impossible future events and their likelihood. I have never heard nor seen anything quite like that.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Well, the unconscious mind is incredibly responsive to minute stimuli, sensations the conscious

mind usually ignores. But! But, the immense powers of the mind are almost infinite. Like the Library of Babel, its possibilities are limited, but those limits are extraordinary large. So large, in fact, we might as well call it infinite! Ha, ha! Consider this scenario: around the corner is Jill, and she is wearing her red high heels. Now she is quite far away, but minute sensory data is being received by the brain nonetheless. The faint resonance of her stride is felt, by which, given by the very faint sound of her steps, will give the brain enough data to simulate how much this person weighs, and possibly how tall she is. But the cadence of the steps leads the brain to recognize that it must be Jill, because from experience the unconscious mind knows Jill has that very particular rhythm while walking. But also from experience the unconscious mind knows that the only pair of high heels Jill wears with that unique frequency when the shoe strikes the ground is her red ones. But Jill only has one other pare of high heels, since the mind knows it has never seen her wear any other pare except the red ones and the black ones. But Jill only wears the black ones when she’s at a formal event. Thus the unconscious mind knows it’s Jill and she’s wearing red high heels!”

“But that’s the unconscious mind. It doesn’t speak to us,” I pleaded.

“Oh, but it does, my friend. It speaks all the time. Sometimes it speaks to us through dreams, fantasies, delusions, misperceptions, or auditory hallucinations, and et cetera, et cetera.”

“But only schizophrenics and, I guess the people of antiquity, have auditory hallucinations.” “You’re really that much in denial.” He looked at Rueben and asked, “Is he in denial?” Rueben

shrugged and played along. I suppose you have to play along with such an eccentric character. “Of course you have auditory hallucinations; everyone does. Mind you, not all the time, but from time to time, perhaps while you’re tired, stoned, hungry, or just trying to go to sleep, you suddenly hear some babbling in the silence. Has that ever happened?” I stared at him blankly. I was not about to admit I hallucinate, even though, admittingly, I have had that happen. “That is your other mind, my friend. The synaptic bridge that once connected the Wernicke Area to its corresponding dormant area in the opposing lobe eventual was lost, and it was this hypothetical nervous bridge that communicated the regions. Of course, this is all silly! I mean, the brain already has a way of communicating between the two lobes, the corpus callosum, so any other nerve bridges would be way over-redundant. That’s because the corpus callosum is already redundant.”

“Why is all this silly?” I had to ask. “Because Jaynes primarily considered the whole theory of bicameralism a thought exercise, or

more like a metaphor. But, nonetheless, we do know that the counter regions corresponding to the Bocca and the Wernicke Areas do occasionally produce auditory hallucinations when stimulated electrically. Otherwise those regions are usually dormant, though sometimes awakened when give LSD. I’ve tested a number of psychoactive drugs with patients while electrically stimulating these regions. Most serums either augmented the babbling, some the number of voices, and some suppressed them. But this one actually clears up the murmuring so the subject can hear exactly what they’re saying. Though sometimes they speak in languages the subject doesn’t know, which I still can’t explain,” he opened up a Halliburton case, which gave off a cool drift, which felt nice in these summer heat. Apparently this case was well insulated. He showed us several vials of a deep red solution. “I call it Rose-cross.”

“As in the Rosy Cross? The Rosicrucians?” I asked. “Well, not really, but seems fitting. It’s crimson, so I thought of a rose. But I got the idea to add a

certain sulfuric compound to it while watching a colleague melt sulfur in a crucible. The reason why I consider the correlation between my name for this and Rosicrucians interesting and fitting is that the Rosicrucians are an alchemistry fraternity, searching for the Philosopher’s Stone. But the name of the order comes from Christian Rosenkruetz, cruci meaning ‘crucible,’ and rosa meaning ‘rose.’ But a more proper translations of rosa is ‘dew,’ as in the dew of immortality, which is synonymous with the Philosopher’s Stone.”

“Wait a minute,” Rueben started, “Dr. Ellsworth’s house was filled with alchemical documents, many of which had personal notes in cryptic writings on them. Could this man have had access to this research?”

“Oh course he could have. I published a paper on it over a decade ago. He could have just as easily have recreated it.”

I stepped back in, “We also found a number of other papers involving Tesla Coils, Faraday Cages, and electromagnetic fields in crystals. Could any of that have a bearing on your research? Possibly adding to it?”

“Well, sure. Why not?! I mean, instead of actually exposing the right temporal lobe, which would mean cutting off part of the skull, he could just build an electronic device that could pulsate electromagnetic fields through the skull, resonate inside of the skull, possibly insulated by the scalp, and

stimulate those regions. Heck! I could probably build one for you! Do you want one? We can start you one some of this stuff and…”

I had to cut him off right there, “No! No way in hell are you shooting me full of psychotropic drugs and wiring electrodes to my scalp. This case is not that important.”

“But why not,” he asked like a child disappointed he couldn’t play with a new toy, “It’s only 20 CCs, and you’re safe from psychosis up until about 130 CCs.” I just shook my head at every suggestion and kept saying “Nope.” But Dr. Elliot continued, “I mean, Rueben here said you have really good intuitions. I’m certain your other mind is speaking to you subliminally. You’re a perfect subject.”

“Nope, nope, nope. How many times do I have to say it? My brain is not subliminally messaging itself. That is preposterous. I am not going to be the subject of anything. Rueben, what the fuck is going on here?” I never called him Rue ever again. At some point nicknames becomes pointless. It would have been a temporary suspension of his nickname, but I never got a chance to get over it.

I went out on the back patio with my whiskey, my elixir of life, and drank straight from it, and then proceeded to chain smoke for a couple of hours. Eventually Rueben came outside to inform me the Doctor had left. He was heading back to D.C. He then grabbed my bottle and proceeded to drink as well. Clearly this whole case was starting to take a toll on my partner as well. “What is going on?”

Rueben didn’t say anything for a long moment, then switched the topic back to the case, “I showed Joseph the notes. When he took a look at that copy of Horace, he smelt it. He asked if it had been dropped in coolant.”

“What? Coolant?” “Yeah, he said that smell is coolant. He suspects refrigerator coolant.” A refrigerator? For some reason it made me think of Old State Road over in Cayce. There is an

old refrigerator in the stream that the only bridge crosses over. Last time I went out there I noticed a bunch of dead fish in the stream. I figured the refrigerator’s coolant tank had finally rusted open or something and poisoned all the fish. Not that any of that has any bearing on the case. It’s just what came to mind. I wouldn’t even call it my gut, just my mind wandering. It must be the whiskey. But Old State Road… now that was a weird place. Several times we have been hired to follow teens suspected of doing drugs, and quite a few of them we have found smoking pot, drinking, and having sex out there. It’s said to be a haunted road. Really it was used as a slave route, and is probably just filled with bad memories. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I will admit that that is one strange road.

I handed Rueben the bottle and decided to head home. It wasn’t quite closing time, but I live in Forest Acres, and I’m sure as hell not driving right now. It’s going to be a long walk. I’ll just take one of my other cars back to the office in the morning. I promised my daughter I would go home tonight, and I intended to keep that promise. She’s the only thing I really love anymore, since, quite clearly, I’m starting to hate my job.

__________

I can’t even begin to describe how much I love my daughter. I couldn’t even decide what I wanted to make for dinner. I just stood staring at all the food in the pantry. I snapped out of that and stared at all the food in the fridge. Since I couldn’t make up my mind I just went over the liquor cabinet and have a drink. Then I would figure out what I wanted for dinner. I opened up the cabinet and saw it was empty. Elizabeth had thrown out all my liquor. I still loved her more than anything in the world, because I know she did it because she still cared about her father. I’m not someone she has to babysit, so anything she does for me she does because she still loves me. I know that, no matter how disappointed

she is at me. Good thing I kept a bottle of Jack in the underside of the top drawer of my desk. I cracked open the bottle, lit up a cigarette and just stared off at a painting my father had done while he was stationed in Alaska. I loved that painting, and, yet, no matter how hard I try I can never remember what it is of. Snowy mountains? A caribou? A little Alaskan village? I can never remember. But I know it’s beautiful. I guess some people would say the same thing about angels. In the Bible there is never a consistent description of angels; some are wheels with eyes; some have a head and wings, but no corporal body; some have bodies, but their wings cover them up. We seem to not be able to describe what angels look like, but we know they are beautiful.

At some point I got up and went into the kitchen, not for food, but just to check the time. All the clocks in the living room were clocks that had to be wound, and I had not been home recently. It was 1:22 AM and I had not even dozed off. I just stared at a painting I can’t describe for six hours. I made a sandwich, but not because I was hungry, only because I needed to eat something.

I couldn’t stop thinking about what Dr. Elliot was talking about. It kept bringing me back to a conversation Rueben and I had about a year ago. Rueben was asking me about the particulars of my intuitions, what made them tick? What made them happen? Was it a feeling? Did I just know? He was a question machine all day. He eventually made the remark, “I only wish I had your gift. If I had your gift I wouldn’t take it for granted. It’s a gift from God, and God doesn’t hand out gifts freely.”

I truly hate that. Had Rueben been born with such a curse as accurate intuition he would hate it. He would feel like God was punishing him, which is exactly how I feel about it. When given a gift at birth you understand things about yourself you wish you didn’t know. First time I followed my intuition I was a boy, thirteen years old. I noticed footprints I did not quit recognize as my own, my mother’s, father’s, or brothers. It didn’t feel like any of my neighbors, but it lead off into the woods. I saw no real trail, but I went in their general direction. I walked about a mile, just a meandering teen with no intension of finding anything. Then suddenly I heard a strange whining sound. I looked and saw a man wearing the boots that seemed to fit the footprints I saw earlier. He was having sex with a dog. Now, how is that a gift from God? If it is, God is one of the most masochistic, malevolent, abusive entities that the human mind can invent. I may have respect for Opus Dei, only because I respect Rueben. But I have no respect for God. My intuition is a curse, so why would I want to enhance its power?

We always want what we don’t have. And when we have it, we don’t want it. Gifts and curses are only a matter of perspective.

But I couldn’t get away from the potential some electrodes and a drug could have on my intuition. I mean if a couple of footprints could lead me to something as horrifying at that scene back in childhood, I couldn’t help wondering if it could actually lead to Sam’s abductor. That’s when I realized we had stopped looking for Samantha Burns and were only interested in finding Dr. Jacob Ellsworth Esquire. Had we really given up on her? Or were we only following the trail? If the trail lead to Sam, then we had not given up on her, right?

I made a pot of coffee and ate some chips. The salt and carbs would do me some good. While the coffee was brewing I took a shower, just as I had promised Elizabeth. It took about two hours to sober up enough to drive. I had no idea why I had to go for a drive, I just had to. It was my intuition, and for once I wasn’t exactly bothered by it. For some reason I felt if I could find Samantha Burns and apprehend Dr. Ellsworth Esq., and my intuition could help me, then that curse was a curse worth having. Perhaps I could have saved that poor dog. I still think it’s a curse.

I hated the idea. What a loathing, despicable mistake I was about to make. I was sober enough by this point to drive, not sober enough to pass a breathalyzer, but sober enough to not raise suspicious

amongst cruising police. I first drove by Rueben’s place, not to chat, I just wanted to drive by his place, and it was in the neighborhood. Then I drove by Rueben’s old office. Next I drove by the Richland County Police Department, made a U-turn and went by Washington Street Methodist Church. I just wanted to see the place where a bunch of dead bodies were found (it actually turned out that the people were murdered elsewhere and taken to the church). I drove down Washington Street, made a left on Main, then a right onto Lady to drive by the office. The lights were on in the architecture firm. Either they were working late or having another party, which they like to call “Community Building Social Gatherings.” In other words, lame politically correct terminology to have an excuse to party on a weekday. I made a left onto Huger Street, right onto Gervais and headed toward Lexington. I thought about turning onto Sunset Boulevard to head into Lexington, see my old office and my old apartment. Instead I went up Meeting Street to pass by Ed’s Editions. Once I got to the top of the hill I pulled into What-A-Burger, turned around in the parking lot and went back toward Columbia.

Consider the whole thing a trip down memory lane; revisiting the past week, if not the past decade. Then I made a right onto State Street and passed the coffee shop Rueben and I ate at last week, where I met Dinah. Then I just drove straight until I got into Cayce. Then it hit me, I was just delaying the inevitable. I was being drawn to Old State Road, my drunken trip down memory lane has lead me to one of the last places I wanted to go. I didn’t even get there. After I crossed the train tracks all I can remember is a flash of light. If I was paranoid I would say I was abducted by aliens. I suppose I blacked out and went back home.

I awoke in my bed at around 10:00 AM. I looked out my window and my car was in the driveway. I recalled having a dream, vaguely. Perhaps it was reality, but it felt like a dream. It felt like a dream in that the imagery of every scene is somehow false, yet perfectly ideal. Every word said is strangely random, but the most perfect thing to say, as if there was no better way to say anything. Those are how my dreams are constructed: everything is strangely wrong and slightly off, yet everything is perfect just the way they are. Then I remember a man in burlap suit standing in a creek under a bridge. Was it Old State Road? There was no moon or stars, but the darkness was immaculately illuminated. He had some sort of wire-mesh beret on his head, tilted to the right side. And there was a hum, an indescribable humming noise. Then everything goes fuzzy and being in my bed is the next thing I remember.

I called the office, told Laurel I will be taking the day off, but to tell Rueben to give the Doctor a call and see when he can be back into town. I don’t know why, but I wanted to give it a try.

“What do you mean,” she asked, “give it a try?” “Just tell Rueben. He’ll know what I mean. Otherwise, I’ll see you two tomorrow.” “When did you start calling him Rueben? I’ve never heard you call him that?” “Do pass the message on, will you dear?” “Sure thing,” she said, “enjoy your day off.” I didn’t even say bye. I just hung up the receiver of my old-fashion rotary telephone. I found it in

a thrift store a few years ago. It reminded me of those old Film Noir detective stories. I really didn’t do anything for the rest of the day. I just sat around and drank. I had just made the

worst decision of my life. I can only hope Dr. Elliot was offended by how I treated him and didn’t want to come back to South Carolina. I was wrong. I got a call from Laurel in the early afternoon (clearly Rueben had just gotten back from Mass) to inform me that “Rueben said he called Dr. Elliot and he would be more than happy to come back, but he’s busy for the rest of the week. He said the earliest he could come is Saturday.” Dammit.

“In that case I won’t be coming in for the rest of the week. Tell Rueben I’ll pick up the Doctor from the airport. Just let me know when he gets in.”

I heard her relay the message to Rueben, who was apparently in the office at the time. I heard him say something back, which she relayed to me, “Sorry, he’s taking the train. He apparently hasn’t taken a train in years, so can you pick him up in Florence?”

“He doesn’t want to take it into Columbia?” “It’s that or a six hour layover in Florence. Rueben suggested it to him, since Rueben planned to

get him. He will be in Florence at 9:30 PM. Is that okay?” That was actually good new. I could possibly stop off and see my daughter. “Yes, yes. That will

be fine. Thanks Laurel.” I didn’t bother say bye again. Back to drinking. __________

The next couple of days were a blur, considering I spent most of it in a drunken stupor. On Friday

I finally snapped out of my sense of self-loath and decided to take a shower to help wash off this hangover. I made myself an omelet and biscuits with some black coffee. I turned on the television to catch up on some news. Sometime early afternoon, right after I had made some lunch, washed the dishes, and started a load of laundry, I heard a knock at the door. I knew it was Rueben, but not because of any foresight or intuition, it was just that Rueben was one of those guys who didn’t call. He would just stop by when he felt like it. Of course, it was Rueben.

“The kitchen is clean, you don’t smell drunk, and I think I hear the washing machine running. I knew you wouldn’t stay miserable for too long,” he said with a smirk on his face.

“What is that supposed to mean?” “It has clearly been a rough few weeks for you. You have been drinking more and more heavily.

You barely come home, and when you do it’s usually to take a shower. Considering you’ve been quite stinky the past few weeks, I assumed you had not been home.”

“No, what do you mean I couldn’t stay miserable for too long?” “That my point, you’ve been having a tough time lately, as have I. But you’ve been holding it all

back, and it was only a matter of time before you just went off the deep end for a few days. That’s why I’ve left you alone. Everyone is entitled to their bad days, even a few bad days consecutively. One thing I have learned about bad days is that people just need to have them. People try to stop you from having one, or try to bring you out of one. People say, ‘Cheer up!’ or ‘Just because you’re having a bad day doesn’t mean you need to take it out on me!’ Forget all that. Nature gave us bad days for a reason, just like Nature gave us depression and anger. There’s a reason we have those emotions, and we should just let them happen when they happen. Our society puts way too much importance on happiness, so much, in fact, we lose sight of the purpose Nature gave us bad days.”

“You keep saying ‘nature,’ but why not God?” “Nature, God, the Universe, whatever you want to call it. It is all the same thing. The point is

when you just leave people who are having a bad day alone they will eventually just snap out of it. People can only be mad at the world by themselves for so long. We’re social creatures. Eventually we will just say, ‘Screw it. I’m going to be nice go hang out with someone.’ But if you keep bothering that person, you only reinforce, and even lengthen their bad day. Clearly leaving you alone to wallow in your own misery was something that could only last for a few days.”

He did have a point. “Anyway, Rueben, what can I do you for?”

“I just wanted to check up on you. Actually, I wanted to make sure you were still up for Joseph’s experiment. Or, at the very least, make sure you were still picking him up.”

“Yes I will be picking him up. I’m going to stop by and see Elizabeth. She works by the train station. I wanted to pick him up so that I could apologize.”

“Apologize for what? Not wanting to have him stick you with needles, inject you with psychotropic drugs, and wire your head to a Faraday Cage? Yeah, I’m sure he is really upset at you for not wanting to do something incredibly crazy. He may be eccentric, but he is understanding that his experiments are a bit kooky. He’s really only been able to do these experiments on student volunteers who wanted to be able to legally do hallucinogenics, most of whom don’t have your talents. And if they did they destroyed it from years of smoking pot, doing cocaine, and taking uppers.”

I held up a whiskey bottle I had lying around to illustrate that I could have drunk my intuition away.

“No, no. Joseph said alcohol only temporarily suppresses certain cognitive functions, at least in non-alcoholics. I’ve seen you drink, but you’re not an alcoholic. You really haven’t even drunk until about a three weeks ago. I’m sure your frontal lobe is fine.”

I had to laugh at that. This is the third time in my life I have considerable amounts of alcohol. The first was my freshman year of college, the second when my wife divorced me, and now. Otherwise, it’s a glass here or there; nothing more. “Why is the frontal lobe an issue?”

“Joseph says you need something to simulate future events in order to determine what is most likely to happen, and also something to help you determine what is the best course of action, which is what the frontal lobe does. Once the brain absorbs all the data it is given, calculates, and processes it, something needs to simulate how that information will play out.”

“Fine, whatever,” I dismissed the whole thing. It was just too much to take in. “Alright, Gil. I’ll leave you to it. Send Liz my regards. And good luck with Joseph. I know he’s a

strange person to deal, so just be your forgiving self. I also brought some Dead CDs you can play for him. That ought to do the trick. I know you don’t like the Dead, but it will keep Joseph out of your hair for most of the trip. Take care of yourself, Gil.”

I saw Rueben out and finished doing the dishes. I called my daughter to see if she would be available tomorrow evening for dinner. I left her a voicemail, which she never returned. I should have told her it would be the last time I would be able to see her, if I had known it at the time. Such is the tragedy in life. Of all the tragedies, truly the worst is not knowing which moment will be your last. It is at your last moment when you think off all the moments that were to be the last of something: the last time you will eat a candy bar, the last time you will see your daughter, the last time you will have coffee with a friend, the last time you will read a wonderful book. At that moment, every last everything becomes some sort of regret, because you didn’t cherish it as much as you should have. If you don’t regret not having cherished those things, then you lived a very boring life. You simply cannot cherish them enough. I’m writing that as if I was already dead.

__________

Saturday arrived, and I spent most of it at the office. I had not been in all week, and I just had some things to work on, mostly more mindless paperwork. I phoned Mr. Burns to inform him we were following some leads, but we had a consultant who took an interest in the case because of his familiarity with the suspect’s academic forte. He believed that would help us find this man, and hopefully that will lead us to Sam. Of course, Mr. Burns was not in. Something about the advent of cellphones, more

especially everyone having a cellphone, no one ever seems to answer their phones. I suppose having direct communication with everyone all the time right at our side, no strings attached, meant we eventually would want to get away from communication.

About 4:00 PM I hopped in my car (the other one still at the office) and headed to Florence. I arrived at the hospital about 5:30 in hopes to find and talk to Elizabeth, but her shift ended earlier that morning. So I spent the next four hours at the Waffle House down the street next to the interstate. I must have drunk two pots of coffee, ate two bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches, smoke a whole pack, and read half of Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage.

The train was about half an hour late, but that’s typical. I helped Dr. Elliot with his bags, three very large cases, and we headed back to Columbia. Just as Rueben had foretold, the Doctor was enjoying listening to the Grateful Dead. About the only thing he said the whole trip was to ask if we could pull over so he could relieve himself, and that he was disappointed in the sound quality of CDs. “These compact discs,” he said, “they just don’t sound as good as a cassette. And even then, nothing will ever sound as good as a good ole vinyl.”

To which I remarked, “Well, can anything sound better than a live concert?” “Excellent point. I think not. Then Descartes disappeared!” I couldn’t help myself. I had to laugh. That was just so bad that it was one of the best jokes I had

ever heard. He smirked, and remained silent; just listening to his music. Nothing was said until we arrived at Rueben’s house in Shandon, right next to Five Points in Columbia.

The moment Rueben opened the door Dr. Elliot exclaimed, “Rueben, old boy! Did you get everything set up?”

“Yes I did, Joseph. Everything is in the basement.” Rueben replied. I was suddenly hit by a metaphorical bus filled with a bunch of metaphorical passengers, all of

them named Confusion. “Wait, what?” I remarked. “What do you mean everything is set up in the basement? What is this everything and why is it set up? I’m really hoping you’re talking about Dr. Elliot’s lodging quarters.”

“Oh no,” Dr. Elliot responded, “Rueben has a guest bedroom for that, so I won’t be sleeping in the basement. No, no, I need a lab. I have to get all this equipment set up, along with all the other things I asked Rueben to prepare in a sufficiently sized space, which is apparently his basement.”

“A basement laboratory for a mad scientist to test psychoactive drugs and electromagnetic devices on my person. Wonderful.”

“That is an excellent way to put it!” the Doctor chirped with excitement. It seemed like he had been preparing for this his whole life.

We walked through the kitchen and down into the basement. It was a rather old house, about 1910, so the basement stairs were tight, low headspace, with very narrow treads. The partially finished basement was about half the size of the first floor, because half of the first floor was a later addition. There was a full-bath and two closets. The rest was one big room. It was damp and hot, but the air -conditioning unit in the ceiling-high window was starting to cool things down. I suppose Rueben just put it in. Set up in the room were two computers, a mini-fridge, a reclining chair, a tea trolley cart, chairs and stools, and several tables with plastic over them, as well as several moveable lights. It was essentially the most modest and primitive lab I have ever seen.

The Doctor asked me to sit down on the reclining chair, then pulled up a stool next to me and sat there. He did what you would expect, check my temperature, heart rate and pressure, pupil dilation, knee

reflect response, and all those senseless procedures. He then moved the stool so he could sit across from me, and began to ask me questions, while he jotted everything down in a file.

“Do you have any allergies?” “No.” “Are you currently on any medications?” “I’m on an aspirin regimen.” “Do you have respiratory problems? Asthma or short of breath? “No.” “Ever had any physical head trauma? Car accident, a fall, or otherwise?” “No.” “Ever been in a medically induced coma?” “No.” “Any mental trauma? As in abuse or nervous breakdown?” “No.” “Are you prone to epilepsy? Any recent unexplained blackouts?” “Not epilepsy, but I did blackout recently. It was probably from drinking.” “Describe what happened before you blacked out.” “I was driving through Cayce late at night. I was going to Old State Road. I was crossing the train

tracks and all I remember was a bright light all around me, and the next thing I know I’m back in my bed.”

He reached into one of his cases and got out a Geiger Counter and ran it across me. “Radiation levels are normal. I wouldn’t worry about that episode.” Then he continued, “Have you ever taken hallucinogens? Muscaria, psilocybin, mescalin, LSD, morning glory, cannabis, ecstasy, MDA?”

“I smoked pot a few times in college. Never touched the rest.” “How often do you drink?” “Usually a glass of whiskey every few days. Lately I’ve drunk a lot.” “How long were you drinking the past few days? And about how much?” “Several bottles over the last week, and about the same amount over the two previous weeks.” “Are you currently on any antipsychotic medication?” “No.” “Have you ever been prescribed anti-psychotics.” “Yes.” “What were they?” “After my wife left me I started taking Prosaic, and stopped after a year. When I was nineteen I

was prescribed Haloperidol for two months.” “Hmm. Interesting. Was it paranoid or a transient schizophrenia episode you were experiencing?” Rueben looked up at me with that question. He looked surprised, like I had lied to him all these

years. I sighed, “Transient, or essential schizophrenia. After two months it was recommended by a specialist to let the episode run its course, which it did. After three months my delusions quietly faded and I was eventually released.”

“How often do you hear voices? Frequency? Volume? Tone? Just, what is your typical impression when you hear voices?”

“No often. Perhaps three times a year. Usually I hear them while falling asleep in silence, which is why I usually have to have music on while I fall asleep. It’s not always voices, it’s just my pulse tends

to keep me up. They aren’t incredibly loud. As I said, with background noise I can’t hear them. They usually sound like two or three, maybe four voices conversing. The few times I’ve heard them they sound like they’re talking to each other, but also about each other. Normally once I realize I’m hearing them they go quite, as if they realize I’m on to them. Every once in a while I hear my father’s voice, quite clear and distinctly. He usually says my name.”

“Do you ever hear them when you have your intuitions Rueben tells me about?” “No. But then again, there is usually background noise when I have my intuitions.” “How long have you had these intuitions?” “Earliest I could remember was when I was seven. I just suddenly realized I knew where my

mother hid the cookies.” “Do you know any foreign languages?” “Latin and Portuguese. My ex-wife is Brazilian.” He finished writing some notes, then set the pages aside and looked up at me. “Well, with the

recent amount of heavy drinking these psychotropics may cause some soreness in your liver and kidneys the next few days. But I assure you that you will be perfectly fine through the procedure. I am going to give you first a mix of salvia extract and LSD-50 on a sugar cube. They are plenty enough that you will hallucinate, but the right amount to get the voices chattering. The next will be an injection of my Rose-cross, only 20 CCs, which is more than enough to the clear up the chattering, as if to make them speak in turns, one at a time. It will also help keep them from speaking in any languages you don’t know. Now, the LSD has some minor respiratory side effects, but the second drug will exacerbate this issue. So try to stay calm. Are you ready?”

“No, but I’m not going to be any more ready.” He placed five drops of the hallucinogen concoction on a sugar cube, which I ingested. “We will

wait about hour until that starts to kick in, so relax until then. The Rose-cross kicks in really fast, so the effects will be felt almost instantly. In the meantime I’m going to prepare the Cage.”

He opened his case and pulled out a strange contraption covered in electrodes and wires. Set at two points on one side of the hemispherical contraption were two crystals, I assume some sort of white quartz. He explained the whole thing to me while I relaxed.

“Rueben sent me copies of all of the research our Dr. Ellsworth was looking into. I looked into his research in electric engineering and began to understand what he was working on. Essentially, he wanted to build a sort of Faraday Cage around his head, kind of like an EEG helmet. The Faraday Cage essentially gets all of its electromagnetism directed to pass through these two quartz crystals. How electromagnetic fields behave when pulsating through these crystals, or almost any crystal for that matter is quite strange. They produce fields that when graphically plotted on a Cartesian Grid yield fractals. These crystals are centered directly over the opposing regions to the Bocca and Wernicke Area. Now, that doesn’t mean the electromagnetism will then just arc directly to those regions. No, they need to have a current to direct them. That’s where our friend Dr. Ellsworth was a genius. I was looking at some of his notes on the Tesla Coils. He figured out how to produce a completely harmless electromagnetic field inside of the skull, like the inside of an induction bulb. This is why the Faraday Cage is only hemispherical. The brain, which is essentially a complex circuitry board, acts like the rest of the cage. This induction current inside of the brain will gravitate toward the areas near the crystals. It’s a bit like a plasma globe when you place your hand on it, the electric currents of plasma will gravitate toward your hand. So the rest of the electric field, finding its center more towards your cerebral cortex, will be directing the electromagnetic currents centering around the crystals through the Bocca and Wernicke Area

to stimulate them. It’s sounds complex, but it is quite efficient, and a nice way to not to have to cut open your skull.”

“Thank God for that,” I said. I was starting to wonder why I thanked God. I doubt I was starting to believe in God. I usually leave the God stuff to Rueben. I just try to act rational.

The Doctor was fitting the contraption to my head. He explained that the whole thing is completely painless. They say brain surgery is completely painless because the brain has no nerves. But I always wondered about cutting open the scalp and sawing into the skull. There had to be some pressure, some sting of some sort, right? Well, the Doc assured me this was just going to be a strange tingling sensation across my scalp. My hair was not going to burn up or anything, nor would I be electrocuted, because I was part of the closed circuit. “And now we wait for you to start hallucinating! Which should be in about forty minutes. This is going to be fun. I wish I was joining you on this.” I can’t believe he said that.

I was starting to feel high, which Dr. Elliot assured me what normal. I asked if I could get up and walk around before I started to hallucinate. He told me that while that would make the drugs kick in faster, he needed me to wear the helmet, which also had some sort of EEG sensors equipped with it, so he could monitor my brain waves. He also needed to monitor my heart rate and pressure, all of which he said were normal for some who just took some LSD. This was the point I started to ask myself what I was thinking letting him do this experiment on me. The only illicit drugs I have ever done was marijuana. What was I doing?

Then the drugs kicked in. The Doctor started up the Cage and asked if I could hear anything. At first there was nothing, and then suddenly a murmur began. Initially it sounded like the flow of water, which turned into a sound like ocean waves crashing rhythmically. After a few more minutes the murmur became a distinct sort of chatter, like a bustling mall crowded with people. That’s when he gave me the second drug, his Rose-cross, his elixir of life, his Philosopher’s Stone. The bustling mall soon became the rambling of several voices, partially incoherent nonsense, and partially understandable, but all talking over each other:

“Two lads in scoutsch breeches went through her before that, Barefoot Burn…” “…and Wallowme Wade, Lugnaquillia’s noblesse pickts, before…” “...she had a hint of a hair at her fanny to hide or a bossom to tempt a birch canoedler not to

mention a bulgic porterhouse barge.” “And ere that again, leada, laida, all unraidy, too faint to buoy the fairiest rider, too frail…” “…to flirt with cygnet’s plume, she was licked by a hound, Chirripa-Chirruta, while poing her

pee, pure and simple, on the spur of the hill in old Kippure…” Then the voices started to clear up, and started to talk in a more sensible manner, and talking one

at a time: “Did he?” “Did he not know?” “Not know he was going to see her again?” “Could he not gather

that?” “He doesn’t listen anymore.” “But he will see her again.” “Yes, she will find him.” “Sad.” “Doctor, they’re starting to talk more distinctly now.” “Good, just keep focusing on them. You vitals are normal for you present condition. You’re

doing fine.” I couldn’t even see Rueben anymore. He was there. I know it. But, I just could recognize him. “Didn’t he understand that script?” “Of course not.” “Yeah, of course not. Don’t you pay

attention to him?” “It was Finny’s script.” “He hates him.” “But the Son of the Sun!” “He doesn’t see the connection.” “Who is that hypothetical Jill anyway?” “Nevermind that. He’s listening!” “Tell him what

happened at the light.” “He’s not ready yet.” “But he saw the man in the gray.” “Not yet!” “Can he see the fate he’s sown for himself?” “No, which gives us free reign.” “Yes, just wait.” “Don’t wait. Lead him there.” “Tell him about the light!” “That’s not the way to start.” “Start at the end.” “Start at the end is now.” “Begin at the book.” “Yes, the book.”

“Doctor, they’re… talking about… a book. I don’t which… one. Son of the Sun.” “You mean Horace?” Rueben asked. “Yes, spelled different. Like Coffey.” “Yes.” “He means Horace, a-c-e. The book we found with the coolant smell.” Rueben informed Dr.

Elliot. “I guess they gave him a riddle. Son of the Sun, as in the Egyptian Horus, u-s.” “Yes,” the Doctor confirmed, “they like riddles. They may have all the secrets, but they don’t

give it up easily.” Rueben walked over to the other side of the room to get the book, I think. It was still like he

wasn’t there, but definitely was there. He had brought every bit of evidence, file, or note scribbled on a napkin for this investigation to the basement. I couldn’t smell the book, but the voices did.

“The smeel of cool’d.” “He didn’t even notice the dusties.” “That slight edge.” “Doc, they’re starting to talk… strange again. I can’t… think. I can… can’t talk with… them

talking.” “Yes, yes, son…” “He called him son!” “…they’re really chatty. Don’t worry about the way the

talk. They fade in and out of coherent speech and babbling. Just focus.” Clearly the Doctor has done this to himself a number of times.

“Tell the Jacob’s son to stepping three steps right.” “His right!” “Rueben… they said move… over three steps… your… right.” Rueben looked at the Doctor, I think he’s still there. I don’t know, but they know, so he must be

there. I just saw the Doctor look over and nodded, I presume to Rueben. A few seconds later there was a loud crash. One of the tables fell over. One of the legs broke because of the weight of all the books and stacks of folders on it. Apparently the avalanche of files stopped right at Rueben’s feet.

“That will make his listen!” “Listen, yes.” “But how to prove to him.” “The book.” “Yes, with the bent corner.”

“Give me the book,” I demanded, amazing in one uninterrupted sentence. The Doctor handed the book over to me, and I flipped to the page that was dog-eared; the one that had the note stuck in it. Then the voices began to read everything on the page:

“Three, two, Call to Youth.” “Angustiam amic pauperiem.” “Let every Roman boy be taught to know constraining hardship as a friend, and grow strong in

fierce warfare, with dread lance and horse encountering the gallant Parthian for.” “Aye, let him live beneath the open sky in danger. Him from leaguered walls should eye mother

and daughter of th’ insurgent king, and she for her betrothed, with many a sigh…” “Should pray, poor maiden, lest, when hosts engage, unversed in arms he face that lion’s rage so

dangerous to trust what time he gluts his wrath upon the battle’s bloody stage.” “For country ‘tis a sweet and seemly thing to die. Death ceases not from following e’en

runaways. Can youth with feeble knees, that fears to face the battle, scape his wing?” “Defeat true manliness can never know; honors untarnished still it has to show. Not taking up or

laying office down because the fickle mob will have it so.”

“’Tis manliness lifts men too good to die, and finds a way to that forbidden sky: above the thronging multitudes, above the clinging mists of earth it rises high.”

“Two-seventeen.” “Two-eighten.” “Nor less abides to loyal secrecy a sure reward: I would not have him be neath the same roof, the

babbler who reveals Demeter’s secret things, or launch with me…” “That’s it.” “Right there!” “Did he read it?” “No, we did.” “He means to bring her back.” “Does

he have his own us?” “Perhaps he may!” “Of course he does.” “Eleusinian Mystery!” “What are the… what’s the… Eleusinian Mystery?” I asked. The Doctor responded, “Ancient Greek ritual rites to Demeter, abducted by Hades. Why?” “They said… whoa… they said she will be brought… brought… back! I can’t think!” “Chatter bugs aren’t they?” The Doctor chuckled. “Wait,” Rueben said, “Are they implying Ellsworth will bring back Samantha?” “He didn’t get that.” “Calm! Babbling spire builder!” “Yes.” “They called you… Nimrod, Rueben. And… yes… yes… that’s right… right.” “Where?!” Rueben was getting excited, and I could vaguely make out an apparition. “Beneath.” “The roof.” “Lethe.” “Forgetting us again?!” “Forgetting a river,” I called out. I don’t know what it meant. I don’t know what they mean. They

speak in, as they say, “puns and reedles.” Rueben looked at the Doctor, who looked back equally confused. Rueben then started playing

word games. “Forgetting river. River forgets… River flows past… I have no idea. Forgetting the river. When we translated those hieroglyphs they said ‘The river flows past the life being’s earth.’ Is it the same river?”

“No.” “No, they said.” “Similar, same and the one.” “But it’s… one and the same... Lethe?” “Lethe?” Rueben inquired, as if to make sure he was hearing things right. “That’s a river in Hell.

It’s the first river Dante crosses. You lose all memory from the world above once you cross it. It’s your punishment: to forget. What does it have to do with the hieroglyphs?”

I simply couldn’t take it anymore. Their chattering was nonsense, too much to handle. They spoke too quickly, and always speaking in secrecy. I asked the doctor to sedate me, but he said the drugs had to finish metabolizing before they would stop. I was stuck like this for the next eighteen hours. The chattering, the indecipherable wording, all the nonsense and mayhem built up for approximately three hours. Then over the course of the next fifteen hours they started to calm. They became less chatty, but spoke even more in riddles. I just couldn’t understand them. They seemed of no help. I eventually passed out. I felt so helpless through the whole thing.

__________

I awoke standing, or rather came to, consciously awake while standing. It’s rather disorienting to do so. My feet were cold, but the rest of me was hot and sweating. I had never noticed it before, but water had a very specific smell, and it was refreshing to smell it. That’s when I realized I was standing in a creek. I was standing not in just any creek, but the one on Old State Road, and I was standing beneath that very bridge. What that the roof? Was I standing in Lethe? I cannot remember anything.

There were people on the banks of the creek. I could hear people above me, and there were flashing blue lights all around. I realize that I was standing in the exact same spot the man in gray was

standing in my dream. (Was it a dream?) Two men in waders were approaching me. Were they Acheron? One held me still, the other held my eyelids open and shined a light in them. They pulled me to shore, past the old refrigerator, still lying there submerged. Two other men helped secure me to stretcher and hauled me up the embankment to the bridge. There I saw her. Samantha. She was wrapped in a wool blanket while being talked to by police officers. What was this thing attached to my head?

“Did I help find her?” I asked the EMTs. One of them looked at me with a bit of contempt, and loaded me into the ambulance. I went to

Hell to find her. Like Orpheus bringing back Eurycide, following quietly behind him. Had I met the devil himself? Had I awoken in a dark wood? Somehow it seems fitting, being forty years old.

It took weeks before I could piece together what had happened. __________

My name is not Gilbert Donati. Gilbert is the name of a town I lived near in South Carolina. Gil

was also the name of a private detective that lived in the house behind mine as a child in Washington D.C. Donati comes from Corso Donati, the daughter of whom Dante Alighieri loved, other than Beatrix. There is no Reuben Lewis. Reuben and Lewis are both the names of my two brothers, and Samantha is the name of my sister. When I was eight years old my sister fell off a bridge into a creek. I was the one who went down to get her. Our father’s name is Jacob. My name is Joseph Bateman.

I was at one point in my early years a schizophrenic, a two month transient episode that worked itself out. Because of this, later in my life, I was qualified for experimental tests to better understand schizophrenic delusions. The doctor conducting these tests was a man by the name of Joseph Ellmont. He had said to me when we first met that “people by the name of Joseph are awesome people!” He was experimenting with reviving centers of the brain usually found responsible for auditory hallucinations. He told me that schizophrenics usually just suffer from delusions, and they rarely hallucinate, and that when they do those hallucinations are primarily auditory. Very few schizophrenics experience visual hallucinations. My transient, sometimes called “essential” schizophrenia was somewhat propelled by auditory hallucinations. He contrived a contraption that was physically attached to my skull, penetrating the scalp, but had no need to physically remove any section of the skull. It was a rather small device, being small enough to fit into your palm. It was a very small and modified version of a Faraday Cage wrapped around a small glass bulb, about a centimeter in diameter. Capping this device was a faceted piece of quartz, under which was hidden a small power cell. This all channeled electromagnetic fields into the region opposite of the Wernicke Area of my right temporal lobe. He would then give me a concoction of some red fluid that had trace amounts of LSD (not enough to make me hallucinate) and scopolomine (about as much as a pill of motion sickness medicine). He couldn’t tell me exactly what was in it, as it was apparently classified while the patent pended. I volunteered for this whole thing, being paid a hundred dollars per week for three experiments per weeks.

After two months of treatments I vanished suddenly for a period of about two weeks, so the reports say. During that time I slipped into a continuous state of delusions, mimicking neatly a perfect state of reality where I invented a story for myself containing adventure and mystery. Consider it Philip K. Dick come to life without going to another planet. Adventure and fun, something I had always wanted. In real reality I worked in a pharmaceutical company located in Greenville, while working at a small branch office pushing papers in Columbia. During this interim of absence I kidnapped a young girl, Dinah Edison. But I imagined saving her from the very place I kept her hidden: the FAA monitoring tower on

Old State Road in Cayce; a place I came to identify with as Hell, and I was Orpheus on a journey like Dante looking for Eurycide.

As I said, there is no Reuben Lewis. One of my clinical psychologists here, Dr. Mann, said Rueben was my ego, a sort of mediating center of mental reality. As a fairly educated man, I understand his meaning. Reuben was always trying to claw myself out of the delusion by referencing things between the realities: the Ell-s being doctors, the children of Jacob, the Ed-s, et cetera.

The treatments Dr. Ellmont gave me did work. They produced auditory hallucinations, but the mix of LSD and scopolomine made me high suggestive to those voices. They did what he expected: chatter a considerable amount, tell me things that were currently happening, as well as predict near future events (like Jill is coming around the corner). He had hoped that since I had not experienced hallucinations before that would tell me what to do, only murmur, and that it was not paranoid schizophrenia, that I would not be susceptible to suggestive paranoia. His conclusions were wrong.

I am no longer on those treatments, and the electrical device has been removed, but the voices continue. They never ceased talking. I am currently and indefinitely a resident of Bull Street Mental Asylum. My daughter has been compensated for the failure of those treatments, of which have been permanently terminated. My wife committed suicide a few years before. I have learned that the voices can be suppressed with alcohol. I have a higher tolerance than they do, for now. It takes more and more to silence them for fewer and fewer hours.

I’m not allowed alcohol, but I figured out how to make it in my cell. I ask for a honeybun, two oranges, and a bottle of water (seemingly harmless). Peel the oranges and place the rinds in an empty bottle. Then seal the top of the bottle with a piece of the honeybun. Give it two weeks, add some water in the meantime, and bottoms up. But there is only so much I can make at a given time without getting caught, and the voices from my other room are catching up with the rate at which I can make it.

This is my confession. This is a record of my delusion, my crimes, and my adventure through Hell. This cell is my Paradise, a Paradise that is only in my head. Dante was lucky, because he got to come back to earth. I have to invent my own Heaven. Only in my head can I find a way a lone a last a loved a long the… river… that out of Hell leads up to light. But that will not help me now. They are getting louder. They are talking more and more. I am, once again, absolutely helpless.

There may be no redemption, no salvation in insanity. But I can at least imagine there is. This confession has meant nothing.

Patrick M. Dey June 17, 2012