The Zero Game

44

As the darkness hits, I keep my arm outstretched in front of me to stop myself from ramming into the wall. I never get there. My foot sinks into a divot, and I lurch off balance. Crashing into the ground, my knees tear across the rocky floor, making me feel every stray, pointy pebble. From the loud rip and the sudden pain across my kneecaps, I feel another fresh hole slice through my pants. I again put my hands out to break my fall, but the momentum’s too much. Sliding headfirst into home plate, I face-plant across the gravel as the rocks roll against my chest. By the time I open my eyes, I taste my ever-present mouthful of dust and dirt, but this time, I can’t see it. I can’t see anything. Anything.

Coughing violently and still fighting to catch my breath, I feel a final hunk of yesterday’s grilled cheese hurl up my esophagus and slam into the back of my teeth. I spit it out and hear the wet splat against the floor. Lying on the ground until my breathing settles, I keep my eyes shut, trying to take a small victory in the fact that I at least was smart enough to leave bread crumbs. It doesn’t do any good. The darkness is already overwhelming. I hold my hand to my face, but nothing’s in front of me. I bring it close enough that I’m touching my eyebrows. Still nothing. This isn’t like shutting the lights in your bedroom and waiting for your eyes to adjust. I wave my hand back and forth. It’s like it doesn’t even exist. Still fighting for proof, I close my eyes, then open them. No difference.

The light is gone. But sound is an entirely different story.

“Viv!” I call out, shouting through the tunnels. “Viv, can you hear me?!”

My voice echoes through the chamber, eventually dying in the distance. The question goes unanswered.

“Viv! I need help! Are you there?”

Again, my question fades and dies. For all I know, she took the elevator back to the top.

“Is anyone here?!” I scream as loud as I can.

The only sound I hear is my own labored breathing and the grinding of rocks as I shift my weight. I grew up in a rural town of less than five hundred people, yet I’ve never heard the world as silent as it is right now, eight thousand feet below the earth. If I plan on getting out of here, I’m gonna have to do it myself.

Instinctively I start to stand up, but quickly change my mind and sit back down again. I’m pretty sure the archway that’ll lead me back to the earlier part of the tunnel is in front of me, but until I’m positive, I’d better not wander around in the dark. The only thing helping me grab my bearings is the bitter smell of feces coming from the nearby wagon. As I follow the smell and trace it to the left, I’m crawling on all fours and patting the rocky ground like I’m looking for a lost contact lens. The smell is so awful, it’s starting to make my eyes water, but right now that pile of reeky shit is the only beacon I’ve got.

Crawling forward, I hold one hand out, petting the air and searching for the wagon. If I can find it, I’ll at least know which way is out. Or at least, that’s the plan. My fingertips quickly collide with the jagged edges of a sharp, wet rock. But as I open my hand to get a better feel, I trace it upward, and it just keeps going. It’s not a rock. It’s the whole wall.

Tapping the floor slightly, I search for the wagon, but it’s not there. It was on my right as I was coming in, so to get out, I keep heading left, feeling my way. Over my shoulder, there’s a metallic twang as my foot collides with something behind me. Still on all fours, I reach back and pat my way along the ground until I feel the thin spokes of the red wagon’s wheels. It doesn’t make sense.

I freeze right there, putting both hands flat against the dirt floor. The wagon’s supposed to be on my left. I reach out and feel it again. It’s on my right. I’m completely turned around. Worst of all, I’m headed the wrong way, deeper into the tunnel and away from the exit. I close my eyes, already dizzy from the darkness. The smell seems like it’s coming from everywhere. Ten steps and I’m already lost.

Spinning around and searching for security, I frantically braille my way across the ground and crawl forward. With one extended stretch, I reach out in front of me and feel the rest of the red wagon. The scabby edges of chipped metal. The rounded curves of the wheels. Even though I can’t actually see it, my mind mentally puts the puzzle pieces together, showing me a perfect view. To my own surprise, I erupt with an anxious laugh. Copping one feel after another, my fingers soak up every sharp corner and dented curve, caressing the base of the wagon and rubbing the frayed edges of the plastic shower curtain between my thumb and pointer finger. It’s an amazing sensation to take it all in by touch — and I can’t help but wonder if this is how Barry feels.

Anxious to get out, I palm my way across the wagon until I find the jagged wall. As my left hand stays with the wall, my right hand sweeps back and forth like a human metal detector, brushing the ground and making sure I don’t hit another divot. Still crawling, I make a sharp right through the archway at the mouth of the cave. If I wanted, I could stick with the train tracks that run down the center, but right now, the wall somehow feels more stable and secure.

Twenty-five feet later, my knees are aching, the stench is fading, and an opening on my right leads to a parallel tunnel where I can go right or left. There are openings like this in every direction, but I’m pretty sure this is the one that dumped me here. Palming the curved edge of the chunky, muddy threshold, I follow it down to the ground, searching for the scrap of paper I left behind. The list of movies I want to rent is somewhere along the floor. If I can find it, it means I have a chance of following the rest of my bread crumbs back.

Using just my fingertips, I lightly pat the rocky earth, systematically sifting through the pebbles at the base of the threshold. I work from the right-hand side of the opening to the left. I’m bent so close to the ground, blood starts rushing to my head. The pressure builds at the center of my forehead. The list of movies is nowhere to be found. For five minutes, my fingers massage the rocks as I listen for a crinkle. It never comes. Still, I don’t need a scrap of paper to tell me I made a right-hand turn into this section of the tunnel. Feeling my way, I palm the wall, find the edge of the archway, and follow it out to the left.

Heading further up the hallway and crawling diagonally across the train tracks, I reach out in the darkness for the right-hand wall. It should be right in front of me… I stretch out my arm all the way… reaching… reaching… But for some reason, the wall isn’t there. I stop midcrawl and grip the train tracks. If I took a wrong turn…

“Viv!” I call out.

No one answers.

Struggling to get my bearings, I close my eyes in the hope that it’ll be less dizzying. I keep telling myself it’s just a dark tunnel, but in this much darkness, I feel like I’m crawling through my own elongated coffin. My nails dig through the dirt for no other reason than to convince myself there’s no coffin and I’m not trapped. But I am.

“Viv!” I shout again, begging for help.

Still nothing.

Refusing to panic, I scootch around on my butt and slowly extend my leg out as far as it goes. The wall’s gotta be here somewhere. It has to be. I point my toes outward, sliding further from the tracks. Thousands of pebbles grumble underneath me. For all I know, I’m dangling my entire leg into an open hole. But if the wall’s really here — and I’m pretty sure it is — it’ll… Thunk.

There we go.

Keeping my foot pressed against the wall, but still lying on my back, I let go of the train track, lean forward, and hug the wetness of the wall with my hands. I keep patting it and patting it, just to make sure it’s there. It’s exactly where I thought it was — I just can’t believe how much my spatial relations are off. Still huffing and puffing, I let out a deep breath, but my mouth is so close to the wall, I feel a whirlwind of excess dirt and water ricochet back in my face. Coughing uncontrollably, I turn my head, blinking the dirt from my eyes and spitting the rest from my mouth.

Back on my knees, it takes me two minutes to crawl along the rubble, my right hand petting the wall, my left hand tracing the ground for any other surprises. Even when I can feel what’s coming — even when I know it’s just another pile of loose rock — each movement is like closing your eyes and reaching the bottom step on a staircase. You tentatively put your foot out for the final step, but you never know where it’s gonna be. And even when you find it, you still keep tapping against the floor — not just to be safe, but because, for that one unnerving moment, you don’t completely trust your senses.

Finally feeling the rounded curve of the archway as the cave tunnel opens up on my right, I pat the floor, searching for my Triple-A card. Like before, I don’t have a prayer — but unlike last time, I’m done memorizing lefts and rights. This is the cavern with five different tunnels to choose from. I pick the wrong one, and this place really will be my coffin.

“Viv!” I call out, crawling into the room. The whole world is tar. “Please, Viv — are you there?!”

I hold my breath and listen as my plea echoes down each of the tunnels. It rumbles everywhere at once. The original surround sound. Holding my breath and digging my nails into the dirt, I wait for a response. No matter how faint, I don’t want to miss it. But as my own voice reverberates and disappears down the labyrinth, I’m once again buried in underground silence. I look around, but the view doesn’t change. It only adds to my dizziness. The merry-go-round’s started, and I can’t make it stop.

“Viv!” I cry again in the opposite direction. “Anybody! Please!”

The echo trails off like the wispy tail of a ghost in my old childhood nightmares. Swallowed by the darkness. Just like me.

There’s no up, down, left, or right. The world teeters sideways as dizziness flips to vertigo. I’m on all fours but still can’t hold my balance. My forehead feels like it’s about to explode.

With a crash, I fall on my side. My cheek rolls into the rocks. It’s the only thing that tells me where the ground is. There’s nothing but ink in every direction — and then, out of the corner of my eye, I spot tiny, tiny flashes of silver light. They only last a second — bursts of sparkles, like when you shut your eyes too tight. But even as I turn my head to follow the glow, I know it’s just my imagination. I’ve heard of this before… when your eyes are deprived of light for too long. Miner mirages.

“Harris…?” a voice whispers in the distance.

I assume it’s another trick of my imagination. That is, until it starts talking back.

“Harris, I can’t hear you!” it shouts. “Say something else!”

“Viv?”

“Say something else!” Her voice echoes through the room. It’s hard to pinpoint the direction.

“Viv, is that you?!”

“Keep talking! Where are you?”

“In the dark — my light went out!”

There’s a one-second pause, like there’s a time delay on her voice. “You okay?”

“I need you to come get me!”

“What?”

“Come get me!” I shout.

The pause is still there. “I can’t!” she yells. “Just follow the light!”

“There is no light! I turned too many corners — c’mon, Viv, I can’t see!”

“Then follow my voice!”

“Viv!”

“Just follow it!” she pleads.

“Are you listening?! It’s bouncing through every tunnel!” I stop and pause, keeping my sentences short, so the echo doesn’t interfere. She needs to hear what I’m saying. “It’s too dark! If I take the wrong turn, you’ll never find me!”

“So I should get lost with you?!” she says.

“You have a light!”

“Harris…!”

“You have a light! We’re running out of time!”

Her pause is even longer. She knows what I’m getting at. The longer she waits, the less likely we’ll be alone down here. We’ve been lucky so far, but when it comes to Janos, it can’t last.

“Don’t be afraid, Viv! It’s just a tunnel!”

This time, the pause is her longest yet. “If this is a trick…!”

“It’s not a trick! I need help…!”

She knows I’m not playing around. Besides, as the Senator always says when he’s talking about our top donors, “Even when they tell you the well is dry, if you dig a little deeper, there’s always a little something tucked back in reserve.”

“You really need me to come there?” she asks, her voice shaking.

“I can’t move,” I call back. “Viv… Please…”

As I lie in the darkness, the cave once again goes silent. Just the thought of heading into the darkness… especially by herself… I saw the pain in her eyes before. She’s terrified.

“Viv, you still there?!”

She doesn’t answer. Not a good sign. The silence keeps going, and I can’t help but think that even the reserves are long dry. She’s probably curled on the ground and-

“Which of these tunnels do I take?!” she shouts, her voice booming through the caves.

I sit up straight, my hands still in the dirt. “You’re the greatest, Viv Parker!”

“I’m not joking, Harris! Which way do I go?”

Her voice is far off in the distance, but there’s no mistaking her desperate tone. This isn’t easy for her.

“The one with the freshest mud! Look for my footprints!” My voice echoes through the chamber, fading into nothing.

“Did you find it?” I ask.

Again my voice fades away. It all comes down to a seventeen-year-old girl with a flashlight on her head.

“You have tiny feet!” she calls back.

I try to smile, but we both know she’s got a long way to go. Back by the cage, there’s still the big industrial light up by the ceiling. Not for long. That light will be out of her sight any-

“Harris…!”

“You can do it, Viv! Pretend you’re in a fun-house!”

“I hate fun-houses! They scare the crap outta me!”

“How about the Tilt-A-Whirl? Everyone likes the Tilt-A-Whirl!”

“Harris, it’s too dark!”

The pep talk’s not working.

“I can barely see…!”

“Your eyes’ll adjust!”

“The ceiling-!” she screams. Her voice gets cut off.

I give her a second, but nothing comes back.

“Viv, everything okay?”

No response.

“Viv…? Are you there?!”

Dead silence.

“VIV!" I shout at the top of my lungs, just to make sure she hears it.

Still nothing.

My jaw tightens, the silence sinks in, and for the first time since I left, I start wondering if we’re the only ones down here. If Janos caught a different flight-

“Just keep talking, Harris!” her voice finally rings through the air. She must’ve entered the main stretch of tunnel. Her voice is clearer… less of an echo.

“Are you-?”

“Just keep talking!” she shouts, stuttering slightly. Something’s definitely wrong. I tell myself it’s just her fear of being trapped underground, but as the silence once again descends, I can’t help but think it’s something worse. “Tell me about work… your parents… anything…” she begs. Whatever else is going on, she needs something to take her mind off it.

“M-My first day in the Senate,” I begin, “I was riding the metro to work, and as I got on board, there was an ad — I forget what it was for — but the ad said, Reach Beyond Yourself. I remember staring at it the entire-”

“Don’t give me locker room speeches — I saw Rudy!” she shouts. “Tell me something real!”

It’s a simple request, but I’m surprised how long it takes me to come up with an answer.

“Harris…!”

“I make breakfast for Senator Stevens every morning!” I blurt. “When we’re in session, I have to pick him up at his house at seven A.M., go inside, and make him Cracklin’ Oat Bran with fresh blueberries…”

There’s a short pause.

“You serious?” Viv asks. She’s still wavering, but I hear the laughter in the back of her throat.

I smile to myself. “The man’s so insecure, he makes me walk him to every vote on the Floor, just in case he’s cornered by another Member. And he’s so cheap, he doesn’t even go to dinner anymore without bringing a lobbyist. That way, he doesn’t have to pick up the bill…”

After the pause, I hear a single word from Viv: “More…”

“Last month, Stevens turned sixty-three… We threw four different birthday parties for him — each one a thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraiser — and at each one, we told the invitees it was the only party he was having. We spent fifty-nine thousand on salmon and some birthday cake — we raked in over two hundred grand…” I sit up on my knees, shouting into the darkness. “In his office, there’s a homerun baseball from when the Atlanta Braves won the World Series a few years back. It’s even signed by Jimmy Carter — but the Senator was never meant to keep it. They asked him to sign it, and he never gave it back.”

“You making that up…?”

“Two years ago, at a fundraiser, a lobbyist handed me a check for the Senator — I handed it back and said, ‘Not enough.’ Right to his face.”

I hear her laugh. That one she likes.

“When I finished college, I was such an idealist, I started and quickly dropped out of a graduate theological program. Even Matthew didn’t know that. I wanted to help people, but the God part kept getting in the way…”

From the silence, I know I’ve got her attention. I just have to bring her in. “I helped redraft the bankruptcy law, but since I’m still paying back my Duke loans, I have five different MasterCards,” I tell her. “My most distinctive memory from childhood is catching my dad crying in the boys’ department of Kmart because he couldn’t afford to buy me a three-pack of white Fruit of the Loom undershirts and had to buy the Kmart label instead…” My voice starts to sag. “I spend too much time worrying what other people think of me…”

“Everyone does,” Viv calls back.

“When I was in college, I worked in an ice-cream store, and when customers would snap their fingers to get my attention, I’d break off the bottom of their cone with a flick of my pinky, so when they were a block or two away, their ice cream would drip all over them…”

“Harris…”

“My real name is Harold, in high school they called me Harry, and when I got to college, I changed it to Harris because I thought it’d make me sound more like a leader… Next month — if I still have a job — even though I’m not supposed to, I’ll probably leak the name of the new Supreme Court nominee to the Washington Post just to prove I’m part of the loop… And for the past week, despite my best efforts to ignore it, I’m really feeling the fact that with Matthew and Pasternak gone, after ten years on Capitol Hill, there’s no one… I don’t have any real friends…”

As I say the words, I’m on my knees, cradling my stomach and curling down toward the floor. My head sinks so low, I feel the tips of the rocks press against my forehead. A sharp one digs in just under my hairline, but there’s no pain. There’s no anything. As the realization hits, I’m completely numb — as hollow as I’ve been since the day they unveiled my mom’s headstone. Right next to my dad’s.

“Harris…” Viv calls out.

“I’m sorry, Viv — that’s all I’ve got,” I reply. “Just follow the sound.”

“I’m trying,” she insists. But unlike before, her voice doesn’t boomerang through the room. It’s coming directly from my right. Picking up my head, I trace the noise just as the darkness cracks. Up ahead, the neck of the tunnel blinks into existence with the faint glow of light — like a lighthouse turning on in the midst of an ocean. I have to squint to adjust.

From the depths of the tunnel, the light turns my way, glowing at me.

I look away just long enough to collect my thoughts. By the time I turn back, I’ve got a smile pressed into place. But the way Viv’s light shines directly at me, I know what she sees.

“Harris, I’m really sorry…”

“I’m fine,” I insist.

“I didn’t ask how you were.” Her tone is soft and reassuring. There’s not an ounce of judgment in it.

I look up at her. The light’s glowing from the top of her head.

“What, you ain’t never seen a guardian angel with an Afro before? There’s like, fourteen of us up in Heaven.”

She turns her head so the light no longer blinds me. It’s the first time we make eye contact. I can’t help but grin. “Sweet Mocha…”

“… to the rescue,” she says, completing my thought. Standing over me, she lifts her arms like a bodybuilder, flexing her muscles. It’s not just the pose. Her shoulders are square. Her feet are planted deep. I couldn’t knock her over with a wrecking ball. Forget reserves — the well’s overflowing. “Now who’s ready to get down to Viv-ness?” she asks.

Extending a hand, she offers to pull me up. I’ve never been averse to accepting someone’s help, but as she wiggles her fingers and waits for me to take her up on it, I’m done worrying about every possible consequence. What do I owe her? What does she need? What’s this gonna cost me? After ten years in Washington, I’ve gotten to the point where I look suspiciously at the supermarket cashier when she offers paper or plastic. On the Hill, an offer for help is always about something else. I look up at Viv’s open hand. Not anymore.

Without hesitation, I reach upward. Viv grabs my hand in her own and gives me a hard tug to get me back on my feet. It’s exactly what I needed.

“I’ll never tell anyone, Harris.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

She thinks about it for a moment.

“Did you really do that thing with the ice-cream cones?”

“Only to the real jerk-offs.”

“So… uh… hypothetically, if I was working at some unnamed burger place, and some woman with a bad fake tan and some trendy haircut she saw in Cosmo came in and ripped my head off, telling me I’d be working there for the rest of my life — just because her food was taking too long — if I went in the back and theoretically hocked a back-of-the-throat loogie into her Diet Coke, then mixed it in with a bendy straw, would that make me a bad person?”

“Hypothetically? I’d say you get points for the bendy straw, but it’s still pretty darn gross.”

“Yeah,” she says proudly. “It was.” Looking at me, she adds, “Nobody’s perfect, Harris. Even if everyone else thinks you are.”

I nod, continuing to hold her hand. There’s only one light between us, but as long as we stay together, it’s more than enough. “So you ready to see what they’re digging for down here?” I ask.

“Do I have a choice?”

“You always have a choice.”

As she shoves her shoulders back, there’s a new confidence in her silhouette. Not from what she did for me — what she did for herself. She looks out toward the tunnel on my left, her mine light carving through the dark. “Just hurry up before I change my mind.”

I plow forward along the rocks, deeper into the cavern. “Thank you, Viv — I mean it… thanks.”

“Yeah, yeah, and more yeah.”

“I’m serious,” I add. “You won’t regret it.”