Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

BUILDING 53

— First of all, sir, I want to apologize. I didn’t want to bring you here, but I really couldn’t think of any way around it.

— Who are you?

— We’ve met once, but I don’t know if you’d remember. But it doesn’t matter so much who I am. I just want to apologize for bringing you here. I didn’t have any intention of doing this, but then circumstances conspired to make it necessary. I have this astronaut next door, and he was talking about what happened to him and the Shuttle, and we were talking about the moon, and colonies there, and about government priorities, and then I had this idea that someone like you would have some of the answers that we needed. And I knew you’d retired out this way, so I had to go and get you and bring you here.

— Holy Christ on a cracker.

— Again, I’m really sorry.

— You planning to harm me?

— I’m glad you asked that, sir. The good news is I’m not planning to harm you. The shackles are just a formality. It’s not like I think you’re dangerous or anything, given your disability. But I had to shackle the astronaut, because he could kill me if he wanted to, and then it seemed like the safest bet to shackle you, too, and the posts are here in every building, and I had a boxful of handcuffs, so it was all pretty convenient.

— I don’t understand any of this.

— Well, the chloroform will keep your head a little cloudy for a while. But I just want to say I’m very honored to have you here. I respect your service to the country, both as a soldier and as a congressman. That’s why I gave you the couch. There are couches all over the place out here, just dumped in the street like the place got looted. Is it comfortable enough?

— How the hell did you get me here?

— Sir, I don’t mean any disrespect to you, but a man your age, and with your, you know, missing limbs, you were a lot easier than the astronaut.

— Wait, what, son? You have an astronaut out here?

— Yes sir. I mentioned that before. He’s fine. I haven’t harmed the astronaut and I won’t harm you.

— Kid, you look like a pretty clean-cut guy. Do you have any idea how serious this is?

— I do, sir. I really do. I don’t take it lightly. But like I said, I didn’t think I had much choice but to bring the astronaut here, and when I was talking to him, all these questions came up and so many of them had answers only someone like you could provide.

— How’s that, son? Questions?

— Well, as a congressman …

— I’m no longer in office, you realize.

— I know that, sir. But you were in office a good long while, and I’m sure that you’ve had expertise with some of the questions I have.

— And you brought me out here to answer them? You ever hear of a telephone or e-mail or whatnot?

— Well, sure, but that might have taken a long time. And after I took the astronaut, I figured I only have a certain window before I’m caught or found or something else happens to me, so I thought I might as well get it all figured out in one fell swoop.

— And why me again?

— Yes, sir, that’s a fair question. But again, once the astronaut and I started talking, in the back of my mind I thought, Well, I bet Congressman Dickinson would have something to say about this. I knew you’d retired around here, and given you’re retired, I figured you wouldn’t have a security detail anymore.

— So you could kidnap me.

— Well, yes. Again, I’m so sorry. I really don’t like the word kidnap.

— You were the guy who came to the house to rewire the phones?

— Yeah, I just needed a way into the house, and, you know, it worked. I figured it might not be very difficult, given you’re in a wheelchair. I was hoping no one else was home. I waited a bit until— Was that your daughter?

— My wife.

— Oh, sorry. She was very young. Okay, good. Congratulations. That’s very good. That’s nice. So I had to wait until she left. How long have you been together?

— Son, you are batshit crazy.

— I’m really not.

— Of course you are. But when you showed up that day, you looked like a nice clean-cut guy. We talked about the 49ers.

— They’re really having a good year, aren’t they? And I really am a clean-cut guy. I’m just stuck in a tight spot right now. These headaches are messing with my life, and the ceiling just seems to be lowering on me every day. But just yesterday, with the astronaut, I felt like I was on the verge of something. I was breathing better. And I know you’ll help me even more. So can we start?

— Start what, son?

— I just have some questions. Once I ask them, you’re free. Especially if you answer them honestly. And I know you will; I’ve admired your candor and integrity since the beginning. And again, I’m very humbled by your service to this country. I know it must have been quite a sacrifice to lose two limbs in Vietnam.

— Son, I know that you’re a confused young man, and I want to help you. I saw a lot of people like you back in the day, especially when I rotated back to the States, so I know where you’re coming from. I really do. If anyone understands the mind of a young man whose skull is fastened one turn too tight, it’s me. But I want to say for the record that I think you doing it this way is deplorable and bizarre, and you would be best off cutting your losses and calling this quits.

— Nah, I’d rather not.

— If you left right now, and told the authorities where we are, I would personally see to it that you were treated with some compassion. That you got some help.

— See, but you’re the help I need. If you cooperate, I will be helped. I don’t need medicine or therapy. I need my questions answered.

— What kind of questions, son?

— Not all that difficult. Basic stuff. You’ll know the answers.

—

— So we’re ready?

— Hell.

— Great.

— For the sake of getting this over with.

— Okay. Okay. My first question — and the main one — is, Why isn’t my buddy Kev Paciorek in space?

— Pardon?

— He’s an astronaut. The guy next door.

— You kidnapped your buddy?

— It’s all worked out now. He gets it.

— What’s that?

— I’ve known him fifteen years. We understand each other. And back when we were in college he looked me in the eye and he said, Someday I’m going up in the Shuttle. At the time, I thought, Bullshit, no way. But then he kept getting closer to it. He cleared every hurdle. He was fucking Jesus. He walked on water, water into wine, everything. He did everything they told him to. Joined the Navy. MIT, grad degrees. He speaks Urdu for fuck’s sake. And all because he wanted to go up in the Shuttle or maybe to a lunar colony. And then twelve years later he becomes an astronaut, and a few months later, they kill the Shuttle, and they defund everything NASA does, and so instead he’s waiting in line to maybe get a ride on some shit-ass Russian rocket to some piece-of-shit Space Station full of pussies.

— Son, did you really kidnap me to talk about the Space Shuttle?

— Mainly, yes.

— Holy Jesus.

— Kev said he was going to be an astronaut, and he did everything he was asked to do to become one. But now it means nothing. That just seems like the worst kind of thing, to tell a generation or two that the finish line is here, that the requirements to get there are this and this and this, but then, just as we get there, you move the finish line.

— Now son, just so I understand. You’re saying I’m the one who did this, that I personally moved the finish line?

— I think you were in a position to hold the line.

— You do see me sitting here, do you not? Do you see a man who is missing two key limbs? Do you think a man missing two key limbs and a thumb, all of them taken in a piece-of-shit foreign war, is part of the machinery you’re talking about? You think I’m the enemy?

— Well why were you in Congress if you weren’t part of the machinery?

— I was in the machinery to try to fix that machine, you dummy! Why the hell do you think there were a half-dozen Vietnam vets on the Democrat side of things in the Senate and House? Someone had to talk some sense down there.

— How did it happen, by the way? I know I should know, but I don’t.

— How did what happen?

— What happened to your leg and arm? Sorry to be indelicate.

— I don’t think you’re in danger of being confused with a man of delicacy or subtlety, son. Before I tell you, I should ask, did you happen to bring any of my prescriptions here? I need them for my stumps and for my arrhythmia.

— I grabbed what I could. I didn’t have much time. They’re in the duffel bag behind you. I also brought the bottle by your bed. Which was a surprise to me, that you have a bottle of gin by your bedside. That seemed like some kind of cliché, the aging vet drinking himself to sleep.

— Now you actually are being indelicate. That’s really none of your goddamned business, kid. And just because there was a bottle by the bed doesn’t mean this is some kind of long-standing habit or ritual.

— Fine.

— I don’t know why I’m explaining myself to you.

— You’re right. No need. It’s not why you’re here. And anyway, I understand if you need some help getting to sleep. I haven’t had to go through what you did, I haven’t really seen fuck-all compared to you, and I need eleven hours every night to sleep six or seven. So I would never judge.

— Thanks. That’s a comfort.

— No problem.

— Son, in your head, is this what qualifies as bonding?

— See, you’re being so condescending, and I didn’t want you to be that way toward me. Do you think I’m somehow inferior because I wasn’t part of some war? Because I wasn’t drafted and grew up in peacetime and never had to struggle the way you have?

— No. I don’t.

— I do.

— You do?

— I do. I grew up next to this base, sir, and my father was a contractor here. And I’m pretty sure that I would have turned out better, and everyone I know would have turned out better, if we’d been part of some universal struggle, some cause greater than ourselves.

— And you think Vietnam was that?

— Well, no, not necessarily.

— So what the hell are you talking about? Do you know how fucked up most of the men who came back from Vietnam are? You’re damned lucky your dad didn’t have to fight. You wanted to be part of that?

— No. No, not that exact conflict. But I just mean …

— You wish you were part of some wonderful video game conflict with a clear moral objective.

— Or something else. Something else that brought everyone together with a unity of purpose, and some sense of shared sacrifice.

— Son, judging just by the fact that you’re kidnapping people and chaining them to posts, I knew you were confused. But in actuality your brain is plain scrambled. One minute you’re complaining about your astronaut buddy who didn’t get to ride on a cool spaceship, and the next you’re saying you wish you’d been drafted. I mean, none of this squares, son. What exactly brought you to this point?

— I don’t know. Actually, I think I do know. It’s because nothing’s happened to me. And I think that’s a waste on your part. You should have found some kind of purpose for me.

— Who should have?

— The government. The state. Anyone, I don’t know. Why didn’t you tell me what to do? They told you what to do, and you went and fought and sacrificed and then came back and had a mission …

— Kid, do you know how I lost my limbs?

— That’s why I was asking before. I assume you saved lives. You got a Bronze Star and …

— No. I didn’t save any lives. I was eating lunch.

— What? No.

— I lost my limbs because I was eating my lunch near the wrong dipshit who hadn’t secured his grenades.

— That can’t be true.

— Listen. I was alone, eating my lunch. This kid had just rotated in from Mississippi, and he was some idiotic bumpkin with too much energy. He thought we were friends, so he came running toward me, pretending he was charging at me like a moose. Just some dumb thing young men do. A grenade fell off his uniform, the pin was pulled, and it rolled directly to me and landed at my feet. I just had time to turn my head away when it went off. That was the moment of unified purpose and shared sacrifice that separated me from my limbs.

— That’s depressing.

— Yes, it is depressing. So when I got back I tried to talk some sense into anyone who thought going into some country on the other end of the world to exert our will would be a cute idea, and the main problem with a cute idea like that is that these plans are carried out by groups of nineteen-year-olds who can’t tie their shoes and who think it’s great fun to run around goofing with grenades poorly secured to their uniforms. Wars put young men in close proximity to grenades and guns and a hundred other things they will find a way to fuck up. These days men in war get themselves killed far more often than they get killed by someone else.

— I guess.

— Do you understand the difference, son?

— I think so.

— Because I look at you and wouldn’t trust you with a book of matches. You’ve got a head full of rocks, kid. And there are a hundred thousand others like you in the desert right now, and it’s no wonder they’re killing civilians and raping women soldiers and shooting themselves in the leg. I don’t mean to besmirch the character of these young men and women, because I know most of them are the salt of the earth, but my point is that they should be kept safe and kept out of the way of dangerous things. Young men need to be kept away from guns, bombs, women, cars, hard alcohol and heavy machinery. If I had my way they’d be cryogenically frozen until such a time as we knew they could get themselves across a street without fucking it up. Most of the men I served with were nineteen. I’m fairly certain that when you were nineteen you couldn’t parallel park.

— Do you know that we met once? It was when I was fifteen. Do you remember Boys State?

— Of course. I voted to refund it every year it came up for renewal.

— I went.

— You went to Boys State?

— In Sacramento. 1994. I did all the Boys State things — watched the legislature, learned about democracy, saw some politicians speak. I even ran for lieutenant governor in that mock election.

— How’d you do?

— I lost. I was asked to quit.

— Why?

— Doesn’t matter. They were probably right.

— What’d you do?

— There was an essay component to the whole thing, and I thought it would be good to sign mine in blood. Like Thomas Paine.

— I don’t think Thomas Paine … Anyway. They didn’t like that?

— I guess not. They were nice enough about it after I explained myself. But they made me withdraw.

— I can see you’re a fan of grand gestures, though.

— Sometimes. I guess so. But that’s how we met.

— In Sacramento?

— No, but through Boys State. There was a parade through Marview on the Fourth of July, and you rode in the back of a convertible. I don’t know what you were doing out here, but you were in the same car as me. It was some old vintage car, and that year’s local Boys State reps were in the car with you. You were exotic that year because you’d come all the way from Wyoming. You remember?

— Sure, I guess. I mean, I’ve done a couple hundred parades over the years, so I don’t know if …

— But no one ever comes to Marview. We’re just forgotten. People see this broken-down military base and assume anything near it is toxic and dead. I don’t know. Maybe it is. Sometimes it is.

— I remember the day being bright.

— I love you for that, sir. Sometimes it was bright here. It really was. This was always some kind of model for diversity and a strong middle class and all that, then the base closed and it all fell down a few notches after that. It’s like steroids, right? You ever know a guy on roids?

— I believe so.

— They get huge and the muscles get shiny, right? But when they stop, it all sinks like mud. Round shoulders, potbellies. Saggy breasts.

— Okay.

— But you were right. That day of the parade was bright. And I was sitting next to you, with another kid. We rode for a few hours together through Marview. I even helped you get in and out of the car. You dropped an ice cream cone someone got you and I helped you clean up, wiping your shirt and pants and …

— Okay. I remember you.

— So you remember what you said to me that day?

— No, son. I doubt that I do.

— You said that I should play by the rules.

— Okay. I said that to a lot of people.

— And I did it. So where am I?

— And this is some failure of the formula? That you didn’t arrive at where you expected to be? And that your astronaut isn’t on the Shuttle? That somehow this puts in question the entire framework?

— Yes sir, that’s my thesis.

— Well, I have to say, that is a cockamamie thesis. That’s like saying that if you lose a certain football game that the sport itself is flawed. Son, not everyone can win the game. Some people play it poorly. Some people quit. Some people don’t even read the playbook. And some people expect the rest of the team to carry them into the end zone.

— No. What I’m saying is that you moved the end zone. And you turned the grassy field into mud.

— I don’t know what to say to all that.

— You changed the rules.

— We did not change the rules.

— It just seems chaotic.

— You think it’s more chaotic now than when? The fucking frontier days? Then it was perfectly organized, kid? When people were sleeping on hay and eating squirrels?

— No. But during postindustrial …

— Post goddamned what? When you had to save a month for a radio? When having indoor plumbing was a sign you’d arrived? Jesus Christ, son, the worst thing your predecessors ever did for you young pricks was to succeed. We made everything so easy that you cry yourselves up a storm every time there’s a pebble in your path.

— Okay, at least tell me this: Is it all the same money?

— Is what all the same money?

— The money that could have saved the Shuttle, and the money we send to random countries, that we use to remake unchangeable countries ten thousand miles away.

— Is it the same money?

— Yeah, is it? I mean, you guys complain about not having money for schools, for health care, that everything’s broke and we have government shutdowns and every other goddamn thing, and then we look up and you’re spending 150 million on air-conditioning in Iraq.

— Listen, you’re preaching to the converted here.

— I don’t want to be preaching. I’m asking. I don’t know how that works. Where does the money come from? You guys fight over pennies for Sesame Street, and then someone’s backing up a truck to dump a trillion dollars in the desert.

— So you’re asking where does the money that finances wars come from?

— Yes.

— You’re smart enough to know that. We create that money. It’s not a standard part of a year’s budget. There isn’t a line item for war.

— So is it true that we’re essentially borrowing money from the Chinese to finance these wars?

— Oh shit. No. But we create and sell bonds, and people here and elsewhere, for example in China, see these bonds as a good investment. And no doubt the Chinese like the leverage it gives them, holding so much American debt.

— But couldn’t we just sell bonds to pay for Social Security, education for all, college for all? I mean, everyone wrings their hands about cutting or saving some microscopic government program, and Where oh where will we get the money? — but then we turn around and there’s a billion dollars for Afghani warlords. I mean, I know I’m stupid not to understand this, but I don’t.

— The problem with all those things you mention, education and whatnot, is those are chronic problems, as opposed to acute problems. We fund the things that are urgent, that everyone can rally around and more or less agree upon. And everyone agrees on funding the troops that are stationed abroad. You fund some advisors, then you inch it toward full engagement, and pretty soon no one wants to be the one denying body armor to our young people in uniform. So we find the money. We sell bonds, we borrow money. But will we get that kind of momentum to borrow money from China to pay for some national education reform? No. That’s not an acute problem. If there were an alien invasion tomorrow, and the only way to win against the aliens would be to fully fund Head Start, then sure, we would find that money.

— So it’s not a matter of possibility, but of will?

— What’s that?

— Will.

— Of course. Everything is a matter of will.

— My mom always said that.

— Well, she was right.

— Not often.

— Son, did you bring me here to talk about your mother?

— But don’t you think there should be a plan for people like me, for the guys you were talking about, the vets whose brains are scrambled?

— What sort of plan?

— Don’t you think …

— What, son?

— Don’t you think that the vast majority of the chaos in the world is caused by a relatively small group of disappointed men?

—

—

— I don’t know. Could be.

— The men who haven’t gotten the work they expected to get. The men who don’t get the promotion they expected. The men who are dropped in a jungle or a desert and expected video games and got mundanity and depravity and friends dying like animals. These men can’t be left to mix with the rest of society. Something bad always happens.

— Something bad like this. Like you bringing me here. I agree.

— When I see these massacres at malls or offices, I think, There by the Lake of God go I.

— Grace of God.

— What’s that?

— It’s “There but for the grace of God.”

— No. It’s “there by the Lake of God.”

— It’s “grace of God.”

— It can’t be.

— Son. It is.

— I’ve always had this picture in my mind of the Lake of God. And you walk by it.

— There’s no Lake of God.

— It was like this huge underground lake, and it was dark and cool and peaceful and you could go there and float there and be forgiven.

— I don’t know what to tell you, son. I’ve been teaching the Bible for thirty-eight years and there is no Lake of God in that book. There’s a Lake of Fire, but I don’t think that’s the place you’re picturing.

— See, even that.

— Even what?

— Even that’s a sign that the world has misused people like me.

How could I not know that, the difference between the Lake of God and the Lake of Fire?

— I don’t know if that misunderstanding is symptomatic of a societal failure. You got your lakes confused.

— But it is symptomatic. You and I read the same books and hear the same sermons and we come away with different messages. That has to be evidence of some serious problem, right? I mean, I shouldn’t have been left to live among the rest of society. There were so many days I looked at it all and wanted it wiped away, wanted it on fire.

— Sounds like you had a radicalizing moment, son. Were you beaten as a child, something like that?

— No sir.

— Saw some terrible thing that changed you?

— Do you remember the other guy with us in that car that day?

— No, I can’t say that I do.

— You don’t? It was unusual for our town to have a kid like that. He was half Vietnamese. Don Banh. You remember a kid like that?

— I’m sorry, I don’t. He was a friend of yours?

— He’s dead now.

— I’m sorry to hear that.

— He was shot.

— He was a soldier?

— No. Just in his backyard.

— I’m sorry, son. That’s too young. I’m truly sorry.

— I’m not saying that was some radicalizing moment for me. I feel like I had some fairly apocalyptic thoughts before that.

— Most young men do.

— I’ve tried to explain these thoughts to people but they get scared. They don’t understand. Or they pretend they don’t understand.

— Try me.

— Well, every day, about half of every day I’m among people in a city, I picture my arm sweeping across the city, wiping it all clean. Like it was a model set up on a card table, and I could just sweep it all onto the floor. Okay?

— Okay.

— You want to hear more?

— Sure.

— I’ll be walking down some crowded street and I’ll start boiling inside and I picture myself parting all these people like Moses with the Red Sea. You know, the people disappear, the buildings dissolve and when I’m done there’s all this empty space, and it’s quieter, and there aren’t all those people and all their dirty thoughts and idiotic talking and opinions. And that vision actually gives me peace. When I picture the landscape bare, free of all human noise and filth, I can relax.

— Maybe you should live in the country.

— That’s not funny. I mean, that’s not the solution. I just wish I could function better in rooms, in buildings, in a line at the grocery store. And sometimes I do. But sometimes it makes me so fucking tense. I need to get out, drive awhile, get to the ocean as fast as I can.

— Son, I’m realizing I don’t know your name.

— Thomas.

— Thomas, nothing you say is unprecedented. There are others like you. Millions of men like you. Some women, too. And I think this is a result of you being prepared for a life that does not exist. You were built for a different world. Like a predator without prey.

— So why not find a place for us?

— What’s that?

— Find a place for us.

— Who should?

— You, the government. You of all people should have known that we needed a plan. You should have sent us all somewhere and given us a task.

— But not to war.

— No, I guess not.

— So what then?

— Maybe build a canal.

— You want to build a canal?

— I don’t know.

— No, I don’t get the impression you do.

— You’ve got to put this energy to use, though. It’s pent up in me and it’s pent up in millions like me. The only time I feel right is when I’m driving, or once in a while during a fight.

— So you box?

— No.

— Oh. Let me see your hands.

— They’re messed up right now.

— That they are. Son, who are you fighting?

— I don’t know. People.

— Do you win?

— Win what?

— These fights.

— No. Not really.

— Thomas, you know we can’t round up every confused young man and send them to some remote region. Even if I agreed with you, which I do, to some extent at least. I mean, this is why so many soldiers stay in the Army and why so many prisoners end up back in prison. They cannot hack polite society. They’re bored and they feel caged.

— But there’s no evidence of a plan, sir.

— What plan?

— Any plan. I mean, wasn’t that what Australia was all about? Some convict colony? We could have done that on the moon. All I ever wanted to do was get off this fucking planet and go to the next one, but there’s no way to do it. And Don, too. He didn’t belong in regular society after what happened to him.

— I don’t understand. After he died?

— No, before that. All along I knew what was going to happen. I knew something would happen but I didn’t know what. I mean, that’s when I first got the idea for all this. We used to mess around here at this base. We’d ride through these buildings on our bikes, and when we were older we’d sit around drinking here, and when Don was losing his shit a little, and he did a few rehabs, I used to think, You know, if I could just shackle him inside one of these buildings for a while, you know, keep him safe, dry him out, then maybe he could make it.

— Okay. I understand that. I truly do.

— But he was always just out there. In the world. Doing the wrong things, never doing anything I told him to do. I always knew what he needed to do, and I’d make a step-by-step for him, I’d even write that shit down. I’d write down a plan! A two-year plan, a five-year plan. And he wouldn’t even attempt it. I couldn’t make him do anything. I couldn’t keep him in rehab. I couldn’t lock him up. You know once I left him in jail for a month instead of bailing him out, because I thought it might be good for him? Jail was the safest place.

— Sometimes it truly is.

— I know he’d still be alive if I’d thought of this earlier, if I’d have brought him here and just locked him in one of these buildings until he had his shit straight.

— I understand that, too. This is familiar ground for me.

— I’m just pissed at myself I didn’t think of it sooner.

— Of chaining your buddy to a pole.

— Right.

— But you know that’s not a durable solution.

— Then what is?

— I don’t know. Rehab? Therapy?

— C’mon. Get serious.

—

— Really, why don’t we have some kind of plan for people like this? I guess the main government plan is to lock them all up, and I understand the impulse to keep them apart from decent society. I get that. But then there are guys like me and Don, who haven’t really done anything wrong, and there are soldiers like the ones you fought with, who come back with these terrible ideas and murdering skills, and there’s no place for any of us. We’ve been out in the wilderness and tasted raw meat, and now we can’t sit at the table using utensils. There’s got to be someplace for us. A place like this would actually work. This place is 28,000 acres, bordering the ocean. The ground’s fertile enough. I mean, you set this land aside for people like us, and I bet you’d reduce crime in this country by half.

— Where are we, did you say?

— I can’t tell you that.

— Thomas, what difference does it make?

— Okay. We’re at Fort Ord.

— Fort Ord? Like near Monterey?

— You should have deduced that, anyway, sir. There’s only one base this big on the coast of California.

— Shit. This is where I did my basic training. You know this is a public place? There’ll be hikers through here at first light.

— See, that’s so sad.

— What is?

— That you don’t know this park is closed. The whole place is locked for the foreseeable future. Budget cuts. The gate at the highway’s closed. I just snapped the lock with bolt cutters and put a new one on.

— And the budget cuts are my fault, too.

— No one had a plan for anything. I guess that’s the crushing thing, the thing that drives us all crazy. We all think there must be someone very smart at the controls, spending the money, making plans for our schools, parks, everything. But then it’s guys like you, who are just guys like me. No one has a fucking clue.

— So we’re out here alone?

— I haven’t seen a soul here in days.

— It’s a beautiful spot.

— You probably didn’t see the ice plants out there, but they’re everywhere, a dozen colors. They look like some stupid rainbow puked everywhere. And the light is so white here, so weightless and white. Part of me wants to stay here.

— But the longer you keep us here, son, the more likely you’ll die here.

— You mean they’ll kill me here.

— Son, you must know that’s a distinct possibility.

— I know.

— An ever-growing possibility.

— Yeah, I know.

— The longer you keep us here, the more it becomes a near certainty. They will find you, for sure. That is for damned sure. Then they’ll do a raid. And because no one will be watching out here, in the middle of nowhere, hell, some sniper might just shoot your head off for fun.

— I know, I know.

— Matter of fact, I know that is how it’ll go down. I really don’t think you’ll be taken in alive.

— Yeah, I guess. But things are really clarifying for me out here. I feel like this is really helping me. I’m sorry for the circumstances but I have to say that this has been really helpful so far.

— I don’t know what to say to that.

— At first it was just supposed to be Kev, but now having the two of you out here is really making a difference.

— Who’s Kev again?

— The astronaut. I thought I just needed to talk to him. But then it came to a point where I had questions for you, and your answers have been really illuminating.

— Okay.

— And I don’t mean to be rude, but now I have to go for a while. As we’ve been talking I’ve been thinking of someone else who should be here. I think I should get him while there’s time.

— Son, please don’t bring anyone else to this place.

— Just this one guy. I think you’d understand if you knew who he was.

— No, I wouldn’t. There’s no cause for bringing anyone else here. Please, just let us go, turn yourself in, and I can tell the police you were a decent enough young man. I promise to advocate for the best outcome here. I think you need help.

— I know I do. It’s just a matter of what kind of help. I’ll be back in a bit. Here’s your pills. You need water for the pills?

— Yes.

— Okay, I’ll just put it here. And here’s some granola bars. You’re probably hungry. I’ll be back in a little bit.

— Son.

— I got to go. But again, I just want to say how sorry I am that you’re here under these circumstances. My respect for you could not be greater and I’m really thankful for your kindness so far.

— Son.

— See you soon.