Life in a Fishbowl Read online

  Posting the auction and then removing it—in his current state of mind it didn’t matter to Sherman that it was eBay and not the user that had taken the listing down—was just wrong. I should sue the bastard, Sherman thought. Or I should find this SOB and kill him anyway.

  Sherman blinked. Once. Twice.

  Find him and kill him anyway. He paused to let the idea sink in.

  Find him and kill him anyway.

  Huh.

  ***

  When news of Jared’s auction being delisted reached Sister Benedict, she didn’t have time for even one “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” before she was on the phone to the Cardinal’s office.

  “This is the office of Cardinal Trippe, archbishop of the Northwest Province of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. May God bless the Pope and the United States of America. This is Father Todd, may I help you?”

  “Yes, Father Todd. This is Sister Benedict Joan from the Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration. I need to speak to Cardinal Hippie—I mean Trippe—Cardinal Trippe. I need to speak to him right away.” The Sister was so upset at her gaffe that she bit her knuckle hard enough to draw blood.

  If Father Todd noticed, he didn’t let on. “I’ll see if he’s available, Sister,” he answered flatly.

  The Sister waited an interminable amount of time as she listened to the hold music—first “Amazing Grace,” then “Ave Maria,” then “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” It was an alphabetical tour of inspiring Christian hymns, and each new song made her want to scream. The Sister reminded herself that patience is a virtue, though at the moment she could not understand why.

  “So, Sister, how goes our little project,” the Cardinal offered as greeting when he finally came to the phone.

  “It’s not, Your Eminence. This is why I’m calling.”

  “Continue,” he said.

  The Sister relayed the news about the auction being removed. “We have to do something.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand,” the Cardinal answered. “This man is no longer trying to sell his life? Wasn’t that what we found objectionable?”

  “I thought,” Sister Benedict answered stiffly, “we found it objectionable that this man was going to die when we could preserve his life.”

  “Sister,” the Cardinal said, a note of conciliatory kindness in his voice, “people die every minute of every day. If it is written in God’s plan that this man should be called home to our Heavenly Father, then who are we to interfere? Let it go.”

  “But, Cardinal Trippe,” she began, “we still have an opportunity to bring glory to this parish—”

  “I’m sorry, Sister. This is the ending we wanted. I implore you to put Mr. Stone out of your mind. If anything, perhaps you should call on the family and see if you can provide comfort in their time of need.” The Cardinal offered a blessing, bade her good-bye, and the line went dead.

  The Sister slammed the phone down in anger, then crossed herself three times and said two Hail Marys to atone for her outburst.

  All the steam went out of her. She hadn’t realized she’d been standing, and she flopped down in her chair. Perhaps, she thought, the Cardinal, fool that he is, is right.

  Sister Benedict Joan had no intention of visiting Mr. Stone and his family; he wasn’t even a member of the parish. She did her best to forget about the whole sordid ordeal.

  ***

  Jackie wasn’t prepared for the reaction waiting for her at school. She and Megan had stayed in Jackie’s room all night, so neither one had seen their mother and father on the evening news. But lots of other kids had seen the telecast, or at least knew about it.

  For the most part, everyone avoided Jackie, which wasn’t anything new. On a normal day Jackie would walk down the hall unnoticed, like she was a ghost. No one would make eye contact because they couldn’t see her.

  But today was different. Suddenly, everyone could see her, but no one wanted to look.

  She arrived just in time for her morning free period and went straight to the computer lab. A few people looked up as she entered, all of them turning their attention back to their computer screens a little too quickly, like she was disfigured, like she’d been struck by lightning. Even the teacher avoided making eye contact.

  Jackie found a free terminal, logged on to Facebook, and lit up when she saw the little green dot next to Max’s name. He was online.

  She started to type hello when his message popped up:

  Max

  Solnyshko!

  This was the very first Russian word Max had taught Jackie. It was a term of endearment that meant “little sunshine.” She loved it.

  Jackie

  Hi, Max

  Max

  For why were you looking me last night?

  Jackie

  It’s “why were you looking for me last night,” Max.

  He insisted that Jackie correct his English at every opportunity.

  Max

  Yes, why were you looking for me? I am sorry I was not online.

  Jackie

  That’s okay. It’s just that I had some bad news, and I needed to talk to someone.

  Max

  What news is this?

  This was the first time Jackie was confronted with talking about it to anyone other than her family. Even typing it was harder than she realized it would be.

  Jackie

  It’s my dad.

  Max

  Your father, yes?

  Jackie

  Yes. He’s dying.

  The words lay there on the screen, flat and without emotion. Pixels without meaning. Only they held all the meaning in the world for Jackie.

  Max

  Is this some American catchphrase for which I do not know the meaning?

  Jackie

  He has a brain tumor.

  There was a long pause before Max responded. Jackie filled the void with a million unpleasant thoughts.

  Max

  Solnyshko, I do not know what to say. I am, what is the word, condolences.

  Jackie

  Thanks, Max. I’m sorry to dump this on you.

  Max

  Nyet, this is what friends are for.

  Jackie

  I’m not sure that’s something I would know anything about.

  Jackie hated herself for sounding so pathetic, but she didn’t know what else to do, how else to be. The reality of her father’s condition was starting to settle in, to become inescapable, and Jackie started to cry.

  It was silent weeping at first, followed by audible sobs, ending with near-hysterical wails of despair.

  The teacher, a nice woman named Ms. Onorati, was at her side in an instant. With a gentle touch, she took Jackie’s elbow, helped her to her feet, and guided her to the nurse’s office, whispering platitudes all the way down the hall. The Facebook chat was left unresolved.

  Max

  Solnyshko?

  Max

  Jacquelyn?

  ***

  Glio caught a whiff of something grotesque coming from the limbic region of Jared’s brain and stopped dead in his tracks. No, he thought, not grotesque, dangerous.

  He was interpreting electrical impulses that had been converted from nearly undetectable odors and rendered as unconscious thought. The undetectable odors were coded and relayed to Jared’s brain by a vestigial organ, the vomeronasal organ, located between Jared’s mouth and nose.

  Ever since Homo sapiens had first organized into hunter-gatherer societies, the vomeronasal organ had been waiting around for something to do. Before that time, the small wad of sensory neurons tucked away in the human nose served as kind of olfactory radar. It told people when danger was near, when an animal or other human was afraid, and sent strong signals to the hypothalamus when someone in the neighborhood was horny.

  But the vomeronasal organ wasn’t vestigial as much as dormant; because Glio had been consuming Jared’s neurons at an alarming rate, the organ, compensating for the reduction in its owner’s brain power, was jarred
to life. It grabbed every pheromone within a thirty-yard radius and flooded the olfactory bulb with information.

  The smell filtering through to Jared’s brain was so strong that Glio felt nauseous. Somewhere in the immediate vicinity was a predator. For the first time ever, Glio lost his appetite.

  ***

  Jared didn’t smell anything as he shook Ethan Overbee’s hand. Unlike Glio, Jared’s first impression of Ethan was, on balance, positive. Or at least he thought it was. He wasn’t sure.

  At five feet eleven inches, Ethan was about the same height as Jared, and carried with him a youthful gleam that gave him an air of both mischief and charm. He had hair the color of oak and eyes to match. His angular face looked like something a Renaissance sculptor might have used as a subject. Jared thought all these things in an instant, and none of them consciously. They were simply filed away for future access, and for future dining by his unwelcome guest.

  Jared and Ethan were meeting in the café at Powell’s City of Books. It was Jared’s favorite spot in all of Portland, and when Ethan had suggested a public meeting, Jared knew this would be the place.

  When the owner of Powell’s tagged his store a “city” of books, he wasn’t kidding. The massive space occupied an entire city block and boasted half a dozen rooms, each larger than the average bookstore and each devoted to a collection of related topics. Even seasoned customers would use the maps provided at the front of the store, taking any help they could get to find that one literary needle in the overwhelming haystacks of words.

  It didn’t take Jared long to spot Ethan when he entered. He was the only man in a twenty-block radius wearing a suit, tie, and matching handkerchief. With no body art, piercings, or conspicuously colored hair, Ethan would have stood out even without the Armani threads.

  The two men exchanged pleasantries, ordered coffee, and got down to business.

  “I’m sure you’re wondering why I wanted to meet you, Jared. May I call you Jared?” Ethan began.

  “I’m wondering about a lot of things these days. But if I recall, and I’m not entirely sure I do, you called about my eBay listing.”

  “Yes, the listing. I’m sorry the auction was removed.”

  “Yeah, damnedest thing,” Jared answered.

  “Actually, I have a confession to make.”

  Jared waited for Ethan to continue.

  “I’m the reason the listing was taken down. I brought it to the attention of the eBay standards and practices team. I didn’t even know they had such a thing, but they do.”

  “I’m sorry?” Jared was becoming more confused by the minute.

  “I needed to eliminate the competition.”

  Jared didn’t know what to think. Was this man telling the truth? Was Jared hearing him correctly? Was he even sitting in Powell’s at that moment?

  “Why?”

  “Well,” Ethan began, “I could say it was to control the price, and maybe that is partly true, but really, it’s because you and I need each other.”

  “I need you?”

  “Yes.”

  Jared sipped his latte and waited for Ethan to continue.

  “I can guarantee that you will die with a minimum of pain and discomfort, and I can assure you that your family will be well cared for.”

  “I don’t suppose you can help me not die.”

  “No, Jared, I’m sorry, I can’t.”

  “You can’t.”

  “No.”

  “And how can I help you?”

  “I run a television studio, and I want to televise your death, in prime time.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “A reality series, Jared’s Brain or something like that. We’ll have cameras all over your house, filming twenty-four hours a day; we’ll edit it down to an hour each night. We’d need your family’s consent, of course. But they will be very well compensated.”

  “A reality show? My life?”

  “I could lie to you, Jared, and tell you how your story will inspire people all over the world, how watching someone die with dignity and with the love of their family will help others deal with their own trauma, that it will have a healing, cathartic impact on humanity. Hell, all that might even be true. But really, you’ll sell advertising. Lots of advertising.”

  This raw honesty was a key part of Ethan’s charm. His ability to cut away the fat of an encounter, to leave only the essence of a thing, was what made him so successful.

  When he was ten years old, Ethan had organized the other children of his neighborhood to compete in a kid Summer Olympics. When Neil Sullivan face-planted during the stunt bicycle competition and needed nine stitches and one thousand dollars’ worth of dental work, it was Ethan who spoke to the boy’s parents.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, I could tell you that none of us knew this was going to happen, that we didn’t think anyone would get hurt, but I would be telling you a lie. All of us—me, Neil, all of us—did this because there was a danger that someone could get hurt. It was a thrill. But all of us, especially me, are really, really sorry.”

  Later that night, Mrs. Sullivan conveyed the story, with a lump in her throat, to Ethan’s mother. Not only did Ethan escape any punishment, his parents bought him a new video game console just for being honest.

  “How much will my family get?” Jared asked.

  “I like that,” Ethan answered. “A man who cuts to the chase.”

  “I don’t exactly have a lot of time.”

  “Point taken. We’ll pay your family five million dollars.”

  “Five million dollars,” Jared repeated.

  “Yes.”

  Jared let the idea sink in. It was more money than he could have hoped to get on eBay, and it sounded like his life wouldn’t have such a terrible end, at least as far as such things go. He couldn’t see a reason not to agree, though he once again had a nagging feeling that he was forgetting something. Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember what else he had recently forgotten.

  “Okay,” Jared said. “Let’s do it.” It never even occurred to him to negotiate.

  ***

  “Please,” Jackie said, pleading with the school nurse, “I’m fine. You don’t need to call my parents.” She’d managed to get her tears under control just after arriving at the nurse’s office. All she wanted now was to go back to the computer lab to let Max know she was okay.

  The nurse, a bureaucrat to her very soul, would have none of it. She got Jackie’s mother on the phone.

  “Jax?” her mother said.

  As soon as Jackie heard her mom’s voice, the waterworks started again. Deirdre was there fifteen minutes later.

  Jackie cried all the way home, all the way up the front walk to her house, all the way up the stairs to her bedroom, and didn’t stop crying, couldn’t stop crying, as she checked Facebook, only to find Max gone. He had left her a message.

  Max

  Solnyshko, Jacquelyn, I am worried. Please send me message when you are once again online.

  Jackie started to type a response, but it proved too hard. She was too upset. She threw herself on her bed, burying her face in her stuffed animals, the largest a three-foot-tall giraffe her father had won for her at a carnival and that she, for reasons she could no longer remember, had named Twiggy. She pounded her fists into the mattress and screamed into Twiggy’s soft belly until all the fight drained out of her and she fell asleep.

  ***

  Perhaps by coincidence, or perhaps through some larger interconnectedness of all things in the universe, as Jackie slept off her breakdown at school and Jared slept off his encounter with Ethan Overbee, Glio was feasting on the memory of the day Jared had won Twiggy, the giant giraffe.

  The entire family was at a festival at the local Greek church, the large parking lot replete with rides, games, and vendors selling exotic foods. Deirdre, her smile occasionally crossing the line to a giggle, was munching on a confection dripping with honey and rolled in chopped almonds. Glio was intoxicated by the smell of the thing
and wanted to try it. Or, more to the point, he wanted Jared to try it. But Glio was only consuming memories; he couldn’t affect their outcome. He felt a pang of frustration that he was limited to being only a theatergoer, a voyeur, but he shook it off.

  The pleasing odor of the cookie mixed with the bright lights, ringing bells, and delighted screams of children scattered throughout the festival created a feeling of excitement and unmitigated joy for Glio. If this was a carnival, he never wanted to leave.

  Glio turned his attention back to his host. Jared was aiming a gun of some sort at the mouth of a frightening plastic clown head. In the framework of Glio’s limited experience, the scene didn’t make sense. He looked to his left and right and saw a row of children on either side all doing the same, some with the intensity and concentration of a chess grand master mid-match, some with the attention span of a gnat.

  Glio looked down and saw four-year-old Jackie, all smiles and wonder, hugging Jared’s leg. “Daddy wins, Daddy wins, Daddy wins!” she was saying over and over again.

  Megan, sitting in a stroller, was clapping in time with Jackie’s chant.

  “Not yet, Jax, not yet,” Jared said.

  The booming voice of a mustached man, standing behind the counter on which the gun sat, caught everyone’s attention. “Okay, folks, first one to make the balloon pop wins. Everyone ready?”

  The children all screamed yes while Jared looked down at Jackie and winked.

  “On your mark, get set”—here the man paused for dramatic effect—“GO!”

  Jared’s gun was aimed perfectly. Not a drop of water was missed or wasted as it arced into the mouth of the clown. As the clown drank, a balloon attached to its head filled with air and inflated.

  Glio was taken with Jared’s feeling of frenzy and amazed it didn’t cause his hands to shake or his attention to wander. Jared’s sense of self, his power of concentration, was simply wonderful.

  In a matter of seconds, Jared’s balloon popped, and he was declared the winner.

  “You’d think he’d let one of the kids win,” a disgruntled parent muttered loud enough for Glio to hear as she escorted her child away. The child, Glio noticed, didn’t seem to care.