often suspect that I am dead but still functioning. My heart is raw and pink, a package of ground beef wrapped in plastic. My body is composed of shatterproof glass and fluoride and vitamins and sheep hormones and recycled copper wires. There is no poetry in such a being but neither is there fear. I tumble easily into the void and I am safe as a kitten in the bony confines of my own skull. If I can afford the proper software, then I can download anything imaginable. The physical world is getting less and less realistic by the minute and eventually I will learn to pay it no mind.
Twilight, now.
John Ransom Miller and I have been walking for nearly an hour, most of the way uphill, not talking. I am chewing a hole in my lip. Miller is much too cool and friendly and unconcerned about my sudden presence in his life. The silence is heavy between us, but not terribly unpleasant.
What’s your name? he says.
First names are dangerous, I say.
Why, he says.
The intimacy, I say.
My legs are heavy and I hope Miller doesn’t try to run away. The BART station is a long, long way down. He won’t run, though. John Ransom Miller could not be any less afraid of me. But he might like to fuck with me. I would probably fuck with him, if our positions were reversed. Miller nods and again I have the sticky feeling that he can hear my thoughts.
Yes, he says. Intimacy is a tricky thing. I would think it’s hard to kill somebody if you are in the habit of calling them by their first name.
I whistle through my teeth, irritated. Why don’t you have a car? I say.
Miller shrugs. I have two cars. Three, actually. I had a driver for a while, a guy who wore one of those fucking sailor hats. I don’t know. I started to hate the cars after a while. I would sit in traffic, listening to Mozart and drinking bottled water and it was like my soul was trapped in a Mason jar.
The hole in my lip is getting bigger. It will bleed, soon.
I like cars, I say. I believe in cars.
What about the soul, he says. Do you believe in the human soul?
No. But I think mine would be perfectly safe in a Mason jar.
Miller stares at me, unblinking. You might want to punch holes in the lid, he says.
Okay, I say. What makes you think I’m going to kill you?
He laughs. You would be wise to kill me, that’s why. You would save a few lives and probably your own sanity. But you won’t kill me.
You won’t even try.
That’s a good answer, I say. Damn good.
By the way, he says. You can call me Miller for now.
His voice trails away from his mouth, exhaled like smoke. There is a narcotic quality about it, as if it comes from inside my head and now a feeble smile drifts unwanted across my face, a polite muscle spasm. Which bugs the shit out of me. This is my face, right. This is my fucking face and I will be one sorry meatpuppet if I ever lose control over who sees me smile. When and where and so on. I keep shining my crippled smile at this man and I may as well piss myself on a crowded bus. I may as well be a whore with a weak bladder. I abruptly take the gun from my pocket and Miller doesn’t blink. I wave the gun at a low stone wall that creeps along the side of the road and tell him to just sit the fuck down. He shrugs and sits down, crossing his legs and fiddling with the crease in his trousers.
Are you okay? he says. You look green.
Miller is one of those rare fuckers with a psychic sense of smell. He takes one sniff and he knows you. He knows things about you, things you might not want him to know. He should have been a cop, probably. The funny thing is I am starting to like him, and this idea makes me feel slightly carsick. I tell him to get up and we keep walking. I put the gun away and try to relax.
Pretty sunset, I say. Don’t you think?
Miller shrugs. I saw a peculiar story on the news the other day. A newspaper in China confessed that they’ve been falsifying their weather reports for the past twenty years.
What do you mean?
They would claim that it was sunny yesterday when in fact it rained.
Revisionist weather, I say. That’s brilliant.
Isn’t it?
What the fuck, I say. It’s nice to meet you, Miller.
Miller yawns. You never know when that person will come along, the person you have been waiting for.
Yeah. What is that supposed to mean, exactly?
Life, he says. It’s often a dull dream.
I scratch my head and suddenly I hear something like the manic hum of locusts but it’s only the drone of rubber tires on blacktop as two boys cruise by on mountain bikes.
They look like brothers, I say.
Miller and I turn to watch as the boys disappear over the next hill.
Poof, says Miller.
Like they just fell off the edge of the earth, I say.
Amazing, says Miller. How easily a child can vanish.
Miller takes a sheaf of mail from a bright metal box on the side of the road. The box looks new. The surface is shiny as a silver dollar and unblemished by bird shit, but there is a nice round bullet hole in the thing’s belly. The hole is black around the edges and I poke two fingers in there without lubrication. It was a big bullet.
You have enemies? I say.
No, he says. The neighborhood kids. I love it, though. I love it when the kids have spirit.
I finger the hole. That’s some fucking spirit.
Miller might be a liar. He might not be. He has the eyes of a sleepy blackjack dealer and why should I care if he wants to lie about a misplaced bullet. I lie all the time, to myself and others. I lie whenever it feels right. I’m a cheap rug. I am not very good at lying, however. Jude can always sniff out a lie before I take another breath. Then again, she’s a woman. Jude says that if a woman has ever fucked a guy and studied the ugly contortions of his face, the face that he wants to hide from sight, then she knows the machinery behind his mouth and eyes and thereafter she always knows when he’s lying.
Anyway.
I shot up a few mailboxes when I was a kid, with a pellet gun and later a.22, a rifle meant for shooting squirrels. This hole came from a big gun, a serious gun. Miller has got Dirty Harry shooting at his mailbox and it’s none of my business.
Not yet, says Miller.
What? I say.
It’s none of your business, he says. Yet.
It is still not quite dark but the air is the color of blue plums. A black Mercedes rolls past with headlights off, eerily silent. It looks like a tank on a night mission. A white moth flickers past my face and I wave it away, distracted.
Do you want to come in? says Miller. Have a drink?
I sigh. Are you going to be doing a lot of that?
What? he says.
Oh, you know. Reading my mind and that sort of thing.
Miller laughs. I can’t read your mind, man. I pretend that I can.
Uh huh.
It’s easy, he says. People aren’t very complex. You take a stab at what somebody is thinking. Then politely spit it out like a piece of gristle. And even if you’re wrong, it makes people nervous. There’s no better way to fuck with a snotty waiter, or a salesman. Try it sometime.
Interesting, I say. Do I look like a salesman to you?
Why, he says. Are you nervous?
