The Society of Experience (eBook)

[Excerpt from “The Injured Cowboy and the Sheriff of the Mesa Jumanes” | Derrick van der Lem |September 17, 2006]

The Injured Cowboy was by no means a stranger to the sight of a town in fear, but when he approached Jicarillo, emaciated from his travels through the barren Mesa Jumanes, he had second thoughts about entering. There might as well have been a storm cloud over the town. Two wagons he’d passed, and two sets of miserable townsfolk looked at him as if the sight of him only added to their misery.

If there was anything less sought-after in the cowboy’s life on that scorched New Mexico plain, it was being the wrong stranger at the wrong time in a town that lynched to cure its ills. But he needed rest, and his everlasting wounds needed their due attention.

Sheriff Cogill sat on the porch of a grain merchant, perched at a bend in the main road so he could view both of the main entrances to town. Seeing the stranger hunched in his saddle, over his mare, Alabelle, his clothes bleached by the sun, the holster on his belt, the sheriff came out and blocked their path. Not wanting any trouble, the cowboy tugged lightly on the reins. Alabelle resisted. She wanted to get out of the sun as badly as he did.

“You here on business, stranger?” the sheriff called up to him, his eyes squinting past the brim of his hat.

The cowboy stared at him and saw his badge, the gestures of anticipation in his pistol hand, and the marriage ring on the other. Raising his arm carefully, he tipped his hat to the sheriff, a show of caution on his face.

“Sheriff, I can’t say I’m here on business. I’ve come a long way — through the Mesa and the plains. I was hoping I could rest in Jicarillo for the night. Plan to make my way to White Oaks in the morning, if that’d please you.”

“That gun’s troublin’ to me, stranger. You runnin’ from somethin’?” he asked. His suspicions were clear.

“The gun’s no trouble to you or anyone in Jicarillo, Sheriff. As for running, I can’t say I come from anywhere that’s looking for my neck to hang. I’m just drifting through, looking to pay for a bed and perhaps a barkeep for a libation. That’s all.”

Without a sound, the sheriff begrudgingly waved him on. The cowboy felt worse than when he’d entered. He tipped his hat toward the sheriff and proceeded to locate a dilapidated inn at the centre of town.

+ + +

YOU IDIOT.

I paced through the apartment while Elvis Costello’s “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes” played on the stereo. I needed the comfort of music but found myself skipping over almost every track, unable to find anything that wasn’t too fast, too dippy or too dark.

For the second time, I was living a moment that was soundtrack-proof. I was treading back and forth from the kitchen to the living room absent-mindedly, finding only second thoughts.

Despite the extravagant lunacy of the time traveller–host proposition, what happened earlier in the night gripped me. I’d been looking out the north window of the apartment, onto the traffic below, creaking in anticipation of a green light. I saw an ad covering the side of a passing transport container: three attractive young women coiled on a rug, staring at me seductively. The phone rang, catching me by surprise. I picked up and heard a click on the line, as if the other party had hung up. Rather than the signal dying, a soft wash of static surfaced on the other end.

The stern voice of a woman clearly pronounced: “This is a pre-recorded message. Please write down the following information. We will pause, to allow you to get a writing utensil and paper.”

The way she spoke seemed practiced; the way she accentuated “writing utensil,” as if I were standing in candlelight, holding a quill. There was a notepad and pencil by the phone already. I stood, blinking numbly, listening to the white noise on the other end of the line. My blood seemed to stop flowing. The air seemed to stop moving.

“Derrick van der Lem,” she continued, “you are to collect your guest this evening at nine-thirty p.m., or twenty-one thirty hours.”

With the same formality she described the pick-up location as if it were the itinerary of a grocery run. It was on the outskirts of my ’hood, in a residential alley in Little Italy.

“Please note: you must be alone. Do not attract automobile or pedestrian traffic. After you make contact, assist the projected sheath immediately back to safe quarters. If there is any risk of discovery, you may use a limousine or taxi. Just remember —”

A thud against my front door jolted my attention away from the receiver. It took a panicked moment to realize it was the upstairs neighbour hauling her bike through the stairwell again. When I shifted my attention back to the phone I realized the woman was still talking in her careful, assured tone. She had been talking the entire time.

“. . . three zero four,” she said.

The blood drained from my face.

“Please respond with either a yes . . . or . . .no . . .in the subsequent pause, to confirm that you understand the instructions we have provided.”

Awkward pause.

“Um, I didn’t hear the number you just read . . .” I said, focusing carefully on what I was going to say next.

“Thank you.”

*click*

I stood listening, in a dawning panic, not wanting to hang up, hoping desperately that I’d get a second chance. But with each passing second the chances that a second operator would intervene eroded. There would be a fail-safe, for sure, I thought.

Abruptly, I was returned to the cold organ chime of dial tone.

“No. No!” I beat my fist against the wall.

Dr. Wallace Turner had all but disappeared; I called his number five times without an answer.

It was 20:46, which both the living room and kitchen clocks verified mercilessly as I paced around the apartment.

My last call to Wallace went as follows: “Wallace. It’s Derrick. . . . Um, just checking. Thanks. Bye.”

I had to leave, but into what kind of disaster I couldn’t imagine.

I tore off the notepad page, complete with incomplete information, and stuffed it in my pocket . . .

You moron.

. . . and on a new page penned a bullet point Last Will and Testament with startlingly few revisions. I stashed the pages in a discarded toilet paper cylinder behind the kitchen stove, unable to improvise a better spot to hide them.

You’re going to get killed out there.

+ + +

[Journal entry | Seneca Lewis | May 29, 2055]

They just gave me the date and told me to come to the lab that night for seven-thirty. I know it’ll take at least an hour to slip on the suit (which seems like a piece of fetish gear, to be honest) and test it, but they mentioned I’d have a relaxant to drink this time. Yum. I hope it’s scotch.

The morbid part, completing my will (!), went uneventfully. You don’t know how both complex and simple this sort of thing can be until you’re obligated to do it. Of course, Cathy kept downplaying it — it being my fear. If she hadn’t I’d probably be writing this in another country, hiding in Labrador or something. Nervous.

The good thing is that she assured me that they would call the host ahead of time — I still have no clue who the host is — just to make sure that everything goes smoothly. I have no choice but to trust her on this. Secretly, I hate that.

Wish me luck, whoever reads this (and by the way, who are you and why are you reading this?). Contact info for the Society follows below, in case this goes, well, badly. I’m slipping this in a chip under my mattress. It’s the kind of spot only detectives in movies would consider checking.

Love (certainly to most of you),

Seneca

+ + +

NINE-BLOODY-THIRTY.

In an alley.

Black seemed an appropriate colour. I caught myself in the hallway mirror on the way out, wearing a black turtleneck and leather jacket, with black jeans: I looked like a French cat burglar.

My gut ached from stress and I couldn’t clear my head. Laundry hadn’t been done. The hydro bill was overdue. I still needed to sand and refinish that vintage dresser I bought on Roncesvalles last year.

“Hey! Do you know where the liquor store is?”

A kid with oversized athletic clothing was standing on the opposite sidewalk, staring at me. It was nine-fifteen. I looked ahead of me then back at the kid, until a few seconds ago convinced of my invisibility.

“Uhh . . .”

“Look, you know if there’s one around here?”

“There’s . . . uhh . . .”

“Bro, I just wanna know where the fucking liquor store is. You speak English? The liquor store. Onde fica a loja de bebidas?” the kid shouted, a cigarette bouncing out the side of his lips.

I shrugged stupidly and continued up toward College Street, humiliated and rattled.

An old card table.

An orange.

An accident guest starring me as an unwitting accomplice who can’t take directions.

Son, could you tell the officer here about the strange man you saw on the night of the sixth of June?

Yeah, he was, like, this guy. And shit. And, like, I kept asking him where...