I CROSSED THE room to where the words were etched across the wall, the dedication of my grandfather’s book hidden in plain sight. Reaching for it felt like reaching for him. But I couldn’t tell if he was reaching back.
“How do you know all of this?” I spun on Jack. “How do you know that my grandfather . . .” I paused to gather the question. “I mean, I, I lived with him. My father was his son. And we didn’t know about any of this. What makes you so sure he was here?”
The corners of his mouth curled in a smile. “Well, for starters, he told us himself.”
He kicked the bottom of the wall. Far below the GREAT PURPOSE logo, there were twenty to thirty names, all in bold, capital letters. The wallpaper around them was chipped, making it clear that this part of the wall had been there the longest. The ink was fading, but on the top of the first column of names, I could still make out the first six that I recognized:
ERNEST BANKS
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
ORLO KOPEK
JONATHAN LEWIS
JEFFERY KOPEK
ARTHUR LOUIS PULLMAN
I leaned down and traced them with my finger. My grandfather had written his name. I returned to Jack’s level. “Okay, how did you know, though?”
“What do you mean?”
“How did you know about this? This room, my grandpa . . . who told you?”
Light from the fire danced on his face as he smiled. “You’re not the only one here with royal blood,” he said, and from his pocket, he pulled a small, metallic object. He danced it between his fingers. “It’s a stamp. A Gonzo fist, for Gonzo himself, except instead of holding peyote, it’s holding an olive branch. This was their logo, their stamp. There’s only one in the world, saved only for Great Purpose documents. And it used to belong to my birth father.”
He reached for my hand, raising it in front of his face and lightly stamping the back of it. He blew on it to dry the ink: dark, black, the symbol directly in the center.
“Jack . . . Thompson.” I read the names on the wall. “You’re his grandson?”
“His son.” He smiled at me. “Thompson and Pullman, reincarnate. The prodigal sons, together, right where it all started. Only the Purpose is stronger this time.” He motioned to the other room. “There’s some serious influence out there. And these people—they’re serious. This isn’t just something we do. This is who we are. This is our religion.”
I nodded. And that makes our families the gods, I thought. Which would make us—
“Jesus Christ!” a shout came from the other room, and a boy with dark hair entered. “Jack, if we’re gonna try to grab Greenberg at the DataFirst building itself, we’re gonna need someone in the building to follow him out, and Kade doesn’t—” He stopped when he saw me. He couldn’t have been much older than me, with a hairless chin and sunken eyes.
“Kade’s afraid of a little camera time?”
The boy nodded and I whipped my head back and forth between them. Grabbing Greenberg didn’t sound like something you would do to a voting machine.
“Tell him I’ll do it myself,” Jack nearly shouted, speaking to someone outside the room as well. “And I’ll wear a shirt that says, ‘You loaned money to slave owners two hundred years ago, and the only difference now is you cut out the middleman’!”
The boy shook his head and left. I tried to get Mara’s attention, but her eyes were fixed on the floor.
When the boy was out of earshot, I mumbled, “I thought you guys were just—”
“DataFirst holds forty-five percent of the information for America’s short-term, unsecured loans—the payday ones that fuck over poor people. Two weeks ago, they agreed to sell their collections information to law enforcement, as if these people’s lives weren’t fucked enough. So we’re gonna borrow their CEO for a day or two.” Jack was smirking proudly, but he could sense my uneasiness. “Look, we’re not here to hurt anybody. He’s gonna be fed, he’ll have a place to sleep—pretty fucking luxurious prison, when you consider the crimes.” He could tell I wasn’t sold, and Mara wasn’t backing him up. “We’re just trying to fight this thing with every weapon we have. Fear is a weapon. Your grandpa helped halt the march of imperialism in this country because he wasn’t afraid to put his own body in the way. It’s about time somebody did the same.”
“But . . . you’re not going to kill anybody?”
“No.” Jack smiled. “We’re just gonna show them that we could.”
The boy reentered. “He’s pretty serious, he doesn’t—”
“Shut up.” Jack lit a cigarette. “I’ll be right back.” The room outside parted like the Red Sea, and Jack disappeared into it.
Some moments, I’m certain I can feel the rotation of the Earth twice as fast, like the horizontal axis of what’s normal and expected and intended is visibly shifting in front of me, and try as I may to reorient my brain to it, it stays inches ahead of me, ensuring that the whole world is off-kilter and impossible to grasp. As I stared out across the tops of the heads of the room full of Great Purpose revolutionaries, I felt the axis speeding up.
I turned my confusion to Mara. “They’re gonna kidnap somebody?”
“Yeah.” She looked over the graphs on the walls. “That part was Jack’s idea, not my sister’s. He says it’s totally nonviolent, but . . . I don’t know.”
I stared at her but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. “When did you decide to bring me here?”
“I mean,” she said, smiling down at our feet, “I was coming here either way. But you were a nice addition.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“And ruin this surprise?”
“This is your idea of a surprise?”
“It’s not every day you get to tell someone they’re part of a royal bloodline.” She patted me on the back playfully. “Besides, if I told you what this was, we wouldn’t be here. And these people can really help.”
“But that doesn’t—” I stopped, replaying the chance encounter of our meeting. “You found me.”
“I didn’t.”
“You tracked me down. You knew I’d be on the train, and you—”
“Arthur, you ran into me on two separate trains. You leapt into the car and landed on me.” I could feel her slowly, intentionally moving her body closer to mine. “As much as I’d like to take credit for this, you found me.” She was inches away from my face. “But it wasn’t an accident. It was a sign.”
I held my breath for the kiss but it never came. She walked back to the desk and gathered her coat.
“So your job . . . is to be the mayor of Carson City, Nevada?”
“Kind of cool, right? It’s a promotion, basically.”
“Have you ever been to Nevada?”
“Just the other day, actually.”
“It’s not that cool.”
“I thought it was nice. Rainy.”
“It’s a desert.”
“Good to know, seeing as I live there now.” She handed me a Nevada ID. It was her photo, her name, Mara Bhatt, with an address in Carson City. It was the same face, the same smile, the same Mara, but I barely recognized her.
“What do we do now?” I asked.
“What do we do? We find his journals! We get a few of the history experts from the group together, maybe the literary ones as well, we go over the journals we have—”
“Mara.”
She stopped.
“I don’t want that.”
“Don’t want what?” Her eyes shot around the room. “Arthur, these people are experts on his life! They’re exactly the kind of people you’d want to help. I’m handing you an army!”
“I know.” I exhaled. “I know.”
“Then what?”
“It’s just . . . I don’t know if it would be a good thing to let this get more complicated than it already is. I don’t know any of these people.”
“I do!”
“And I just met you yesterday, and just found out that you’re . . .” I motioned to her name on the wall. “Why do you want me to tell these people so bad, anyway?”
“Because they’ll care, more than anyone! And they’ll help! And I’m one of them, so please stop talking about them like we don’t know them. I am these people.”
For an uncomfortable moment, Mara and I tried to reconcile our gazes. She couldn’t believe I wasn’t grateful, and I couldn’t believe she’d expected me to be.
“I can’t lie to these people, Arthur,” she said. “I can’t keep this from them.”
“Can we at least think about it? For, like, a night?” I nodded to the door where Jack had left.
Again, she fell silent, pretending to read the writing on the walls. “Right, then,” she decided finally. “We’ll tell them tomorrow. Just promise me you won’t tell Jack. He’d kill me if he knew I’d kept this from him.”
I nodded, unsure if it was hyperbole.
Mara handed me another cup and led me back to the common room. “You’ll like these people, Arthur, I know you will. I’ve known them for years. My sister used to say these people were so righteous, it was like there was no telling where one person stopped and another started. Just one big, unified brain.”
“Where is your sister?” I turned, but she kept pushing me. “Isn’t she supposed to be in charge?”
Without an answer, Mara shoved me back into the throng of people, still mingling and celebrating. Almost immediately, she was gone into the mass of skin, and in her place was the blonde girl from earlier.
“I’m so sorry—” I tried to tell her, but she stopped me.
“It’s a party.” Her whole body was in a perpetual bobbing, swaying motion. “We’re celebrating—didn’t you hear? Arthur Louis Pullman’s grandson is here.”
“I know,” I said, my voice too quiet for the room. “That’s me.”
“Oh, cool. I’m Laura.”
I took a huge swallow of the silver drink.
The night carried on like that. The music got louder. The drinks got faster, and the people melted into a single dancing, laughing organism. Occasionally I’d drift back to the image of my grandfather, young and aware, leading a secret political organization, but as the weight of the questions got too large, it felt better to let them go. The dull, obscured past became strangely unimportant in the face of the vibrant present.
I watched Jack and Mara speaking quietly to each other in the corner, laughing and scanning the room. Twice, she caught me staring at her, and twice, she poured me a new drink, toasting to “the idiot of the hour.” In a few moments, I caught them arguing, Mara yelling and Jack scowling back, and inside, I beamed.
Kaitlin showed up to scold me—“You’re drinking, with a bunch of people you don’t know? You know how you get when you drink, Arthur!”—or to tempt me—“Wouldn’t you rather be here, with me? Don’t you think I’m hotter than any of these girls?”—but she never stayed long, always disappearing when Mara’s face came swimming into view.
Somewhere in the middle of the mob, between my third attempt at smoking a joint full of marijuana and a group acoustic rendition of a song I didn’t recognize, Jack found me again, his eyes now intense and sober.
“On the train . . .” He spoke softly but clearly, his voice cutting through the tunnel of noise. “I just remembered, you were looking at something. Some journal, or letter. What was that all about?”
I felt myself starting to sweat. “Yeah, I mean, it’s—” The alcohol was tugging at my tongue, weighing it down with moisture. “It’s just, uh, I’s, just some, some writing.” I shrugged. “’S writing.”
“Writing?” Jack looked deeper into my face. “Writing . . . from who?” I felt tiny in front of him. Mara appeared behind him, her eyes widening as she watched him shift closer to me.
“Yeah’s, ’s just, a couple clues, ’n’ things.”
“That’s cute, man,” he said, making me feel even smaller. “Clues from who?”
“Uh, I was—uh—it’s—” I said. Whoever was using my voice sounded like a child, but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything, other than wanting him to stand as far away from Mara as possible. Other than wanting to impress her, in front of him. “From my . . . grandpa. Arthur Louis Pull-Pullman,” I said, and smirked at her.
Her eyes doubled in size and I immediately regretted it.
“Clues?” Jack forced his face between ours. “Your grandfather left you—he wrote? Clues? When—”
“No, not, uh, not to—just some stuff.” I tried to backtrack. “Just a letter—or two, or so. I dunno.”
“Can I read them? When did he write them?” Jack didn’t break eye contact. “If you’re here now, following them . . . Arthur.” I watched Mara’s eyes triple in size. “Did he write them during the final week?” He took another step toward me. “Do you have them with you now?”
“Actually, Jack,” Mara said, jumping between us, moving him backward. “There is something we need from you. The logbook, from the man at the front?”
He wasn’t paying attention to her.
“Jack.” I couldn’t see the faces she was making at him, but I could feel her ass against my leg. “The book? Can you get it?”
His eyes searched my bright red face, digging underneath my skin to see where I was hiding the things I wasn’t telling him. He knew there was more.
“Jack.”
He broke his face away. “Right. Yeah, yeah, that’s easy. Let me grab Lucas; we can—we can get that for you now.”
“What the fuck?” Mara whispered privately to me, and we followed.
He led Mara, Lucas, and me across the common room, every few seconds glancing up, like he was afraid I might make a run for it. “Alright, kids, here’s how this goes. Ernest”—he motioned to the old man—“carries that thing like a child. Lucas has a relationship with him, so Mara, you go in with him, and get what you need. If it doesn’t work, Arthur and I will be your backup.”
They all nodded. I swayed back and forth.
“Why wou—wouldn’t I—go—” I tried to fight the words out of my mouth.
Jack’s eyes rolled. “Keep it together in there, Pullman Three,” and he nodded to Lucas and Mara.
Jack and I sat alone outside the door in silence. I couldn’t figure out why we were alone, why he wouldn’t want me going into the room with them, other than the obvious reason—he wanted to be alone with me.
“What was he like?” Jack asked.
“Huh?”
“Your grandpa.” He didn’t turn toward me.
“I, I didn’t read the book. I dun, dunno what’s so special for you guys. He didn’t—”
“No, I mean what was he like, as a person?”
“Oh, I dun, I dunno. Forgetful. Kind’uh, kinda angry. It’as . . . mostly Alzheimer’s, toward the end. He didn’t talk much, jus’, uh, repeated himself a lot. He was, he was never writing, if tha’s, that’s what you think. It’s nothin’ like that.”
A bell rang somewhere outside one of the windows.
“He’s . . . he’s always readin’ the Bible, ’n’ . . . ’n’ baseball, a lot. He remembered lotsa . . . quotes from books.”
Jack still didn’t answer, so I returned the question.
“What’s it like, growin’ up with, with a Hunter, Hunter Thompson for, for a dad?” I waited, then repeated, “What’s it, what’s it—”
“I never met him,” Jack said.
I didn’t know what to say so I focused on breathing.
“It was an accident, and he was pretty old, so . . . He sent me letters, though. Jesus,” he said, turning abruptly toward the door. “What the fuck is going on in there?” He peeked through the glass before mumbling, “For fuck’s sake,” and shoving it open himself.
I watched through the window as the scene played itself out like a silent movie. Jack burst into the room, and everyone turned. From beneath his button-up, tucked into the back of his jeans, Jack pulled out a small black handgun. He held it directly at the old man, who shriveled behind the desk and shoved the book forward. Jack shouted several times, towering over the man’s submission. Mara and Lucas both stared at the floor. The quick movement forced the contents of my stomach to slosh around on top of each other so I collapsed against a wall, burying my mouth in my right arm and waiting for it to pass.
Jack looked back to the window, nodding that I should come in, so I did.
Mara already had the book open. “2010 . . . what’s the date?”
“Ap—Ap—” I took a huge breath. “April 30, 2010,” I muttered, then returned to covering my mouth.
Mara began flying through pages, whispering to herself as she went. “2008 . . . no . . . 2011 . . . back, 2010 . . . June . . . May . . .”
“What’s—what’s it say?” I asked.
I couldn’t stop looking at the old man. His eyes were half the size of his head, and they hadn’t moved from the barrel of Jack’s gun, still fixed between his eyebrows. I’d never seen a gun in real life. On television, they looked so fake, like toys, like all they were was the action they represented, and they could do nothing more than produce a loud BANG. This close, I could see the mechanics of it, the cool, black metal, the reality of a bullet.
Jack followed my gaze to the man, and dropped his arm. “See?” he said. “A lot easier when you just do what we ask.”
Mara shook her head. “Nothing. No Arthur, no Pullman, no anything. Are you sure that’s the right date?”
I nodded. “It, unless, he, got st, st—” I took a thin, narrow breath, like taking air through a straw. “Unless he was . . . late.” I exhaled. “Or didn’t make it.”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing on any of the dates around it either. Fuck!” She flipped a few pages forward, then a few pages back. “Only one person checked in that entire week.”
“What’s the name?”
Mara traced her finger along the inside of the book. “Lou Thurman.” Her head popped up. “I know that name. Why do I know that name? He was . . . I think he was a writer—”
“He was a protest writer,” Jack said. “For the Tribune, in the seventies. Friend of Sal Hamilton’s.”
“He must’ve used a fake name.” Mara slammed the book. “Room 17D.”
The old man didn’t move, so Jack raised the gun once more. “Let’s go,” he commanded, and the man slowly, without turning his head, pulled key 17D from the wall. Mara took it before Jack could. “Thank you, Ernest,” he said. “You can make this a lot easier next time.”
“Go to hell,” Ernest muttered, pulling the logbook from the table and disappearing into a back room.
I closed my eyes. The room was spinning, swirling together as it accelerated, lights flashing and twisting and twirling behind my eyelids. I focused on breathing. In, out, in, out. I could hear Mara and Jack, but I couldn’t see them.
“What the fuck was that about?” she shouted.
“You needed the book—”
“You didn’t have to fucking threaten an old man—”
“I wasn’t gonna shoot him! I just don’t have all fucking day—”
“You’re an asshole. This is exactly what’s wrong with you!”
“Give me a break.”
“Leila would be so fucking furious if she—”
“She’s not here! Which oughta be an important lesson in not having all fucking day to—”
“You’re an actual asshole.”
“What does he think we’re gonna find in 17D?”
“No,” she said. “We’re going to find. Not you.”
“Mara, don’t be psychotic, this is—”
“No, you don’t understand what he’s like, he’s . . .”
They moved too far away from me. I let myself finish the sentence—he’s too smart for you, he’s too cautious for this, he’s better at working alone—but I knew it wasn’t any of those things. It was more likely he’s difficult, or he’s complicated, or he’s confused. Kaitlin’s voice covered every syllable. I balanced against a wall, somewhere, waiting for someone to tell me where to go, trying to remain conscious.
A few moments later, I felt a shoulder thrust up under my arm, stabilizing me. “Let’s go,” Mara said. “Lots to discover.”
“Where’s Jack?” I mumbled, letting my eyelids bounce open enough to walk forward.
“This doesn’t belong to him,” she said, pulling me forward toward Room 17D.