For no good reason he’d thought of Fatboy as a Quaker. Rem liked to think of him equal to his peers, dressed in plain clothes, humble, sat alongside his brethren, waiting until the spirit singled him out. Instead the boy appeared a more common-or-garden evangelical Christian, born again, though that didn’t tally with what he knew. Didn’t those born-agains proselytize? Didn’t they hunt people, hound after their souls? Didn’t they pester God into every corner, bend every conversation? If Fatboy was a born-again he’d kept his counseclass="underline" Rem couldn’t see God in any kind of detail here, not the faintest trace, and thought the idea laughable. So what kind of God-fearer was Fatboy? Some youth holed up in a storage room who saved souls by writing names and scrawling crosses? Fatboy collected names not souls.
* * *
Rem took over the room. He packed Fatboy’s belongings and made sure they were returned to his mother. Night after night when he could not sleep he read repeatedly through Fatboy’s lists, but knew that he would never understand why the boy had collected them.
His missed Fatboy’s banter.
‘If you had a special power,’ Fatboy had asked, ‘what would it be?’ The power of flight, or X-ray vision, the ability to transform into a wolf, to swim like a dolphin?
Santo huffed. He already had a special power. ‘Invisible.’ He looked for a place to spit. ‘True. I’m invisible. The only time people see me is when they want something. Blame. I exist to shoulder other people’s shit.’
Rem said he wouldn’t want anything special. No. According to his wife, he needed the simple gift of instant hindsight, so it wouldn’t be hindsight at all. There probably wasn’t even a word for what he needed, but he knew there wasn’t one single day he didn’t need to go back and fix something.
‘I’m off-pitch,’ he said, ‘that’s what she calls it.’
‘Not a problem, bro.’ Santo leaned forward, let out a fine stream of spit. ‘I blow my nose, I get blood. The air. It’s dry.’
Fatboy wanted everything. Let’s face it. What’s the point of just one thing? You’d need super-strength, super-speed, heightened senses, the whole bag of superpowers — and flight. One lone power wouldn’t cut it.
‘And what would you do with all that?’ The idea vexed Santo. He looked up, took in the hot white sky. ‘I mean, what’s the point? You get to do all this shit, but what for? There’s always stuff you can’t do. My sister, she sees angels. All over the place. Angels with wings. Everywhere. Her cat died and she still sees it. Follows her around. Why? She thinks she’s gifted. What use is this to her?’ He shook his head. ‘Nothing. She still works minimum wage. Still married to a creep. Still unhappy.’
Fatboy said he’d been reading, and found some differences. ‘We have people who do things. Fly, climb buildings, all that. Here they have things that do stuff. Carpets. Lamps. Bottles. Magic stuff.’
‘The Arab is superstitious.’ Santo shook his head. ‘They ever cut my head off, they even try, I’m telling them they’re cursed. Their family, their neighbours, everything they touch. Fucked up for ten thousand years. Their sperm will have no tails, their children will be retards, their women frigid. Their water poisoned. The wheat will die in the field. Locusts. Fat-assed locusts in their millions. That’s my superpower. Fear and doubt. They even touch my head I’ll curse them, and everything that happens, everything bad, big and small, is down to me. I’m giving them doubt. That’s my superpower. Doubt.’
Fatboy liked the idea. In all those stories, the ones where you get three wishes, they never work out. Not even once. There’s always some trick. Better to do it like Santo, and live for ever because they can’t fix you, can’t get you straight. Even when you’re gone they don’t know who you are so they have to keep rolling the idea over and over. He liked it. Santo was on to something.
‘Just claim something you haven’t done. Famine. War. Disease. Say it’s yours and they’ll make you a saint.’ Santo pointed at the ovens, he’d promised them rum, proper Cuban rum. No joke. Security from Anaconda could bring you anything. Only if they even got caught thinking about alcohol they’d lose their jobs and entitlements. Better to drink it in his hut.
* * *
The package from Geezler arrived on a Friday. Rem hid it from Cathy and took it with him to the library. He sat at the back by the magazine stacks with a view of the door and the computers beside him.
Geezler had filled in much of the form, and with it came a simple note asking Rem to complete the sections he’d marked and make sure he signed in three places, and to call once it was in the mail. As far as Rem could see it wasn’t much of anything. Geezler had him marked down for manual work in Region 3: Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi, Syria, Turkey, UAE, Yemen. He did exactly as he was asked, dropped the package in the mail on his way home, and called Geezler.
‘So you’ll do this?’
‘It’s on its way.’
‘I need one favour. I need what we’re doing to remain between us. Just us. No one else. If other people find out it won’t work.’
Rem couldn’t see any problem with this.
‘So, we’re agreed. Complete deniability. No one else knows. Not anyone you meet in the interview, none of the candidates, no relatives, no family, not even your wife.’
‘I have to tell my wife.’
‘You can’t. As part of the clearance procedure they’ll want to confirm details, they’ll call you at home — what if she answers?’
‘I’ll tell her.’
‘It’s a risk.’
‘She’ll understand.’
Geezler paused. ‘It’s too much of a risk. If they have any idea we’re sending people to check on them it isn’t going to work. To be honest, you’re no use to me otherwise.’
Rem considered hanging up. He could tell Cathy and not tell Geezler that she knew. ‘OK.’
‘OK?’
‘OK.’
‘Don’t tell her and think it will work out. She can’t know. Are we agreed?’
Rem hesitated and then agreed.
He wanted to know when he would hear, and Geezler assured him that they turned these things around quickly.
After the call, Rem began to wonder what he’d agreed to, and what difference it would make if Cathy did or didn’t know.
Rem walked up Clark and was struck by how solid the street appeared, how this was, he couldn’t think of any other word, except, natural. As if today was how the neighbourhood should always be seen, that every other season the street would be out of perspective. For example: walking now, the budding afternoon, the late-spring air, the buses, the fried meat scent from the taquerias, the split cartons and crates beside the supermercado. All of this seemed right, in place. Ordinary. He couldn’t imagine the same street three months earlier, grey with old snow, rutted with ice, cars shifting forward and sideways, the sidewalk limited to one narrow path, figures disguised under jackets and coats, and hunched under the assault of a brutal wind, the windows at the eateries greased with condensation. He couldn’t imagine himself either with his dog, because this was the route they took from the lake, each morning, each night. He couldn’t picture the dog, and had to work hard to resurrect him. Rem looked about as if to fix the street, the corner, Clark and Lunt, in memory. One day I won’t live here. This will all be lost.
* * *
Just over a week after submitting his application Rem received a package from Headspring Training offering an interview at a choice of venues: the Welcome Inn outside Knoxville, Tennessee, or the Best Western close by O’Hare.