Basic Sanity Test
Preview
Dump fires never stop burning. Each day, machinery churns new excess into the old slow burn.
Social Ground Zero moved westward to California. Persistent experiments inoculated the social underpinnings with rot. The slow crumbling was ignored as decay; framed instead with epic cinematic detail.
The rot became the spectacle.
The spectacle hid the experiments.
Minds primed for warpage fed the rot.
Side effects predicted. Results analyzed. Procedures adjusted.
Rinse—repeat.
The Broken Heel
Los Angeles July 20,1964, 8:52 A.M.
Los Angeles July 20,1964, 8:52 A.M.
Evelyn measured the woman slumped on the bench outside the office. Two things she had learned working with Jack; men save half the facts for later, women diluted the truth with lies the way Picasso thinned pigments with oil.
If this gal walked up five flights with a busted heel, she was superhuman. Her outfit told a different story. Obviously human—a few blocks south of super.
The twisting keys jangled as Evelyn cranked the dead bolt.
A weak raspy plea, “Did Karl make it?”
Evelyn pushed the door open, paused and looked over her shoulder. “I don’t know dear. We’re alone.”
Her lazy glazed eyes found Evelyn’s face, “I thought maybe…someone could tell me.”
This gal wasn’t local. East Coast accent, Bronx maybe Queens. Evelyn had heard the pale attempts a hundred times at auditions.
“What’s your name?”
“Lorraine.”
“I know that bench is unpleasant, Lorraine—why don’t you come inside. I’ll make some coffee and you can tell me why you’re here—before the detective gets in.”
Lorraine leaned her rumpled self upright, unshod herself of her good shoe. Her purse in one hand and shoes dangling by the straps on the other, she followed Evelyn into the office.
“Welcome to the Deckard Investigations, Lorraine.” Evelyn motioned to a chair in front of her desk. “Please. Have a seat.”
Lorraine walked like a woman worn down. A slow, uneven gait—like she’d been pushed out of a bus and managed to catch herself before hitting the ground. The chair protested as she dropped into it.
Evelyn studied her. The dress was whole, and simple—a pale blue, just-below-the-knee homemade echo of something in Jackie Kennedy’s closet. Aside from her one lame shoe, she was all there. By her looks, she dressed two days ago. Time had ironed her with the bench she had slept on.
She turned herself wary in the chair, keeping herself square with Evelyn. Maybe she’d been on the receiving end of regular violence and knew looking away didn’t help.
In this moment she appeared visibly unbruised. Whether it was hidden by clothing, makeup or emotional façade, Evelyn couldn’t tell—but she knew the type. The kind that loved the wrong man too much for their own good.
“Tell me, Lorraine. What’s Karl to you?”
Evelyn handed her a cup of coffee and waited for the deception.
“You have to understand…me and Karl, we’re two of a kind.”
Many of the men that came home in ’45 and ’46 were only all there in appearance. Sometimes, unable to contain their wounds, they hurt the ones they loved the most. Occasionally they came home and found someone just as broken as they were—someone who gave as well as they got.
It can be hard to know who is the giver and who is the taker. Even the givers sing the blues.
“Two of a kind. How so?”
“You know,” her accent thicker, “two peas in a pod.”
“I’m his girl.”
“What did you mean when you asked if Karl made it?”
“Night before last…” Lorraine’s voice trailed off. “I was supposed to meet him at his apartment.”
“And?”
“The place was a wreck. No Karl, just a mess. There was a note by the phone. This place. I thought he would be here.”
“Could he have forgotten you were coming over?”
“Karl forget?”
“He’s a guy, that happens.”
Lorraine huffed. “Never.”
Evelyn leaned forward at her desk, chin resting briefly on the backs of her hands. She took a sip of coffee, leaned back, and gave Lorraine one more look over. She wondered if her accent hadn’t just slipped ever so slight.
Monday mornings were turning out to be worse than funerals.
“Do you have someplace to go?”
“Yes—my apartment. But…”
“But what?”
“I don’t know.” Lorraine lip trembled. “What if they’re after me too.”
What if indeed.