Night is imminent, and since we’ve taken four hits of the drug in fairly rapid succession with no recovery period, we decide for the first time not to return to the box.
It’s the same hotel in Logan Square where I stayed in Amanda’s world.
The neon sign is red instead of green but the name is the same—HOTEL ROYALE—and it’s just as quirky, just as frozen in time, but in a thousand insignificantly different ways.
Our room has two double beds, and just like the last room I had here, it looks out onto the street.
I set our plastic bags containing toiletries and thrift-store clothes on the dresser beside the television.
Any other time, I might have balked at this dated room that smells like cleaning product failing to cover up mildew and worse.
Tonight it feels like luxury.
Pulling off my hoodie and undershirt, I say, “I’m too gross to even have an opinion about this place.”
I toss them into the waste bin.
Amanda laughs. “You don’t want to get into a who’s-more-disgusting competition with me.”
“I’m surprised they rented us a room at any price.”
“That might tell you something about the quality of establishment we’re dealing with.”
I go to the window, part the curtains.
It’s early evening.
Raining.
The exterior hotel sign bleeds red neon light into the room.
I couldn’t begin to guess the day or date.
I say, “Bathroom’s all yours.”
Amanda grabs her things from the plastic bag.
Soon, I can hear the bright sound of running water echoing off the tile.
She calls out, “Oh my God, you have to take a bath, Jason! You have no idea!”
I’m too dirty to lie down on the bed, so I sit on the carpet next to the radiator, letting waves of heat wash over me and watching the sky darken through the window.
—
I take Amanda’s advice and draw a bath.
Condensation runs down the walls.
The heat works wonders on my lower back, which has been out for days from sleeping in the box.
As I shave my beard, the questions of identity keep haunting me.
There’s no Jason Dessen employed as a physics professor at Lakemont College or any of the local schools, but I can’t help wondering if I’m out there somewhere.
In another city.
Another country.
Perhaps living under a different name, with a different woman, a different job.
If I am, if I spend my days under broken-down cars in a mechanic’s shop or drilling cavities instead of teaching physics to college students, am I still the same man at the most fundamental level?
And what is that level?
If you strip away all the trappings of personality and lifestyle, what are the core components that make me me?
After an hour, I emerge, clean for the first time in days, wearing jeans, a plaid button-down, and an old pair of Timberlands. They’re a half size too big, but I’ve doubled up on wool socks to compensate.
Amanda studies me appraisingly, says, “Works.”
“Not so bad yourself.”
Her thrift-store score consists of black jeans, boots, a white T-shirt, and a black leather jacket that still reeks of the prior owner’s smoking habit.
She’s lying in bed, watching a TV show I don’t recognize.
She looks up at me. “Know what I’m thinking?”
“What?”
“Bottle of wine. Ridiculous amount of food. Every dessert on the menu. I mean, I haven’t been this skinny since college.”
“The multiverse diet.”
She laughs, and it’s a good thing to hear.
—
We walk for twenty minutes in the rain, because I want to see if one of my favorite restaurants exists in this world.
It does, and it’s like running into a friend in a foreign city.
This cozy, hipster place is a riff on an old Chicago neighborhood inn.
There’s a long wait for a table, so we stalk the bar until a pair of stools opens up, sliding in at the far end beside a rain-streaked window.
We order cocktails.
Then wine.
A thousand small plates that just keep coming.
We catch a hard, beautiful glow off the booze, and our conversation stays very much in the moment.
How the food is.
How good it feels to be inside and warm.
Neither of us mentions the box even once.
Amanda says I look like a lumberjack.
I tell her she looks like a biker chick.
We both laugh too hard, too loud, but we need it.
As she gets up to go to the bathroom, she says, “You’ll be right here?”
“I will not move from this spot.”
But she keeps looking back.
I watch her walk down the bar and disappear around the corner.
On my own, the ordinariness of the moment is almost too much to stand. I glance around the restaurant, taking in the faces of the waiters, the customers. Two dozen noisy conversations mixing into a kind of meaningless roar.
I think, What if you people knew what I knew?
—
The walk back is colder and wetter.
Near the hotel, I see the sign for my local bar, Village Tap, blinking across the street.
I say, “Feel like a nightcap?”
It’s late enough that the bulk of the evening crowd has thinned out.
We grab seats at the bar, and I watch as the bartender finishes updating someone’s ticket at the touchscreen.
He finally turns and comes over, looks at Amanda first, then me.
It’s Matt. He has probably served me a thousand drinks in my lifetime. He served me and Ryan Holder my last night in my world.
But there’s no hint of recognition.
Just blank, disinterested courtesy.
“What can I get you guys?”
Amanda orders a wine.
I ask for a beer.
As he pulls the tap, I lean over and whisper to Amanda, “I know the bartender. He doesn’t recognize me.”
“What do you mean you know him?”
“This is my local bar.”
“No. It’s not. And of course he doesn’t recognize you. What’d you expect?”
“It’s just weird. This place looks exactly like it should.”
Matt brings our drinks over.
“Want to start a tab?”
I have no credit card, no identification, nothing but a roll of cash in the inner pocket of my Members Only jacket right next to our remaining ampoules.
“I’ll just settle up now.” As I reach for the money, I say, “I’m Jason, by the way.”
“Matt.”
“I like this place. Yours?”
“Yep.”
He seems not to give a single fuck what I think of his bar, and it puts a sad, hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. Amanda senses. When Matt leaves us, she lifts her wineglass and clinks it against my pint.
Says, “To a good meal, a warm bed, and not being dead yet.”
—
Back in the hotel room, we kill the lights and get undressed in the dark. I know I’ve lost all objectivity with regard to our accommodations, because the bed feels wonderful.
Amanda asks from her side of the room, “You locked the door?”
“I did.”
I close my eyes. I can hear the rain ticking against the window. The occasional car moving past on the wet street below.