I got a glass of ice water, went to an empty booth in the back. The drink was so cold it almost made my throat close. I coughed. Pressed it against my cheeks and forehead to cool down. The older waitress there brought me a chocolate donut without asking, put down a carton of skim. I remember you, she said. I smiled at her, though I knew I would have to stop coming back. She would start asking me about my life. Maybe tell people around me.
The old men had stopped talking. They and the woman were looking out the large front window. Some were half-risen out of their seats. I set my water glass down, paid, and went to see what was happening outside. Standing on the sidewalk was the man with dreadlocks who had been protesting two days ago.
His shirt was off. There was a large hole in his torso. His intestines were pink, blood was circulating, there was a yellowish thing visible, maybe his stomach or gall bladder. The top of a bone, light pink and gray. He was shouting, They did this to me, they did this to me. Stop letting them control this town.
I felt faint. My brain was split between fighting my nausea and wondering how it was possible. How did his organs not flop out? How was he alive? His intestines reminded me of hot dogs. And in most contexts, I find hot dogs disturbing. It’s the way they shine, the way they look like human meat. There were more flyers at his feet. His stomach was quivering.
As I’m writing this, my fingers are shaking, my eyes are burning. The anticipation I felt that his organs would fall out onto the sidewalk, that I would see him collapse into a pile of mush or start bleeding out keeps rushing inside me.
I signed up to be in a “memory experiment.” But it’s been so much more than that. We were simply told it’s a small town and people like to talk. The pellets. The cabin. The girl. The pills. My brain. The way they’re making me doubt myself, reality. The secrecy.
It’s torture.
When I got home, I texted you. I called my mom. She didn’t pick up either.
25
Dear Tanya,
I’m in my apartment here after a long evening walking in the meadow with Charlie and Mariah. There were bruises on his arms and feet. He kept saying that he felt great. He showed me his arms and legs. They’re completely hairless now. A pill, Charlie said. I’m so smooth.
It’s a full moon. In the park, Mariah told us she was in these studies because for years she had ruined her life. Stole money from friends and family, ran up credit cards. She was addicted to Adderall, liked uppers in general. When you take enough of them, they can make your hair fall out, your teeth start to get loose, but you can get yourself to do things. I couldn’t stop asking questions, I was amazed at all the things that she said those pills can do. She’s making the money to pay people back. Mariah’s hoping that maybe the money will help rebuild her life in the way apologies couldn’t. Now I realize I was probably being super-rude, but at the time, I couldn’t stop asking. She said she got into crystals, oils, the nature of it all—though these things could be expensive too—because there was so much you had to know. The fiddly details, the focus it took, gave her brain something else to focus on.
Charlie said he was doing the studies because he wanted to go back to school, but his parents couldn’t help him.
We walked in the meadows, in the moonlight the flowers Charlie promised would show up in August were tiny ghosts. I asked them both if they had been tempted at all to tell someone what was going on here.
When I was growing up, my grandma said that full-moon nights are when Earth and heaven touch. Miracles are more likely to happen. You might hear or see a loved one, or God’s voice. There was a feeling as we walked along that my grandma was 10 steps behind us, walking at her own speed. The pull of her made me feel distant.
Charlie ignored my question, instead tried to distract me by telling me another Lakewood myth. The old graveyard, the one near the sunflower field, was haunted by the spirits of two competitive sisters. A statuesque sister who tried to kiss you, tried to convince you that your love could bring her back, and a plain sister who would tell you jokes but say that to kiss her sister was to condemn your soul to hell.
Mariah said she had been tempted to tell her sister. They hadn’t spoken in over a year and then, a few nights ago, for no good reason, her sister had called her hoping to reconnect. Mariah knew if she told her sister about Lakewood, she would get quieter and quieter. Until finally, in the small disappointed voice that Mariah hated hearing, she would say, “You’re high.”
Charlie cut her off. He said his grandfather had told him Long Lake wasn’t carved from the same glaciers that made this valley or gave the soil its unusual composition. It was made by men in the fifties. It became the town’s water supply and made visitors stop asking where the lake was.
It’s hard to lie to my mom, I said.
Charlie talked about how in a town about 50 miles away, they had found the world’s largest mastodon skeleton. I was getting more and more fed up as he talked. He had far less to lose than us. I doubted, as he spoke, that he would ever go to school. If Charlie made enough money this year, he would probably talk himself out of it. Find another excuse that wasn’t money for never leaving this place. It was the most I had ever disliked him. I turned and walked away without saying goodbye.
I went to the tree I thought was in the photo of my grandmother. Long grass, small flowers. The big tree cast a shadow, the blades moved with the wind, and my brain convinced me for a small gorgeous moment she was there. The moment after, when it was clearly only a tree, the shadow of its leaves in the bright-lit night, was one of the worst for me in a long time. It was as if I had lost her again. Feeling like that is why I try as much as I can to not think about her. I have understood since I was a child that life is deeply unfair. Life’s meanness is nothing. I’ve spent years now convincing myself that although something is unfair, it can still be worthwhile. My mother is healthy. Her laugh is different now. There’s no hesitation, no sourness. But this year has been a test.
I haven’t been religious in a long time. The god my grandma spoke about, the god I heard about in church, never spoke to me. I don’t mean that literally, like I was waiting to speak in tongues or to have him appear as a burning bush and order me around. There is no pleasure or comfort for me in the idea that an omnipotent being made a world like this one. Lately, I’ve been wishing things could be different. Having faith would mean I truly believe I could see her again.
My grandma wanted me to be a good person. I used to resent it when she told me to be a helper, to be kind. I would always wonder if I were a boy would she say the same things to me? Or would she tell me to be brave, to provide for my family, some other crap like that. She said to be brave was to be kind. I remember rolling my eyes. It felt like a social media daily affirmation. Too nice, too easy to mean anything real.
I walked back over to Charlie and Mariah when I felt less like I might start crying. They had pulled out the food we had brought to snack on. Blueberries, extra-sharp cheddar, crackers, beers. I asked them what they thought was the point of the studies, what were they truly trying to learn. Mariah said probably a lot of things. Charlie said it was a memory study. He didn’t look at me. He focused on using his pocketknife to cut the cheese into manageable chunks.
Maybe, I said, it’s like what’s going on in other countries. The doping, the experiments on soldiers and athletes. Maybe the United States was more cautious than other countries. They were using nobodies like us first, so they didn’t accidentally damage someone important. Charlie made an attempt at a joke, something about him being a very important person. I did not smile; we were not on good enough terms for me to pretend there was merit in his attempts at being funny. Mariah said she didn’t read the news. She kept asking me questions, kept patting her body and saying, But I don’t feel special. Why would they choose someone like me?