All I had to do was stick to the legend....
Which one?
Why?
Who was the mark?
I had been sheetcaked. I was out, no longer a player.
I remember that very clearly: trading life and limb for a Wal-Mart sheetcake. I remember exactly how that felt.
And I remember the years spent in the weeds trying to pass as a civilian. How do they do it?
I still have the bruises from hitting all the steps on the way down. And I remember the cold, sandy taste in my mouth when I hit bottom.
Was it all a play?
What did he mean?
My toasty warm eiderdown was becoming oppressive.
“Stick to the legend.”
The legend is the story you tell the mark that makes them back your play. The legend is the map to the Inside Track, the Secret Passage that takes a mark out of their comfort zone and toward the parking spot between the rock and the very hard place. The legend wasn't real, it was never real. When we were working, we sold it like it was real, but it was never real.
The time between that cake and this moment was real.
It sure felt real.
Were they playing me?
Could they have played me?
Was this another version of the too-small suit?
And what was that about Rollin and Cinnamon?
I had long ago lost track of that bitch and I remember being told that Rollin had died. I remember that. I remember the suit he gave me that day.
Was it all for show? Was I being roped in?
Is this what it feels like to get played?
Holy fuck!
What about the car crash and the fire? Was that part of it?
Could that have been part of it?
Christ, I set fire to that house.... And for nothing?
Didn't seem like nothing, but it could have been for nothing.
I was beginning to feel sick. Really sick.
helps always did like the long game, but who could he be playing against that would take this long to set up...?
And why was I on the outside?
Was this what it was like to be disavowed?
The doctors were coming in...: this was the point where he chose to step in, so it had to mean something. Was the play against one of the doctors?
“Stick to the legend.” Tell the story; make them believe it; make it real.
But it was real. I had to be careful to make the truth seem like it was real: there's no way to do that and not look like you're lying.
You're dead in the water the minute you find yourself using phrases like “This is a true story,” or “This really happened.”
Was it that he wanted them not to believe me? Why didn't he want them to believe my story?
The doctors were coming and Phelps had set me up so they were going to think I was lying.
What would my story possibly mean to the doctors?
I thought about that for a long time.
It couldn't mean anything to them which meant that the play wasn't for them, but for whoever was responsible for the handcuffs. They'd be interested in why my story sounded like a legend.
I was thinking too much and that was going to show in my telling of it.
You can't over-think the legend, or it becomes a shaggy dog: entertaining, perhaps, but something better left with it owner than taken home and adopted.
Simple and direct: walking the dog, was being followed, sought refuge in the vacant house, person or persons unknown set fire to smoke me out, rescued by the fire department, taken to hospital.
Simple and direct.
Simple and direct.
The harsh overhead lights snapped on and a small company of white coats came into the room.
They completely ignored the man in the next bed and his family of medical equipment and instead crowded around my bed like visitors to the zoo crowded around the viewing window trying to catch a glimpse of a new-born Panda.
As far as I could tell, it was only tangentially relevant that I was even there. The white coats were focused on the one of their number who was standing closest to my cuffed hand. He was the expert, the Master of Ceremonies and he was about to introduce me.
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