Tug Was Our Thing

“Do you think it has changed a lot?”

I was too busy cross-referencing my list of questions to hear that the Mark was talking to me. It was not until she called me by name that I caught on.

“Excuse me?”

“Since you were here, do you see a lot of changes?”

“I am having trouble recognizing anything familiar,” I answered honestly.

“Eldon, when was the last time we were down here?”

Make-believe Eldon must have been working on his own list, because he didn't respond to her either.

“Eldon?”

She let go of the steering wheel with her right hand and reached over to touch him on the leg. He started just as he had when I got too close to him earlier.

He looked down to the Mark's hand and then, as though following the line of her arm, he slowly raised his head until their eyes met.

“Yes, dear?” he said.

“Do you remember the last time we were out here?” the Mark asked.

“Yesterday?”

He had a strange expression on his face as though he knew the right answer, but was not certain if that fit the question he was answering.

You had to admire the craftsmanship.

“That's right. He's right, we were out here yesterday afternoon,” said the Mark.

“We were hoping to get a room over the water, but, with it being off-season and all....” Her voice trailed off.

“I am surprised with all these places that are here now, that one wouldn't be open.” I was aware of the effort it took to speak slowly and loudly enough to be heard over the road noise.

“So were we,” said the Mark. “One of the reasons we went into town was to call around and make sure we had a place before we needed to find one.”

“Good thinking,” I said before slumping back into my seat.

“After we're done at the park, we're headed to Murray Hill. Ever been there?”

Now it was my turn to be startled.

It couldn't have been a coincidence....

Save the Mark, play the Mark.

What could be in it for me to voluntarily go back to the Palace? That didn't make any sense.

I was out and I wanted to stay out.

Walking away from these two would not be difficult, especially if Pretend Eldon was intent on not breaking character. But, if I walked off the field, I would have to go dark and stay dark.

There was a time, right after the sheet cake, that I was ready to do that. I had plans and back-up plans, go-bags and dead-drops all worked out, but it's a full-time job keeping that current. The more time went by, the more people died, the safer I felt.

You can't stand guard duty all the time.

Like newstands, my networks began to close down one after the other until there were just a handful of drops around my house and I'm not sure I remember where all of them are anymore.

No, running was not an option; who would take care of my dog?

I had to play the hand.

Play the mark, save the Mark.

As I stared out the car window watching the cows that were watching us, I ran through a series of plays; if-this-then-that scenarios.

All I managed to accomplish was to give myself a headache.

“Can we stop for a moment?” I asked the Mark. “I need to find a restroom.”

“Oh, certainly,” she said. “What a good idea. It's about time for elevenses anyway. Eldon?”

Again, the Mark reached over and touched her make-believe husband on his leg and he jumped just as though someone had handed him a bare wire in a rainstorm.

“What? Oh...,” he said.

“I'm sorry, dear. I was just wondering if you'd like a coffee.”

“What time is it?”

“Just about eleven, dear.”

“Oh, I don't know. It's too early to take my pills, but if you two want to, that'll be fine.”

“What about the restroom?” she countered.

“Probably a good idea,” he said.

“That's settled then,” said the Mark. “Now we just have to figure out where.”

“I wonder where the locals go?” I said to nobody in particular.

“On vacation,” saod Eldon.

It was a good line, expertly timed and the Mark received it in much the same way as when her first-born first said “Mama.”

She laughed at the joke and said to me under her breath, “He's still in there.”

The man known as Eldon turned around to look at me. His mouth was smiling, but he had those operator eyes again.

I needed more intel: some sort of a handle on what was going on.

So far, this had been a two-handed game: me and the dealer. The phone and the atlas code at least introduced the possibility of a third player.

I needed a read on that person.

“There's a place,” I said.

“Where?” asked the Mark.

“Ahead on the left. See where the truck pulled out?”

“I see it,” said the Mark.

“It looks like a souvenir shop,” said Eldon.

“They might have coffee,” I said. “But they're certain to have a restroom.”

And a chance to introduce myself to the newest player.

The relatively smooth highway road surface gave way to the crushed stone of the gift shop's parking lot and it suddenly seemed as though we were driving on a carpet of bubble wrap.

I remember it feeling good to be out of the car: I was reaching my limit on confined spaces.

We were getting closer to the ocean. You could smell the salt in the air. It immediately reminded me of trips I used to make with the family.

We were never ones to go to a place and stay there, we were samplers. We would visit a place long enough to collect all the brochures and buy the authorized set of slides and then it was back in the car and on to the next place.  

The gift shop smelled.

There is no other way to describe it.

I'm sure the owners meant well: each display, each line of merchandise seemed to chosen because it fit their very personal vision about what an almost-seaside community should be, or smell like, but when you put a complete line of scented candles next to a complete line of flavored popcorn, next to a full-service flavored coffee bar, a cotton candy station and a tank full of barely alive lobsters, the overwhelming impression was more bus station restroom than tourist attraction.

I pushed through the various scent fronts and headed to the back of the store.

Sure enough, there was a restroom.

The moment I walked in, it was clear, they were waiting for the end of the season to clean.  Management's idea of sanitation was to change the cartridge in the deodorizer to an ever-increasing strength.

I closed the door behind me, locked it, and threw my weight up against it.

I fished the phone out of my pocket and punched in the numbers.

“I see you haven't lost your taste for the classics,” said the voice that answered.

“The good ones never go out of style,” I said.

“You have questions,” said the Voice.

“What I have is a dog,” I said. “He needs me. He doesn't like a lot of people.”

“Is that nature, or nurture, I wonder,” said the Voice.

“They say opposites attract,” I said after a pause.

“But then there are exceptions to every rule,” the Voice replied.

“Enough romance.”

“Agreed.”

“What's the threat?”

“We don't know.”

“Are you--? Is this some kind of test?”

“No.... But you will be graded.”

“The operator?”

“What operator?”

“The--. He knew me at the Palace.”

“Friendly?”

“I don't know what that means anymore.”

“What did they want?”

“I'm supposed to get us back to the Palace by the end of the day.”

“Why?”

“No idea.”

“Find out what you can,” said the Voice.

“How's my dog?”

“Check your phone,” the Voice said just before the line went dead.

As I pulled the phone away from my ear, I felt it vibrate. A banner appeared on the screen indicating I had received a text message.

Attached to the message was a video of my dog playing tug with the anonymous cameraman.

Tug, that was our thing.

I moved away from the door to wash my hands. I had only touched the door, but I felt I needed whole body decontamination.

There was a knock at the door.

“Just a minute, “ I said.

A Card from a Different Deck

Outside.

I was outside the wire for the first time in God knows how long.

No idea where I was, no idea how long I had been gone, only a travel brochure's worth of an idea of where we were going.

It was like the old days.

We would be on our way home from a job and suddenly get re-routed, put on to a new thing before the old thing had been written up and filed away.

Nothing good ever came out of those jobs.

Everybody said we were at our best when we could take the time to craft our play, to not only breed the rabbit, but also to make the hat out of which it would be pulled.

We could do short turnarounds. We did a lot of them. But they were never our best work.

To properly play a mark takes the kind of time that Make-Believe-Eldon was putting in. He was clearly on a first-name basis with all the pieces on the board. I, on the other hand, stuck out like a card from a different deck brought in to make up the full fifty-two.

The Mark waved at me from near the end of one of the parking lot rows.

I slid into the back seat and away we went.

I watched out of the car's back window as the Palace got smaller and smaller and then disappeared entirely. Glad to be away from that place and pissed off that I was now expected to contrive a reason that would bring us back here before the end of the day.

In a series of slow dissolves, the high-rise buildings around the Palace became the low-rise buildings of low-rent and retail before they became the high-rent suburbs and farmland.

In addition to the road noise, there was the soft murmur of public radio. My hearing is not what it used to be, but from what I could make out, the presenters were talking about birdhouses.

The sun seemed to twinkle as it passed through the barren trees. The greens and rusts were soothing to the eye. It was easy to get lost in your memories.

Occasionally, there were outbreaks of conversation from the front seat. About every five minutes the Mark would try to connect with her pretend partner. She would ask about events from his past, from their lives together, from their uncertain future. They were not intended to be threatening; they were gentle reminders of the life that she thought was leaving him behind.

“Do you remember when...?”

“Where were we when we saw...?”

“Is that a Turkey Vulture?”

He would struggle to get out his binoculars before giving up and saying “Oh, I don't know.” And his voice would trail off and silence would return.

They tried engaging me in conversation, but the car was just big enough and the white noise smoothie of road sounds and radio was just loud enough to make talking difficult.

Once, I leaned forward to thank them for including me in their trip and the Man Known as Eldon flinched as though I had startled him. The Mark warned me about making sudden movements and that was the end of our social time.

That was fine with me because it left more time to study the brochure that I had swiped from the Palace.

I watched the farms flicker by like the images on an old zoetrope.

It was an odd mix of new, pre-fab barns set up close to the road and decaying timber frame structures set well back from the road like old grey sway-backed mares that had been put out to pasture.

I must have dozed off because I remember at one point looking down and discovering that my brochure had slipped from my lap.

I leaned over to pick it up and that's when I saw it.

It was one of those large-format road atlases that used to be so popular before everybody's phones got so clever.

There was a post-it note stuck to the cover and my name was on it.

“Do you mind if I look at your atlas? I want to see if I can get my bearings if I'm going to play tour guide.”

“Atlas?” the Mark asked. “Oh, that must have come with the car. It's a rental. Feel free.”

“Thanks,” I said.

As I pulled the book from the seat pocket, I could tell that this copy had some supplements that were added after publication.

I opened to the bulge in the center and quickly slid the cellphone into my pocket.

I peeled the note from the cover and saw that there was also what looked like a phone number.

An atlas code? I hadn't seen one of those since....

I quickly thumbed through the pages to confirm that someone was trying to tell me something.

The phone number was written with all eleven digits, including the long-distance prefix—a charming throwback to a pre-wireless time: my time.

Three groupings: that told me I was looking for a set of three words.

I turned to the first dog-eared page.

There was a grid printed over the map with letters along the top margin and numbers down both sides.

On this first map, one of the letters and three of the numbers were circled.

S.

1,4,5.

On the next marked page, I found A, E, V. There were no circled numbers, but there was another sticky note. It had a simple arrow drawn on it pointing to the town of “Murray Hill.”

The next page had no letters, but it had five marked numbers: 2,3,6,8 and 9.

The next page brought me the letters E, H and T.

Two more pages and I had A, K, M and R.

The phone number on the sticky was the key. Three words and a phone number.

I had a phone, a three word message and a phone number.

And a whole new set of questions.

I was out, then I was in.

They want my help, but they won't tell me for what.

I was being held, then I'm released.

I'm supposed to bring the Mark back to the Palace at the end of the day and now I get a message telling me to “Save the Mark.”

Why?

What for?

Was any of this going to get me back to my life? My dog?

“Did you find what you were looking for?” asked the Mark.

I made like I couldn't hear her and didn't answer.

The Mark and her Pretend Eldon

I felt as though I had snapped something in my neck as I turned my attention to the man sitting next to me.

"Willy, pay attention."

Had me fooled.  I was certain he had slipped his moorings, that his mind was drifting upstream even as the rest of his body continued its paddle to the sea.

Most of that must have played across my face.

"We've only got a few minutes before she comes back."

Even as he was talking to me in hushed tones, he was continuing to work his character.

"You're coming with us."

"What?"  It was the best I could do.

"We can't leave town yet, so I need you to back my play."

"Who are you?"

"I'm your way out, that's all that matters."

"Who are we playing?"

"Jesus Christ, I don't have time for your shit."

As he said that, his eyes locked on mine and, for an instant, he had The Look:  that dead stare that operators get when they're operating.

No question he was a worker, just not clear for whom.

And like that, he was back in character, eating the crust of a piece of toast with slow, deliberate chews, apparently savoring the experience like the way children experience Christmas and junkies their first high of the day.  

Every move was carefully considered, every look a master class of studied uncertainty.  You could see his mind working, considering the possibilities of thought and action and being unable to chose one over any of the others.

"I don't care how you do it, but you've got to make sure we are back here this evening."

"Who is she?  What's the play?"

"Get your shit together.  Are you a professional?"

I was.  I had been a professional.  In that moment, I was not so sure.

Had to focus.

What did I know?  What did I not know?  What did I not know that I didn't know.

A hand the color of a file folder crisscrossed by a relief map of veins, punctuated with brown spots and pale pink knuckles, touched my shoulder.

As I turned my head, I noticed the operator shrink back into oblivion, like a Venus Flytrap closing around lunch.

"Has he been talking your ear off?"

The comment was made in a rueful way by someone who has spent an uncomfortable amount of time with a partner lost in his own thoughts.

"Eldon?" she said.  Her voice was gentle, but direct.

"Eldon."

No visible reaction.

She moved into his line of sight and touched the back of his hand.

It was a beautiful, bittersweet moment of disconnected connection.  You could tell that she still cared for this person she believed to be her husband, even as, each day, it was getting harder to remember how.

I was getting lost again.

I had no idea what the game was, but something big must be happening if they were going to such lengths to convince this woman that nothing was happening.

"Where are you headed?" I asked.

"No place in particular," she replied.  "We were going to drive down the coast and maybe visit the state park, do a little bird watching."

"No reservations, eh?  Best way to travel.  It's how I wound up here."

"Yes, we thought we might find a little off-season place down by the water for tonight."

She used one pronoun because she couldn't admit the truth of the other.

"State park?  Have you been there before?" I asked.

"Long time ago, before most people knew it was there."

"Lots has changed over the years," I said.

I had no idea where I was, let alone what place they were talking about, but I was being dealt new cards and I had to play them.

"I worked there off and on over the years," I lied.  "If you like, I could show you around.  Kind of a private tour."

"Really?" 

She was uncertain about me, but like me, seeking some relief.

"But your plans...?"  

She was now clearly looking for permission to have someone to talk to  during the drive while not seeming to impose.

"I'm retired, like I said.  I can be flexible.

"But we weren't coming back here...."

I knew she'd change her plans.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  Let's get out of here," I said.

She looked at the man she thought was her husband and at me, a complete stranger.

After a pause, she said, "Let's do it."

We rose from the table and shuffled toward the front door.

I pretended to have to tie my shoe in order to let them get ahead of me.

As soon as they were out of range, I headed straight for the rack of brochures.  There's one in every hotel, the pre-Internet Wikipedia of tourist traps.  Even today, when everybody can get the same sort of information on their phone, it's rare that you find one of these full-color tourist baits not fully stocked with information about places where travelers can go to be separated from their money.

I found exactly what I needed and read up on my old job site as I headed for the parking lot.  I didn't need to be an expert, just needed to know enough to bluff.  Nostalgia would take care of the rest.

I don't know what I expected to happen, but, as I approached the automatic doors, I flinched.  

Even though I had seen them open a moment before, I felt certain that they would respond to me differently.  

I was their prisoner.

Wasn't I?

But they opened.

The doors opened and I could just go through and be outside.

I didn't trust that it was real. 

It couldn't be real.

I was outside.

"Play the cards not the dealer.  Play the cards not the dealer."  

I kept repeating this to myself as I hurried to catch up with the mark and her pretend Eldon.

When You're a Nail

There was a long stretch of brown hallway extending in both directions.

The walls were part light-brown, part dark, and the carpet was half-way in between.

About every fifty or sixty feet, there was an unnecessary piece of furniture the sole purpose of which seemed to be to hold up an unnecessary vase of flowers.

I don't remember flowers at any Hampton Inn, but I also had not made a careful study, or visited their every location.

Left or right?

Not clear.

Like picking the fastest lane at the grocery check-out, I was going to pick the wrong one, so I started to my right and then, before I had reached the first vase, I stopped, turned back, took a few steps, stopped, looked at the room numbers, smacked myself on the head and continued on, back the way I had come and on down that side of the hall.

As I was performing that elaborate pantomime for cameras that I knew would be there, even if I had not yet spotted them, I was not sure who I thought I was fooling. It was as though I could change my fate by first seeming to commit to one choice and then switching to the other. Kind of like trying to break a run of bad luck at the crap table by throwing with the other hand.

This was a big hotel: lots of halls and forks, point of decision.

I could feel the items in the cart in front of me begin to multiply with each turn and with every fork.

Periodically, there would be fire doors. Solid, anonymous and only incorporated into the studiously neutral design scheme as an after-thought, the doors reminded me of my circumstances and the possibility of risk.

Every one of the sets of doors was either propped partially or completely open. Even a small fire would have plenty of room to grow in this giant wind tunnel.

What seemed like miles of corridors and no sign of an elevator.

Hundreds of doors, lots of partially, or fully, open fire doors; an unknown quantity of unnecessary flowers.

Unlimited potential as far as they eye could see.

Until there wasn't.

I had reached a set of fire doors that was completely closed.

I stopped.

To this day, I swear, I felt a cold rush of air on the back of my neck.

This was a real decision and I wasn't ready for it.

I could have kept going. The crash bars that were designed to get the door open quickly in case of an emergency were on my side of the door. It would have been a simple matter to push on the bar and let my momentum carry me forward.

It would have been so simple.

I'm not sure why, but this felt different, much more important. Too important to be rushed.

My circumstances were talking to me and I needed to be smart enough to pay attention.

I met a range officer years ago, when I was in Basic. He was one of those guys who moved slow but with eyes that were always in motion. You could tell he saw everything and had to have been in the real deep shit back in his day. He was one of those guys who found out he was no longer built for the real world.

He went everywhere with a gnarled old sheleighlee that was as thick around as my wrist. You could tell he needed it as his gait was studied and his steps deliberate.

I paid my dues as a range rat and figured I had earned enough of his trust to ask him about his walking stick.

“It's not a 'walking stick',” he said. “Only assholes and officers have walking sticks: I work for a living.”

It was direct and colorful and had all the trappings of a well-rehearsed line.

“This is a sheleighlee, straight from the old country.”

By contrast, this line was delivered with honest reverence. I wasn't sure which country he meant, but even at that age I was smart enough to know I should not ask.

“This...is not a stick—sticks break—this is a root.”

You could tell from the way that he held it that it was an object to be respected and appreciated, even if you were not exactly clear what it was you were supposed to be appreciating.

“I suppose you want to hear the story. Which one of them put you up to it?”

I froze.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“You're not going to be in trouble.”

If I knew anything for certain, it was that I was definitely going to be in trouble.

My face must have given me away. I could feel my ears get warm even as I felt certain all the blood had drained from my head. I suddenly felt dizzy.

“Och, sit down before you fall down,” he said. “It's no fun playing with your generation.... I'm just having a bit of fun. Seriously, sit down.”

I collapsed onto a nearby stool.

“We were range testing a light artillery piece. Damn thing put me in the hospital.”

“What happened?” I'm not sure how I was able to come up with that.

“I dropped my guard,” said the range master.

“I knew something was wrong—blasted thing had been talking to me all morning—and I didn't pay attention.

“Those Oil Cans, you know them? Of course not, why would you? The Oil Can has an open breach and when a round hangs up, it still goes off and this one went everywhere. Lot of it into my leg.”

I must have sworn because the sergeant had no patience for profanity. I know it had to have been something like that because I felt the breeze on my cheek as his not-a-stick crashed into the work table behind me sending pieces, parts and me flying.

With the same impact of root meeting work table, the idea of paying close attention to instinct and experience was fused in me.

I turned away from the closed fire doors and headed back the way I had come.

I had no way of knowing what was behind that door, but I knew enough to know I'd be better off not knowing.

Back down the hallways, turning right where I should have gone left and left where I had turned right.

I watched the room numbers climb even as I wondered which number had been mine.

While there may have been some comfort to be found in the relentless sameness of these mid-price hotels, it was all too easy to lose your way, forget what city you were in and whatever had been the goal of your original mission.

Keep the Subject Disoriented: the prime directive of interrogation and I had done it to myself.

I would have to watch that.

We had done exactly this to marks we had played over the years. Stuff them in a black box and feed them only enough clues so that they think they know what's going on.

More twists and turns, more unnecessary flowers.

I must have passed my starting point because I became aware of things I did not recall seeing before.

Perhaps this was the occupied end of the hall because there were newspapers on the floor in front of some of the doors and discarded room service trays in front of others.

Room service.... At a Hampton Inn...? Every time I saw that, I wondered about the size of the Fuck You that had to represent.

Nobody is going to be impressed by that, I don't care who they are. The food itself, is going to be disappointing and if you're such a prick to think that you can impress a third party by ordering room service, then I guess you deserve that.

More unnecessary everything.

More fire doors and again, all of them open.

A T-intersection.

Left or right?

I chose right.

A little more hallway and then a set of double doors.

This was different.

The doors had windows in them and what looked like an elevator lobby on the other side.

I pushed through.

This could be a good sign: an elevator would definitely change my circumstances....

I touched the recessed circle inside what looked like a glass life preserver.

It lit up and, almost immediately, the doors parted.

I admit it, I had to think about it for a second. We had done a lot of shit to people inside of elevators.

But then I thought I wasn't really in a position to over-think the test.

The doors closed behind me as I studied the button board.

Up or down?

Up to survey the whole board, or down to meet the pieces.

Decisions..., decisions....

And then elevator chose for me.

The doors opened on the bright yellow lobby.

There was a surprising number of people milling about. Usually, nobody spends time in the lobby of places like this. No reason to, nothing to see. Not like the old-line hotels with barber shops, newsstands and cigarette girls.

Nothing like that.

And then I knew what they were there for: breakfast.

It was an amenity..., of sorts, and one way for the chain to claim its affiliation with its corporate masters at Hilton.

It was the usual mix of carbs and proteins: eggs, of a kind, waffles, of a type, sausage of uncertain provenance.

But it was free-ish and all-you-can-eat and judging by the glassy eyes of the people milling around, they were there to make sure that no one told them how much they could eat.

It wasn't until that moment, right then, that I realized how hungry I was. The power of group-think, I suppose, but I could not remember the last time I had fed myself.

I joined in the slow shuffle past the chafing dishes and made myself a plate.

Plate filled, the next question was where to sit.

All the tables were occupied, or mostly occupied. There were traveling salesmen in their ill-fitting suits and families in their matching track suits. Seniors and juniors, screaming babies and kids jacked up on sugar tearing around the lobby while their parents lingered over coffee.

I found an older couple sharing a four-top and asked if I could borrow the unused end while I ate my food.

The question seemed to completely throw the man. He's wasn't angered so much as he had no place to put the question. Completely focused on his coffee, toast and traveling companion, my question, my intrusion on his world, had no context: like watching a foreign language film with no subtitles. He looked at me, because I had made a noise, and then he looked at his wife for a translation.

She returned his gaze before looking at me.

All the lines in her face led either to her eyes, or her mouth, as though she were a born communicator.

She smiled at me and then it seemed as though those same lines were radiating from her eyes and from her mouth.

“No trouble at all,” she said. “We were just finishing up.”

That was not true, unless they had filled their plates before deciding they were not hungry.

“Finish your coffee, dear,” she said to her husband. “I'll pay the bill and then we can get on the road.”

“What...?” He had been lost in his own thoughts and her instructions brought him back to an unfamiliar world.

“Oh..., yes dear.” He shot me a quick sly look.

“Are you on vacation?”

The question seemed to come out of nowhere and, for a moment, I felt like the man sitting to my left. Where was I?

“Traveling for work?”

Oh, right.

“No,” I said. “I'm retired.” At least, I thought I was retired.

“So are we,” the woman said. “We were thinking that once we did it, we'd be able to relax and now it seems we're busier than ever.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “Go, go, go.” I toasted them with my coffee.

The woman turned to her husband. “I'm just going to pay the bill. You be okay?”

There was a pause while the question wicked its way into his consciousness.

“What...? Oh, yes.”

The woman pushed herself to her feet and began to waddle off. She didn't so much lift her feet as pull them off the floor with her hips, the net effect of which was her movement resembled one of those wind-up walking toys.

My table mate seemed to be completely absorbed by his toast.

That was, until, the woman vanished behind a column.

“Willy.”

I didn't hear it at first.

“Willy!”

Captors and Cat Burglars

I put my feet on the floor.

I don't know what I was expecting, but I remember the experience being a bit of a letdown.  The place looked like a Hampton Inn, so there was no reason not to expect that it should feel like one.

Christ, how long had I been in that bed?  Felt like months.

Oh..., very funny.  Shut up:  we'll listen to you run your mouth when you get the talking stick.

It was a hell of a good set.  SPEC SERV had really done their homework.  They had nailed the sights, sounds and smells of the hotel.  For all I knew, I could have been in the real deal.

As far as I could tell, they hadn't missed a trick.  The plastic-wrapped plastic cups, the one-cup coffee maker that made fresh, but disgusting, coffee, the ads for the pizza chain and the local delivery service that probably brought a traveler whatever and whoever was on his on-the-road-wicked-wish-list.

There was a Bible in the nightstand and stale batteries in the TV remote.

In the bathroom, there were three identical bottles with three different labels on them.  They were square and not much wider than a sugar cube.  Each contained an equal measure of the same, sketchy, pass-for-white liquid.  One was marked "moisturizer," the next "shampoo" and the third "conditioner."

The clothes were a bit of a surprise.

Under the TV was a dresser full of clothes and, in the closet, were a variety of pants and a handful of dress shirts.

That was weird.

Yes, that was the weird part.  And, you know what, Mr. Smartass, weirder still was the fact that they fit:  they were my size.  I hadn't expected that.

It meant that whatever was going to happen next, they wanted me to dress for it.

I was going to be leaving the room, going back up the funnel.

The clothes may have not been to my taste, but they were by my favorite designer:  Opportunity.

I did the best I could to wash the hospital off of me and, in the process, used most of two bottles of the shampoo-moisturizer-conditioner.

I dressed as quickly as I could and then tried to figure out my next move.

I figured they would come and get me when they were ready.

I tried out a number of different  poses trying to find one that conveyed the proper level of indifference.

I propped myself up on the bed first leaving it unmade and then again after I had made it.

I set myself up at the cafe table that served as a desk and then in the easy chair that served as comfortable.

Each was unsatisfying.  All were uncomfortable.

I ended up perched on the end of the bed like I was waiting for a school bus.

Every so often, I would look over my shoulder to check the bedside clock radio.

The first hour passed at a geological rate and the ones that came after were even slower.

What the hell?

What were they waiting for?

I was sitting for such a long time that I actually had to convince myself that it was okay to use the restroom, or to look out the window, as though, if I did either of those things, I might miss my hosts and thus have wasted all of this time I had invested in waiting.

Would it be okay if I turned on the TV?

Did I think they would mind?

I became obsessed with the etiquette of my situation and concerned I might offend the people who were holding me.

Absurd on the face of it and yet very real.

And the longer I sat there, the worse it got.

And it was not like I could change my mind, because what if they wanted me thinking this way?

It was mirrors reflecting on mirrors, monitors playing back the live feed from the video cameras pointed at them.

Breaking the loop was simple, actually doing it was hard.

All I had to do was anything else and yet it was all I could do to do anything else.

I reached for the remote.

And, as if to signal the gravity of my error, the heating unit under the window that had been manufacturing frigid air since I was first delivered into the room suddenly went silent.

I changed something and something changed.

As I sat there attributing some meaning to what had just happened, I could hear mysterious pops and creaks coming from inside the heating unit and from behind the walls that surrounded me.

It was like an HVAC Greek chorus seeming to comment on my expression of free will and daring me to push another button.

Hoping to restore order, I pointed the remote at the TV like a phaser and killed the program like it was an expendable redshirt.

As soon as I had done that, I regretted it.

I tossed the remote as far away from myself as I could, as though it had suddenly become radioactive.

I went back to perching on the end of the bed.

And there it was:  I was thinking like a prisoner.

I would have to watch that.

Letting your guard down is like getting pregnant:  it only takes a moment and your circumstances are forever changed.  Being on guard is completely binary:  you are, or you aren't and that's what captors and cat burglars depend on.  

It's a game of patience and whoever has the most, wins.

I'd lost mine and all I could do now was hope they hadn't noticed.

And of course they would have noticed, but how would they respond?

I could wait and see, or I could give them something else to think about.

I forced myself to calm down.  I had to think like a jailer.

I thought of all those times we got people to give up their deepest and their darkest; how we would trick people into telling us what no amount of interrogation would have ever produced.

When you're going to be interrogated, you very quickly recognize that not talking is the only thing that is keeping you alive.  You talk and the pain stops, but so too does your heart.

We would spend lots of time and money to make a mark feel as though they were free so that their information would seem less valuable.  Instead of looking for a pain threshold, we would lead a mark to show us where their pride lived and we would play that.

If they were proud of the fact that that they had beaten their jailer then we would celebrate that, make them the hero of the revolution, or whatever their given circumstances were.

They had successfully withstood the efforts of counter-revolutionary extremists and earned the everlasting love of the people.

We would routinely act as the transportation company assigned to get the mark from where they had been held to the welcoming bosom of the motherland.

We would present ourselves as apolitical, as consumed by our own affairs.

Such a simple ruse and yet so powerful.

Time and again, people would give us precisely what we told them we did not want because we were the opposite of interrogators.

It's the espionage equivalent of being told not to think about pink elephants.

And that's how they were playing me, had to be.

Why would they choose this scenario?  This hotel?

I looked at the door.

It didn't look like a security door....

And then I knew, without being told, that it wasn't.

If they were trying to get something from me, locking me in the room was exactly the wrong way to get it.

So, I stood up, crossed the room, and opened the door.