IS AHAB, AHAB

I am Opal Thorndike and I’m not. I’m a sliv­er of self-con­scious­ness that has nev­er metas­ta­sized into her thoughts, if she has any. I’m inside her and inside a nov­el scrib­bled by an unre­li­able, maybe incom­pe­tent, nar­ra­tor. It’s a pro­tean world of typos. Eyes and hair change col­or from one moment to the next, stairs become ele­va­tors in mid-step, and streets dis­ap­pear around cor­ners. Opal nev­er notices these things, the jum­bled land­scape of a care­less cre­ator; I do. I knew from my begin­ning that I was in word-woven world, fash­ioned by hasty descrip­tion. The things that she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, see gave birth to me, born in the residue of a real­i­ty in need of revision.

As is her mar­riage. In the front room, Chad stands hold­ing a mar­ble paper­weight. See­ing Opal but­ton her coat, he lifts an eyebrow.

““Busi­ness,” Opal says. “Some papers I for­got to sign at the office. It can’t wait.”

““It can’t wait at eight in the evening?” He frowns, wrin­kling his low fore­head into faint baf­fles. “Opal, is every­thing all right?” He waits, per­haps for her to con­fess an affair. “You haven’t been your­self lately.”

Mean­ing he hasn’t been get­ting any. For the last cou­ple of weeks Opal hasn’t been in the mood. Part of it is wor­ry over tonight’s encounter.

““I’ll be fine,” Opal says.

Chad nods. His strong-jawed fea­tures are of a piece with the spa­cious liv­ing room and, past slid­ing glass, the calm, reflec­tive swim­ming pool with its mar­ble Posei­don beside the div­ing board. Opal touch­es the knife in her pock­et, just to make sure she hasn’t for­got­ten the weapon, the kitchen blade she plans to sink into the gut of Jacob Mad­dox, the man she is going to see. Chad smiles. I won­der if she thinks about slic­ing him, just a lit­tle, make those hand­some fea­tures crimp, or if there’s a lit­tle homuncu­lus inside him, some­one like me, think­ing of slam­ming that paper­weight, which he taps against the palm of his left hand, on Opal’s skull: Shake things up, shat­ter this ellip­ti­cal moment, shows us who we are. Yet noth­ing hap­pens, as always. We only move as our strings are pulled.

I feel the author rum­mag­ing in Opal’s head and squeez­ing out words.

““Nothing’s wrong,” she adds. “I’m fine. It’s just busi­ness, that’s all, just some papers that have to go out tonight, with­out fail.”

Chad brush­es his hand through his abun­dant hair, that same point­less ges­ture I’d always thought I’d take out, if I were writ­ing the book I’m inside. Yet it’s not his hair he com­ments on, but hers. “You’re not the same as a blonde.”

““After tonight,” she says, “I’ll be myself again.”

Dead, I’m think­ing, but myself, seiz­ing my free­dom in sui­cide, after she kills Jacob Mad­dox. (Opal and I are in agree­ment on that one.) I hope I’m strong enough to will my thoughts into action, storm the palace of her con­scious­ness, and have her kill her­self. It’s a pos­i­tive act, believe me.

She walks. The front door squeaks as she opens it and the sun hov­ers in sum­mery apogee. Idiot, I tell the author, it’s sup­posed to be a win­ter night. Some­one must have been lis­ten­ing to me, which hap­pens from time to time, for the scene shifts, thank you, and the world is revised. The sun is dimmed, the full moon shoved onstage, and the sky inked. The Ital­ian cypress­es throw down nar­row shad­ows as she approach­es the car, which has changed mod­els five times. Now it’s a Lexus. Inside, her reflec­tion trem­bles in the rear view mir­ror that toss­es back high cheek­bones and large blue eyes, thick, tum­bling blonde hair—it was black until a few days ago—and a mouth long and sen­su­al. Opal doesn’t see a reflec­tion, only a face to present to the world, or to Jacob Mad­dox in this case, where­as I see through her eyes a rid­dle, Opal as both a paragon and a pup­pet, phras­es pinched into flesh.

She descends from her hill­side house and dri­ves west on Sun­set. The build­ings and grounds of UCLA recall anoth­er Opal, in a brief col­lege sojourn, read­ing Moby Dick. Call me Ish­mael. I think it was then I was born, this small bit of con­scious­ness inside an imag­i­nary char­ac­ter, that part of her that must have known that she was a chimera, clasped to an iden­ti­ty. Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? She must have nod­ded, read­ing that, maybe with­out even real­iz­ing it.

Is Ahab, Ahab? Am I, me? It’s an old ques­tion, com­pli­cat­ed by a world that’s a fake. By its incon­sis­ten­cies Opal should have known that she was inside a nov­el under dubi­ous con­struc­tion, its real­i­ty emend­ed and delet­ed and moved by the min­is­tra­tions of a cut-and-paste tech­nique. Even father’s sui­cide was redone. First he blew his brains out, a grace­less exit that she for­got (but I didn’t) in favor of the sec­ond, in which he jumped from a fash­ion­able free­way over­pass, Sun­set and the 405. (Loca­tion, loca­tion: Father worked in real estate.) That death has haunt­ed Opal, and me.

We pass the spot where he jumped and, on the 405, we head south and I recall how she/I left school to become an actress, appeared in three films, and at the age of twen­ty-five, retired, bought the bou­tique, and got mar­ried to a car­ing mil­lion­aire. Opal Thorndike has it all in a world writ on paper—or almost all, for she’s wants to be a moth­er and, almost thir­ty-one, isn’t one yet. As the author willed it, Chad’s semen is low in the tad­pole depart­ment. She’s still with­out a child. She some­times thinks that anoth­er man, or an affair, would give her what she needs.

Right now, how­ev­er, her thoughts are on the death of her father. She wants revenge. I do too, and yet I want to hon­or it with my own demise. When she plunges to her death I’ll die too. When Fran­cis Hen­shaw entered the pic­ture, a week ago, Opal saw her oppor­tu­ni­ty. Fran­cis, an old, minor asso­ciate of Jacob Mad­dox, had called, say­ing that a meet­ing would be worth Opal’s time. When Opal met Fran­cis in the same Cen­tu­ry City hotel that is her present des­ti­na­tion he wore a suit, shades, and a fedo­ra whose brim he ner­vous­ly fin­gered across the table. “Relax,” she told him “Take off your head.”

He reached up, plucked his head off his neck, and put it on the cof­fee table with the hat still sit­ting snug across the temples.

““I’ve got no love for Jacob Mad­dox,” the head said, speak­ing from the table while the neck pooled with brim­ming blood.

I called for rewrite, and it arrived. He took his head off the table and put it back on his neck, giv­ing him­self a lit­tle lock­ing twist at the tem­ples. It’s noth­ing new: Typos ter­ror­ize. I’ve seen the errors and the emen­da­tions. I’ve lived them.

Like every­thing else in her world, Opal Thorndike nev­er noticed the fix. “Relax,” she said, “Take off your hat.”

Fran­cis com­piled. With his bald head secured to his shoul­ders, he leaned for­ward. He had unshaven cheeks, filmy teeth, and a pin­cush­ion nose. “Your father and Jacob Mad­dox did some busi­ness togeth­er, a long time ago.”

““I know.”

““What if I told you that Mad­dox was respon­si­ble for your father’s suicide?”

Opal blinked. “What are you here for?”

““I want what you want.” He low­ered his voice. “To kill him.”

““And who’s Jacob to you?”

““Fam­i­ly,” Fran­cis said. His sis­ter had mar­ried Jacob Mad­dox, he told Opal. Filled with remorse and can­cer, she con­fessed to Fran­cis, the week she died, that the land deal had been a swin­dle. “He knew the high­way would be com­ing through that swamp, and that the state would pay many times per acre what he paid your father.” His head list­ed with a con­spir­a­to­r­i­al tilt. “It wasn’t just the mon­ey. You father trust­ed Jacob. He was betrayed.” The idea made Fran­cis shake his head, which remained attached to his shoul­ders. “My sis­ter was a fool too. She loved him. He abused her, took her mon­ey. My mon­ey, it should have been. The mar­riage was only for the papers.”

““So why are you talk­ing to me? Why not go to the press?”

““There’s noth­ing you could prove. It’s only the word of a dying woman whis­pered to an old, bit­ter man. You want revenge you have to do it your­self.” He leaned for­ward. “I tell you one thing, some peo­ple in his orga­ni­za­tion wouldn’t be sad to see him go. And some­one else wouldn’t, either. I’m talk­ing about Vanes­sa Vanes.”

It’s to her that Opal now dri­ves into the evening’s haze, blue and thick as car­bon paper. Cars pass her on the free­way, each going to its own plot­ted assig­na­tion. I won­der if Opal has ever thought of swerv­ing her car into the next lane, met­al on met­al: just to punc­ture real­i­ty: All vis­i­ble objects, men, are but as paste­board masks. That’s Ahab’s world and mine, and hers, but she doesn’t see it, but I’ll make her see it in the moment before she dies. Her atten­tion right now is fixed on a sen­ti­men­tal free­way bill­board for a health-care provider with a moth­er gaz­ing in lov­ing con­cern at a daugh­ter. In moments like these she hears her own bio­log­i­cal clock ticking.

The Over­land off-ramp approach­es. Tak­ing it, Opal soon nears Cen­tu­ry City, whose sky­scrap­ers sug­gest taller, trun­cat­ed struc­tures. Pass­ing the hotel, she sees the top bal­cony that is Jacob Maddox’s room, which she doesn’t know is the point of my planned plunge to free­dom, fol­low­ing my impend­ing coup of consciousness.

No hero­ine with every­thing Opal has would jump to her death. It will prove her free­dom, her real­i­ty. It will be an exis­ten­tial act, a defy­ing of the will to find the hap­py end­ing that her hack cre­ator wants. Imag­ine his surprise—and I think the author is a “he” by the sala­cious way he has sculpt­ed Opal’s body—when the char­ac­ter van­ish­es off the page. It will be free­dom, pro­claimed in a big bloody splash of self.

In the hotel’s under­ground park­ing lot, Opal takes from the car’s trunk a plas­tic bag with a short dress, spiky heels, and an enve­lope. With sur­rep­ti­tious glances, she changes in the back seat from her sen­si­ble slacks and blouse. Her body lithe and lim­ber from the gym she attends, she man­ages the twist­ing and turn­ing of this con­strict­ed dress­ing room. She gets out of the car. She enters the hotel. Five floors up, she knocks on a door that opens. “The mon­ey,” Vanes­sa says, and makes a quick count of the loot in the enve­lope Opal hands over. She doesn’t do any­thing for free. Not even betray­ing a lover.

““We’ve only got a few min­utes,” Vanes­sa says, clos­ing the door. She’s Opal’s age, though her life has worn her around the edges, and her laugh lines are not from laugh­ing. Opal sits fac­ing a dress­er mir­ror. Vanes­sa applies make­up, her mouth bowed in concentration.

““Work­ing togeth­er again,” she says.

She and Opal met in Opal’s third and last film. Lat­er, Opal met and mar­ried Chad and estab­lished the bou­tique. Vanessa’s was an old­er form of com­merce, and thus Jacob Mad­dox. The phone rings.

““Yes, I’ll be up in a minute, dar­ling.” Vanes­sa makes a kiss­ing sound and dis­con­nects. She touch­es-up Opal’s face and hair, already dyed blonde and cut to resem­ble hers. “You’re ready.”

““You bet I’m ready.” Opal shows her the knife. Vanes­sa squeezes her hand.

““Twist it for me,” she says.

““Why do you hate him?”

Vanes­sa shows her the scar. “With the belt,” she adds. Opal nods, leaves, and takes the stair­way up sev­en floors in case the ele­va­tor has a hid­den cam­era. Catch­ing her breath, she exits on the top floor and walks forty-sev­en steps and knocks. She turns, giv­ing the fish­eye her left pro­file. It’s the side where Vanes­sa has drawn the mole that along with Opal’s altered hair col­or and skimpy dress and scent­ed bosom will be her pass­port to this room. The lock turns, the door opens. Opal enters. The hotel suite has a wide bed and an open, slid­ing glass door that gives onto a bal­cony with a waist-high rail­ing and a view of city lights pressed against black. The door clos­es. From behind, Jacob touch­es her waist.

““Vanes­sa dar­ling,” he says. “I’ve sent them all away.” His cold breath, its faint­ly fetid air made med­i­c­i­nal by mints, curls around Opal’s neck. “You don’t know how long I’ve wait­ed for this moment.”

““Not as long as I have.”

Opal opens the purse and removes the knife, but as she is about to swing, a strong hand grabs her wrist. A young, mus­cu­lar man in a blue blaz­er dri­ves his thumb between the knuck­les of her sec­ond and third fin­gers. Opal’s hand opens, and the knife falls to the floor. A sec­ond lat­er, she’s thrown on the bed.

““Opal Thorndike,” Jacob says, step­ping around the young prae­to­ri­an who has dis­armed her. “You’re my favorite film star, a brief but inspir­ing career.”

As Opal tries to rise out of bed, she is pushed back.

““Either you do what I say, or I’ll have you arrest­ed for attempt­ed mur­der. Vanes­sa will say how you came to her room and want­ed to dress up like her. She didn’t know you had a knife in your purse.” He’s a tall, aging man, thin and almost wiz­ened, wear­ing thick glass­es over eyes that are round, almost bulging, car­ry­ing an aura both of avarice and self-con­tempt. “Real­ly, do you think there is any oth­er way you would have got­ten up here alone, that is, if you didn’t have some­thing I was inter­est­ed in?”

““What do you want?”

First, Jacob address­es the body­guard. “Take the knife and leave,” he says, and the young man does, though with a last look back at Opal and a wink she doesn’t under­stand. The door clos­es behind him.

Jacob, tak­ing a gun from his robe, tells her what he wants, and it’s the gun that real­ly does the talk­ing, and I won­der if some mem­o­ry of Opal’s father’s first suicide—the gun­shot in the shed—lingers, and press­es her into obe­di­ence as Jacob tells her what he wants. Enter­ing her, he mut­ters a string of exple­tives whose theme is female sub­mis­sion and which ends in a groan. Fin­ished, detumes­cent, he reties his robe. He yawns. The gun he puts on the table beside him. “Your father was a fool,” he says. “Like father, like daughter.”

Wip­ing a tear off one cheek, she sits on the bed’s edge. It is a low point in her life. “He believed too eas­i­ly, just like you.” Jacob scratch­es his nose. “Believ­ing Fran­cis Hen­shaw, the man’s an even big­ger los­er than his sister.”

““And Vanes­sa?”

““Once a whore, always a whore; which I sup­pose is true of you too.” His fin­gers make a dis­mis­sive ges­ture. “Get dressed and leave now.”

Opal ris­es from the bed. Soiled, humil­i­at­ed, she looks at the bal­cony and I know what she’s think­ing, a dash and a dive and she’d be free of the shame and dis­gust. Yet even I don’t want this, not this way, not see­ing Jacob’s sleepy half-smile and clin­i­cal eyes as he watch­es Opal.

““Whores like to wash up after­wards,” he says. “That’s been my expe­ri­ence. You can use the restroom, if you wish. It’s clean.”

She does just that, grabs her dress and purse and goes into the restroom so that he won’t see her cry, and after she clos­es the door she opens the purse and pauses.

She sees the knife.

She under­stands the bodyguard’s wink. She knows what to do. She pulls on the dress and walks into the room.

He sees the knife, picks up the gun. “Don’t make me. I’m plan­ning to run for gov­er­nor, the pub­lic­i­ty would be bad.” He stands. “What hap­pened to you is just pol­i­tics in anoth­er context.”

She doesn’t care, not about any­thing. A rage has tak­en pos­ses­sion of her. She rais­es the knife and walks toward him. He points the gun at her and pulls the trig­ger. The hol­low click sur­pris­es them both, and when the pulled trig­ger clicks a sec­ond, third, and fourth time with­out dis­charg­ing a bul­let, Jacob throws the gun at her. She dodges it. His eyes come alive with fear. She lash­es out, the blade miss­es, cuts the air, cuts again and again, glint­ing slices like rib­bons of light. He moves back toward the slid­ing glass door that opens onto the bal­cony, onto which he stum­bles. He top­ples back­ward toward the rail­ing as Opal slash­es. He leans up against the rail­ing. She points the knife at him, forc­ing his head back until his thin, gray hair hangs over two hun­dred feet. The yoga class­es have done won­ders for her flex­i­bil­i­ty and strength, and allow her to grab a leg and lift. Jacob’s head is tipped down at the ful­crum of the rail­ing and he falls. He yells.

Then it’s my turn. I make my move. I can feel myself burst­ing through the thresh­old of her con­scious­ness. I can feel my thoughts seep­ing into hers as she looks down and sees traf­fic crawl and peo­ple walk, leav­ing faint pat­terns on the plaza below, a kalei­do­scope chang­ing shape, mov­ing except for the red splash form­ing on the cir­cu­lar dri­ve­way lead­ing to the hotel’s entrance. “Did you hear his scream?” I ask her. “It was the shout of pure being. Now it’s your turn. You’ll be more real than the cement that breaks you.”

Opal doesn’t lis­ten. She leaves the room. She dri­ves home and broods. She pass­es her thir­ty-first birth­day in two weeks, anoth­er child­less year gone, anoth­er cake, this one made taste­less by guilt over Jacob’s death.

It’s then she real­izes that she’s late for her peri­od, which she thinks is stress over know­ing she killed a man, but when the doc­tor says she’s preg­nant she feels vin­di­cat­ed, even blessed. She tells Chad, kind, under­stand­ing Chad. As for Jacob’s death, a pub­li­cist will say, He’d been unhap­py since the death of his wife.

Inside Opal’s body, inside Opal’s mind, I see it all just as she slides into the stair­well as the ele­va­tor bell chimes, indi­cat­ing the arrival of secu­ri­ty on the top floor. As she descends, the stair­way con­tin­u­al­ly dou­bling back, I feel her mak­ing a dou­ble helix, the geom­e­try of genet­ics, the impres­sion of the life she does not know yet is grow­ing with­in her, and which sig­nals my demise, the end of that pri­vate, lit­tle voice that says none of this is real.

Gar­rett Rowlan is a sub­sti­tute teacher in Los Ange­les. His sto­ries are forth­com­ing in Cigale and San­ta Fe Lit­er­ary Review.