But talking to ’em is a waste of time, you’re saying?
Once you have a sense of the tradition, Welles says, it will be easy for you to tell who is a charlatan, who is simply insane. There are some who are knowledgeable and serious, I suppose, but they tend to keep to themselves. Also, their interests seem to accrue around industrial abstracts and pulp science fiction, rather than musty alchemical treatises left over from the Renaissance. I worked with one of these fellows at the Aerojet Corporation, believe it or not. Jack Parsons was his name. I had no idea what sort of strange mischief he’d been engaged in until 1952, when he somewhat carelessly blew himself to kingdom come with a large quantity of fulminate of mercury. Evidently Jack spent years of evenings and weekends performing magical rites, literally trying to summon the Whore of Babylon and spawn the Antichrist. This gentleman was one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, mind you. So, yes. People still do it.
There’s a strain in Welles’s voice, a false note, but Stanley can’t think of the right question to ask to decipher it. He’s still feeling shaky, pissed off at himself for cracking up. That list of names you just gave me, he says. I’m not gonna remember it. Could I maybe get you to write ’em down?
But of course. Of course. It would be my pleasure.
Stanley picks up his beer and finishes it. His gut turns queasy as the last of it goes down. You probably think I’m a damn fool, he says. Don’t you? For wanting to do this.
Welles takes the pipestem from his mouth, slowly shakes his head. Not at all, he says. Quite the opposite, in fact. This is a difficult time for you, I can see that. I don’t know you well. But I have confidence in you. I believe in you. And I—Synn?ve and I—would like to help in any way we can.
Stanley’s tearing up again, though he’s not sure why, not sure if it’s real or fake. He thinks of an armed robbery he was on a couple years ago where he and his team all wore gauze Halloween masks: he remembers how it felt to hold a pistol on the humiliated nightwatchman, to look him straight in the eye and know that he could see nothing but the crude face of a weeping clown. Stanley feels that same way now—powerful and ashamed—only this time the mask is inside him, and he can’t control it.
I gotta be straight with you, Mister Welles, he says. I don’t think about myself the way you think about yourself. About the reasons why I do things, I mean. There’s never really been a time when I didn’t know what to do, or at least have some idea. So I’ve never had to stop and just think. Sometimes I feel like it wouldn’t be bad for me do that once in a while, but I’m not even sure how. And it’s starting to scare me. Because lately I feel like I’m turning into something, and I don’t know what.
Welles is silent, puffing rapidly. Soon the pipe has burned to ash. For what it’s worth, he says, I am not worried about you.
It ain’t specifically me I’m worried about, Mister Welles. It’s everything else. I just don’t always feel like I belong in this world.
A deep chuckle rises from Welles’s gut. I daresay I know that feeling, he says.
I guess you’re about to tell me that I’m gonna grow out of it.
You might. Though I sincerely hope that you do not.
He steps forward slowly, then grips Stanley’s shoulder in his thick-fingered hand. It’s a cheap and stupid little world, the one we’re given, he says. Don’t fucking settle for it. Go out and make your own.
He straightens, puts the pipe back in his teeth. Now, he says. Did you remember to bring the book?
Yes sir. Downstairs, in my coat.
Well, run and get it. I’ll be writing out that list I promised you.
As he descends, Stanley can hear Synn?ve somewhere nearby, singing wordlessly to herself, but he doesn’t look around. He opens the hall closet, pulls The Mirror Thief from his pocket, mounts the stairs again.
Welles has turned on the desklamp; it glows under its opaque green shade. As Stanley approaches, Welles lifts with a flourish the page he’s written and hands it over. This will keep you busy for a while, I’ll wager, he says. May I?
Stanley gives him the book, takes the page. He looks it over in the dim light: a long column of strange names, uniform and equidistant, as if plotted with a ruler. The handwriting is neat, but cramped and peculiar, and he knows he’s going to have a hell of a time making sense of it.
When Stanley looks up again Welles has the book open on his desk, a fountain-pen in his hand. He’s motionless, wearing a confused expression. Oh yeah, Stanley says. I guess I forgot to tell you. Somebody already wrote in my copy. Like I said, I got it second-hand. I never been able to read the message.
Welles begins to laugh. It’s a funny laugh: a little hysterical, then joyless and forced. Ah, he says. This is beginning to make sense. Where did you say you found this, again?
The Lower East Side. It belonged to a thief who got sent off to Rikers.