The Making of Miasma

By Henry Escaya

How far and how fast can something truly toxic grow under the right circumstances?
      Maxwell Chambers is a self-destructive ad man who prefers a good bender over confronting his most relentless demons: his career is a joke gone too far and he's the family's genetic black sheep. Unlike his brother and late father, Mac isn't born with the abilities of a hero—fameless members of the police force.
      After he breaks down at the apex of his career, Mac goes deeper down the rabbit hole than he's ever gone. He wakes up in custody with two options: conscription or participation in the government's latest medical trial. Thinking it's his ticket to normalcy, he chooses the drug. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: 0s&1s Novels
• Release date: Jun 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9780986127519

Book preview

Seventy-Four

Cover photograph: Barbershop by Defne Kirmizi

This book is dedicated to those who challenge with words and support without.

And Alice.

one.

There was that certain brand of silence, when you’re the one being waited on to break it.

In front of me was a dual-tone logo, blood red and chartreuse, on six-ply poster board. This was the result of two copywriters, four art directors, three creative directors (including myself), a researcher, two brand analysts, and six members of the accounts department working full time for five months. Some of those listed were even present, ostensibly for support, but reality would have it that they saw every syllable that came out of my mouth as a potential for slip-up, a fault line that might widen and eventually crumble the man who occupied their dream.

Behind me was the breath of five Japanese suits, making its way to the back of my poplin suit jacket.

Blood red and chartreuse. Those two colors, and the way they mixed, had once been a eureka moment for us. Now it was hard to tell which had vomited which.

‘What a great gift that we live in a world without meaning,’ I began. ‘For it gives us a chance to create our own, and what better are we at than that?’ I listened for an echo that never came. ‘The colors here—’ I paused, looking to take them in. ‘—were the final piece of the puzzle for our team—’ I put one hand on a red portion, moved it to a yellow portion, took it off, and turned around. ‘—though they serve as a righteous preamble to the communication of the logo, both emotional and explicit.’

One of the men, the tallest, scratched something on his pad. The strokes sounded slow. I was talking too fast.

‘A combination which we think will not only differentiate Sumitomo Mitsui from the other big four mega-banks, but which pronounces the values the company was built in.’ I paused. Built on. Built on.

One of our creative directors, Frederick Nolleti, let out an audible hmm, a noise innocent in any other context, but one that amplified my error to the entire room. An account director, a larger woman named Ursula (but whom I referenced as Under the Sea outside her presence, and once within) let air pass out of her full, distended lips. One of the clients, seeing this, gave a look across the table to another.

I turned to Frederick, who reclined back in his chair. He returned my look with a cock of his head, a non-verbal go fuck yourself.

To give no outlet to the anger that came through the back of my spine and into my cheeks and forehead, I stopped speaking.

Images of last night flooded in. A faceless girl in a white hip-hugging dress playacting love. Crushing two cherries into liquor already pink and sweetened. Seeing Tokyo from a taxi, the colors of the city’s lights nullified by their own luminescence. Lying in bed, moments from drift, looking at my suitcase on the other queen-size bed, remembering the last time I used it, the four-day trip to Tempe that I was awake for the entirety of, coming to the realization there may still be a dose in there—if I was lucky, two, or three, or four—saved only by the fact I could no longer stand.

How long had it been? Nine seconds? Twelve? One pen stroke on paper, somewhere in the room.

‘You okay, Mac?’ Frederick asked, precipitating the room’s curiosity into captivation.

‘The crimson. Courage, sacrifice, hours of human work.’ Human work. ‘Risk, celebration, and ceremony. This yellow. Decadence, wealth, precision, and patterned beauty.’

‘Mr. Chambers.’ The only overweight of the five Japanese men spoke up. In his tone I understood the transparency of my words. ‘Can you explain this patterned beauty?’

Patterned beauty. Beauty, patterned. I repeated the words to myself until they meant nothing, until they could mean anything.

The girl with the white dress, in a taxi, putting a finger square on my Adam’s apple. It was a false memory; I came home alone. Us in my hotel room, the poorly placed light above the ceiling fan flickering on her bare back, giving simultaneous impressions of feature and shadow. The idea of the pink of my mouth around a dull cerulean pill, the two colors both turning to black as I connect my lips. I shoved that image down, shuffling for another. Still bent on self-destruction, I located a memory even worse.

Dad and I in my bedroom. Even at the age of six, I understand that he is putting his own disappointment aside for the sake of my consolation. This is two days after we had taken our proficiencies in sight, sound, speed, and strength. To the administrators unaware of my background, I’d performed just fine, a bit above average for a civilian. But to my parents, the scores came as a shock. Was it even possible—a child of heroes completely unendowed? And to make the case even more gawk-worthy, parents who already had spawned a son completely gifted, so capable and deft in his own abilities that he was already teaching the other neighborhood heroes-to-be how to best bend a metal pipe symmetrically or listen for the swallows of crows at night.

The prospect of a cerulean pill—let alone multiples—in my hotel room suddenly filled me, leaving no room for Sumitomo, for this shape I’d put nearly the past half-year into, for anything.

I turned to Frederick. ‘You’ll never be up here,’ I said, ‘where I’m standing.’

In astonishment he looked to the other members of our team, who fixed their glances to empty spots on the glass conference table.

‘Do you know why? They know,’ I said, motioning to the entire room with an upturned palm. ‘Because they have eyes, Nolleti. You look like Danny DeVito’s uglier brother. When you dress up, you still look like an eighties car salesman.’ I walked up to him. ‘You have a pithy little response now? Do you?’ I could no longer tell my own volume.

I put one hand around the top of his tie, brought it up, and punched it back down into him, sending his chair over and his feet up into the bottom of the table. The coffin-shaped piece of glass slid from its feet and into the other side, its heft sending some of them over their chairs as well. I was busy holding Frederick’s collar with both of my hands, shaking him, shouting something, arms now coming over my triceps, shoulders, and sternum, attempting to lift me up and away. When they finally succeeded, I straightened my tie, walked back to the front of the room, and, pointing to the logo, said, ‘This looks like a fat snake sucking its own dick.’

After I got to my room, I searched the bag, finding three 500-mg pills. I put them in my hand and made a tight fist.

I heard a woman’s voice, Japanese, and turned to face the television. I must’ve fallen asleep with it on, because I hadn't watched in the morning. She was detailing the war. Though I couldn’t understand her words, there was something soothing in her foreign face, the language untied to any of the involved countries.

I went back to my bag and found, in the outermost pocket surrounded by socks, my most recent letter from Edwin, postmarked almost a month ago. Though the language in each of his letters became more sparse, trimmed, and sanitary with every overseas contract, reading his words had never failed to center me. He’d been over in Sunacia for just over a year now, since even before the war officially began—before the tainted barrels of oil were deemed intentional, before nuclear arms were visible from satellite without any apparent effort to conceal, before open threats made to other Fertile Crescent nations were also provided in English, practically beckoning intervention—only when tensions began to open the possibility of conflict. Edwin was as close as family to me (even though Cornell—still Vinny back then—and I met him on the first day of high school and I’d seen him only a handful of times since graduation), and each of his words, however barren and in the past tense, were proof of his life.

I put one pill in my pocket, two back in the suitcase, and went down to the hotel bar. Its overlapped regal-patterned carpets formed awkward plateaus and valleys, though none of the six patrons, all paired off, seemed to notice. The bartender offered an open palm to the rail. I ordered a Kirin lager, took the pill out, and placed it on the mahogany. Seeing it on wood brought me back to the moment before my last relapse after a substantial period of sobriety, in a park outside dad’s funeral.

two.

‘And how did you know P?’ a mousy octogenarian asked, her hand on my shoulder mostly for support.

‘He was my dad.’

‘No!’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh dear! Let me tell you that your father saved my life, back in 1979, when he’d only been a hero for a year! How long have you been in the force?’

‘I’m not a hero.’

‘Oh, I see. I didn’t know. Well, that—that happens.’

‘It happens.’

‘I’m sorry. What do you do?’

‘I’m a creative art director at an—’

‘An artist? Well, that’s terrific! My eldest boy was an artist. Do you remember Paolo Yunen? The neoprene arches up in Harlem around…’

I muddled her voice in favor of the din around us. A blend of rounded vowels, low monotones, and confirming murmurs covering up the string quartet playing Chopin's Andante. Watching over all of us was the First Century Mausoleum, a hulking metallic structure featuring only right angles, except for the four symbols carved into the top: an eye, an ear, winged feet, and a bicep. Sight, sound, speed, and strength.

‘Your dad’s bound to be one of the last buried in First Century,’ the old woman said. ‘Starting in July they’re putting deceased heroes in the new mausoleum.’

‘What a lucky thing.’

‘Well, you know, I didn’t mean—’

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cornell. Our eyes met and he put a glass of red wine up to his mouth.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Excuse me.’ As I approached he stayed still, pretending not to see me. He looked uncomfortably warm in his suit. ‘Is that Herringbone?’ I asked.

‘Oh. Hey, man. How’ve you been?’

‘Cornell, it’s July.’

‘I know, man. This is literally the only suit I own.’

‘You didn’t have to come.’

‘I know, but I—’

‘You shouldn’t have come.’

He shed his gaiety in a blink. ‘You haven’t been around in a while, and I—’

‘Are you serious? You come to my father’s—’

‘I’m not trying to sell here, man, I just want to know if you got someone else or—’

‘I didn’t. I quit.’

‘Oh. Well, good for you man. You deserve it.’

‘Can you leave?’

‘Yeah, I can leave.’ He stood there for a moment. ‘But if you want some—’

‘Cornell.’

‘You hear Edwin’s getting moved to the capital or something?’

‘He is.’

‘It’s scary. If anyone could make it over there, I mean anyone—’

‘It’s what he wanted,’ I said, causing Cornell’s eyes to drift down to my hands. Though he knew I didn’t mean it, I became inflamed with shame. The truth was Edwin probably did want to get as close to the action as possible, the government buildings engulfed in flames shown on the :15, :30, and :45 of every hour on CNN. He’d always been that guy, the one who wanted what every guy wished they’d wanted. It was what made him so enchanting to me, such heroism outside of a hero.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘Well, if you want some, man.’ I felt a small weight slide from my waist to my thigh and stop. His hand retracted. ‘You know how to reach me. You’ve got my number.’

I turned away, following a caterer and taking a glass of red wine off of his tray. I didn’t want to talk to strangers. I didn’t want to see Mom, or J, or any of his friends. Right as I decided to see Dad inside, a brunette in a black skirt and gray top bumped into my arm, spilling wine on my shirt.

It wasn’t the stain or the crowd’s attention, but the woman’s glance, the pity she took on me that untied me. ‘Fuck,’ I said, and then again, louder. ‘Watch where you’re going.’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said and motioned to a caterer. ‘Can we have a washcloth?’

At that point, when I looked down into the glass to see if there was more wine, I heard the crowd’s silence. I brought the glass down to my waist and up again, emptying the remaining contents into the brunette’s face. I couldn’t have anticipated how satisfying her gasp was.

The glass dropped from my hand. I looked for the thinnest density of people and walked out of the cocktail area into the park, where I found a fallen tree—still within earshot of the crowd. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small baggie with one 500-mg dose. I held it up against the cloudless sky and placed it on the trunk. A red ant crawled on top of it and curled its head in either direction, attempting penetration. I flicked it off and placed the pill on the back of my tongue.

When I returned to the funeral, the first person I saw, waiting for me on the perimeter of the crowd, was J.

He walked up to me and wrapped his arms around me in a gentle and sturdy hug. ‘We all miss Dad,’ he said.

‘Well, at least you’re around to carry on his legacy.’

When he let go and faced me, seeing the storm on the other side of my gaze, the sympathy that held the weight of his sadness at once emptied into disappointment.

three.

The sound of a swallow was never so lucid to me as when I sent the pill down to the pit of my empty stomach. One tight clench and return to form.

‘A gin, bartender. Suntory,’ said a man beside me with a British accent. He sat next to me, making us the fourth pair in the bar.

‘No Suntory gin, sir,’ the bartender said. ‘Just Beefeater and Gilbey’s.’

‘What? This must be the only goddamn bar in Japan that doesn’t serve Suntory. Okay. Beefeater. No rocks. I want a real pour.’

The bartender nodded, and the man turned to me. He had the British brand of jowls and wild, unkempt gray eyebrows. ‘Oh, look. You’re not Japanese!’ he said.

I knew I wasn’t high yet because nothing about his presence was valuable.

‘And you’re not skinny.’ He held a frown for a fraction of a moment and then dropped it, grabbing his gut and cackling. He leaned in to me, whispering a garbled joke about the shape of my eyes. Returning upright, he asked if I was American.

‘How can you tell?’

He put his hand on mine, and in the moment our skin touched I felt the first bloom of the cerulean. In only a few more seconds he was my jester, just some specimen that giggled the more I dissected.

‘Like the rest of your country—’ He nodded to the glass. ‘—you look like you’re about to get bombed.’

I gave off a fake laugh and he bought it. The surroundings started to matter less. The red curtains blocking the windows looked like an oil painting. The carpet was almost monotone. ‘So you’re here on business?

His eyes narrowed unevenly. ‘Is that why you’re here?’ he spoke lower now. ‘Checking out a country that knows what’s it like? To be bombed, that is.’

‘So you’re here on business?’ I repeated, sterner.

‘When it happens. When you all are toasted, do you know what the rest of the world is going to think?’ The rhythm of his cheeks shaking was a beautiful sight, a real original take on time. ‘They’re going to think that you all deserved it. That it was coming. They were taunting you, man, they wanted intervention. They’d get nothing out of Azerbaijan. Sunacia already owns practically every rig in the country. It was a shit country with no other options but to rebuild. Why not do it on the US dollar? That it was coming.’ He settled back into his chair and looked ahead thoughtfully to the row of liquor.

‘So you think they wanted this war from the beginning, to get their own country bombed, so we can reconstruct infrastructure? That’s insane.’

‘Well, so is Bassani. Either that or they want the attack that’ll provoke some sort of Middle East coalition against America. But if I were you, I wouldn’t