Purgatory's Gate

Chapter 4: Purgatory's Gate

My last week at the WITSEC center seems to last as long as the preceding eleven. At this point it's hurry up and wait for the document people and logistic people and my lawyers to get final clearances. I'm cleared to go on Monday but we don't leave till Friday due to the Marshal's schedule.
I get my phone and tablet, and I angle for a pair of headphones my lawyers not so nicely provide. I'm playing Queer Eye and Great British Baking Show 24/7 to do everything I can to stifle my accent and learn new mannerisms. My roots were showing dark so I re-peroixde my hair till I'm a nice bleach blonde. A few hours of YouTube make up tutorials and I know how to apply not only eyeliner, but also some base and concealer, along with spray to keep it set. I cover up acne potmarks, and then use concealer around my nose and eyes. In the end, I'm not a completely different person, but at first glance I'm hoping I'm pretty different. Besides all that I'm a good fifteen pounds heavier. I can feel rubbery fat over the muscles in my arms and shoulders. I'm used to being lean so it feels unnatural, but months of take out, and no work out beyond pushups in my room, have gotten the better of my metabolism. I grudgingly elect not to worry about it. I'm well aware even twenty or thirty pounds will do a hell of a lot more to change my appearance than a haircut, and I'd sooner be alive than have visible abs.
I'd say I don't look like myself. But what I was before wasn't myself either. I don't know who I am. I just know I never wanted to be that.
Officially a free completely wanted man, the Marshalls give me a test ride of an afternoon out two days before we're to leave. We're outside DC, I don't know fully where. I'm disoriented enough from the entire ordeal that I might as well be on Mars. Our outing is simple, a clothing store and department store, (from a preconceived list), and lunch to see how I behave in public.
"When we're in the city you're a goddamn dog, got it? I stop you stop. I say we sit down we sit down. You walk away from me. You ignore me. You're on your own and you're gonna die in under three hours, got it?" Harris asks.
"Got it," I hold up my hands innocently.
For a clothing store off the preconceived list, I select REI. I'm going to the mountains and I know they sell used stuff. The idea is that I look like someone that's always existed, not a man who was carefully made over the last three months. For that reason I nearly requested thrift store, but in the end I want to have a decent selection and I need another backpack. The one WITSEC provided, an Under Armor duffel bag, is already full of the few items I have.
I get an allowance for all this, a paltry $1500 but mob informants can't be choosers I've been told. For used clothes it should do. I can live on what I have now, but what I have now is 1 pair of jeans, and about six shirts, and six boxers. I'm trying not to look like someone just released from prison.
Harris and Rivers take me. For the road trip they say it'll just be Harris but in the city it's both of them. They are suitably shocked at my change in demeanor and appearance. not just the hair, but the way I've readily dropped my accent and mannerisms is admittedly chilling.
"Nobody wants me to be killed by the mob less than me," I inform them, coolly, and Harris just laughs. Apparently not all WITSEC participants are as enthused or as ready to comply. Nor do they all so quickly dissolve any semblance of their past life. My excuse that I don't share is, that was never who I was. That was always a part, and I've been quietly waiting for this for twenty years. Imaging and playing out what I'd do. How I'd hide myself, how I'd talk how I'd dress. I've been ready.
I respond reliably to my new name. I've been practicing saying and signing it, and I requested all the Marshalls do the same. They were okay just calling me 'sir' so I'd respond but I wanted to ensure I get the name down to gut reaction. By now they also think of me as that name.
I know this, because Harris full names me at the drop of a hat.
We're about to get in the car and I elect to prank Rivers. You know, how you fuck with people armed with guns. I just walk up to him and very casually in my full-chicago-gantster voice, say "Come on Barbie let's go party" so quietly only he can hear it. He jumps like half a foot. And Harris, unaware what I just did, says: "REYNARD ENDA WEAVER I will put you back in that cell." Because apparently Harris missed his calling as a middle school gym teacher.
"He's fine," Rivers rolls his eyes. They don't laugh. I do that's fine. I haven't laughed in weeks.
They drive me to the REI store first. It's the middle of the day on a Wednesday, so the parking lot is blessedly nearly empty. I feel the back of my neck tightening in the old familiar way. I remind myself again and again I have two armed agents with me. And that I'm going to be released really soon and be on my own I'll have to get used to it. But a lifetime of looking over my shoulder. Waiting for the knife to come. Expecting to be followed. It doesn't die easy.
The sales section is near the back. I want all used items if possible. This needs to look like stuff I owned prior to this week. The Marshalls are content to linger and BS, but I snarl at them under my breath it looks more suspicious if their government agent looking selves are just standing there like government agents. I don't know if they are as concerned as I, but they at least pretend to help while keeping an eye out. Which I'm also doing.
I find a pair of used hiking boots that are snow proof, and a pair of sandals. I don't wear sandals inside, but it looks like the sort of thing a person should have plus I don't know where I'm going to be living. Those are both used. I get new running shoes, since I actually want to run in them and it's not that suspicious to have one new pair of shoes.
I find a few basic hiking type t-shirts, with graphics of mountains and national parks I haven't been to but am happy to lie about. Two more used pairs of jeans and a pair of hiking pants all in my size are a decent find. I also find several long sleeve button ups and a couple of waffle shirts. I don't get too cold but my version of cold is a very nice penthouse in Chicago or walking around Chicago looking for people I might have to murder. The blood is up. Then in and out of warm restaurants. I'm guessing my new routine will be a bit different. To that end I accept the pair of gloves and a black hat that Rivers throws at me because he's invested in this shopping trip by now.
Harris is googling the temperatures in Purgatory's Gate, and returns with a black Patagonia parka.
"Used," I snarl.
"We'll drag it behind the car in the dirt. It gets well below freezing," Harris says, coolly, "Did you not look this up?"
"I only look so far ahead," I say, evasively. That's a nice way of saying I don't want to get my hopes up about surviving till winter.
"Just follow the rules," Harris says, "You'd be a first."
"Yeah, well, I was a first for my family," I mutter.
In the end I grudgingly accept the coat as a necessary purchase. I also pick several more pairs of socks, and a couple of reusable water bottles, some clips, and a thermos. Things that a person would logically have.
I have to get permission with Harris for a pocket knife.
"Why?" He asks, like the answer will definitely be 'stab things'.
"How am I supposed to open a box of cereal?" I ask, innocently.
"With your hands?"
"Or a bag of chips?"
"Scissors?" He says.
I put my hand on my hip and stare at him.
"Oh right," he rolls his eyes.
"File 13."
"I didn't memorize the order, just shut up a minute."
At one point in my past life I murdered someone with a pair of scissors. Two someones actually. They were trying to kill me because I came there to kill them so it was basically self defense. Point being I'm deadly with or without a knife. It looks natural for someone to carry a pocket knife and it's not like I can't improvise if I want to. I get that I'm a felon. But I also really would like a weapon of some kind.
He makes a call and confirms blade of less than four inches. I get a middle of the road Gerber that fits his specifications and he says I can't have it in the compound. I give it to him for safe keeping.
The sales people notice us doing all this eventually and won't quit buzzing around. It's obvious we're outfitting a me with an entire, albeit basic, wardrobe, complete with boxers, socks, and bags to put everything in.
"Girlfriend threw out all my stuff," I say, casually, as I sling three t-shirts over my arm.
There's a basic used duffel bag that will hold everything nicely, and I select a new hiking type back pack. I'm fond of the idea of being able to run into the woods if necessary to evade capture.
We check out. I resist identifying Harris, who has to pay, as my sugar daddy. Well, I resist for a minute then he actually goes to pay and I say it. I think he considers selling me back to the mob at that point. Rivers says, "I don't know why you think he wouldn't say that. He was always going to say that".
"They're my cousins; my girlfriend dumped me, they're helping me out," I laugh, leaning on Rivers.
The REI people buy that at least enough not to want anymore information. After that we load up and go to Walmart. Walmart is much more packed with people, even in the middle of the day. My paranoia shoots through roof and I don't even want to leave the vehicle.
"Let's just go, I don't need anything it's fine—," I cling to the seat.
"You are going to have to walk among the general public eventually. Now come on. We have cleared it. We are here with you. You will be fine," Harris tugs me out by my elbow.
I'm sweating by the time we reach the doors. Harris very effectively guides me through the aisles. Cold medicine, Tylenol, a better razor, better shaving cream, and a few bars of better soap. I toss them in the basket as I feel my heart rate spike every minute we are in here. Logically I know it's afternoon shoppers but I've spent the past three months being told my life is cheap. I really don't want to be gunned down in Walmart. Somewhere else is fine. But Walmart buying aspirin and shaving cream is not how I want to go.
I find bandaids and antiseptic. That really freaks Harris out but I roll my eyes at him. I'm not even getting it for me I'm getting it because that's a thing people have in their bags. Just like anything about me at the moment. It's a guise. Nothing is who I really am because I don't exist yet.
The make up aisle is a little safer. I have watched enough videos to know what I want to better alter my features and get better eyeliner that won't rub off so easily. They also have better hair color, some semi permanent stuff. I grab red and blue at random. I don't care right now I just don't want to look anything like I used to.
I consent to get a couple of pairs of cheap socks, as well as some inexpensive cups, towels, and a couple of cheap drinking cups. I have been using plastic disposable ones in my room and I'm just going to another hotel room. I ask Harris if I can have a road map. He shrugs and says sure so long as it is of the whole United States. I'm sure he thinks I'm planning to bolt.
I also ask for basic tools which makes them very suspicious.
"I'm a man. Who is relocating for good reasons. Wouldn't you at least have a couple of screwdrivers, maybe a wrench or something, in your bag?" I ask. They shrug and decide that they don't care that much, though they do notify whoever their handlers are. Even though my palms are sweating by now I take a few dozen deep breaths and force myself to cycle through the jewelry section. A couple of different earrings, a pair of silver hoops and a pair of gold ones, and basic fake-diamond studs. I also get a chain bracelet and a necklace. It's costume jewelry, but it's only going to live in my bag. Real people have stupid things like that in their backpack pockets. I can't look clean and fresh and invented two weeks ago.
By the time we're done I'm basically shaking, very near a full on panic attack. The store is getting more and more crowded and I have to physically stop myself from staring at every person who comes in.
We get through checking out and head back to the SUV. I'm breathing rapidly and I know for a fact I look more suspicious doing this but I also can't help it. I just crawl into the back and put my head down, breathing deeply.
"Hey, hey, you're fine. We are not going to lose you all right? Wouldn't look good on my resume," Harris says, pushing my head as I lay in the back seat.
Given my state they order take out rather than go into a restaurant . I have no strength to request anything instead just slumping in the seat working on not hyperventilating. They get carry out Chinese and we eat it on the way back to the compound. I can't eat but I force myself to take a few bites.
"You're going to be fine," Harris says, shaking the back of my neck.
I wish I could believe him.
I spend the next couple of days clipping tags off things and packing in a more organized fashion. That does little to claim my nervous energy. I wind up doing ten pushups for every clothing item I fold. And by the end I'm exhausted enough to pass out on the fully made bed.
I have a few extra briefings. Final outs with everyone. Last meetings with my lawyers. A few final shake downs from WITSEC, drilling the rules into my head. They found all my old Grindr and tinder accounts and are not happy. Like they're really mad. Also some intern who found them probably needs therapy.
One wrong move, I'm out of WITSEC. One social media account. One dating app. If I tell anyone I am in WITSEC. If I so much as look at a gun. I'm out of WITSEC. And to speak technically my ass is grass.
I sign everything. I agree to obey all the rules. I don't think they believe me.
I sleep remarkably well my last full night here in safety. I'm calm and secure, even though I know it will all be stripped away. I curl up with the limp pillows and sleep knowing there's cement walls around me, armed guards outside. Tomorrow I'll have no such luxury.
Our road trip starts, like all good road trips, at four am. My phone alarm wakes me and I'm dressed, showered, and ready when Harris knocks at my door. He's dressed like a NormalAmerican who needs to conveniently conceal a handgun on his person. Khakis and a loose t-shirt, and a trucker jacket. It's the end of summer by now, but it's not that cool. He also wears a baseball hat.
"You look very pretty," I say.
"Just get in the car, Weaver."
I obey. This time I get to sit in the passenger seat. He has a map but it's not google maps. A specialized route.
"To get us from the east to west coast, as far from Chicago as possible?" I guess.
"You got it."
We're driving south, all the way to Louisiana before cutting back up through Oklahoma, all without hitting Texas. This is a fifty six hour drive, about. We'll drive twelve or eighteen hour days and stop for six hours each night in preplanned motels. I don't get to drive until we're into Colorado. Once I'm driving we can drive eighteen hour days, till then it's slower going. Motels means out of the way, motel 6s and the like. Food is also prearranged. We have a cooler with sandwiches, and bottled water. We also have boxes of chips and trail mix. For the sake of time we agree to stop once a day, get dinner, and then go to the motel. We're allowed more stops for food if we need it. I'm going to elect not to need it. We agree to stop for breaks when the car needs gas and otherwise just try to make time. This is neither of our definition of fun.
And soon we're on the open road, watching the sun come up. I listen to music for a while then have to charge my phone and headphones.
"Why do you sit like a twelve year old?" Harris asks. I'm scrunched up in the seat, feet braced against the dash.
"I don't know," I shrug a little, curling up a bit more. I'm still tired. And the anticipation of the unknown is gnawing at me. We wind up talking very little. I can make small talk about most anything, but Harris quickly finds all that is fake.
"Sabres look like shit, they always look like shit. I'm happy with the Preds though," I say, the topic has turned to hockey.
"You didn't strike me for a hockey fan."
"I'm not. I ran the books so I ran the bets and if we had to throw a game I knew who to call," I say, fiddling with my phone and dropping it for the fifth time. The truth feels weird and raw. So ugly beyond my usual niceties. Yet the rest of my life is nothing but niceties from here on out. Nothing to betray the man behind the curtain.
"Ah," Harris says, reaching into the counsel. He puts a Rubik's cube in my hands. "There. Fiddle with that instead of your phone."
"You brought toys to throw at me like I'm a toddler?"
"Shut up, Weaver."
The toy works so I do shut up. I never had one of these. I saw them but it wasn't a thing I ever owned. I get the concept though and quickly sort the colors. By quickly I mean in the next four hours of highway.
I'm a very good little witness. I follow Harris in and out of rest stops like a puppy. I do what he says, and I sit in the passenger seat mostly quietly. I think he's surprised by that.
We sort through topics, ranging from the weather, to popular movies. Everything light. He understandably isn't telling me anything about his life. And he hardly wants to know about mine. Yet every topic he finds leads back there. Why did I see that movie when it came out? We dealt coke to the producers so I got to take my nieces and nephews. Have I ever been to Alabama? Yeah chasing after a brother's mistress we thought was going to talk. She wound up ODing before I even got to her.
I tell him everything plainly. It's therapeutic in a way. He always changes the topic though when I do, when we've accidentally stumbled into the forbidden catacombs of my past.
By day three I'm tired of it. We're crashing in motels just long enough to shower, shave, and sleep before we're back on the road again staring at endless highway. I'm admittedly nearly numbed to the rest stops. But I'm also growing to be aware that Harris is one of the last people I'll ever talk to that even knows Ezio existed.
"Why don't you ask me about it?" I ask, slumped in my seat, resorting out the Rubik's cube. Every time I fix it, he finds a way to snag it, mess it up sufficiently, then throws it back at me. I am too bored to be offended by this ritual.
"What?" He asks.
"My life. Don't you talk to ask me about it? I know I'm not your first time. But, like, I've confessed everything. This is your chance. Ask me anything. Whatever you want to know," I say.
"Why would I want to know?"
"I don't know."
"Why'd you want me to ask you?"
"I don't know. I do. Because you know. Because I'm going to lie. And lie. And lie. Until the past twenty eight years of my life don't even exist on my tongue. And it's always gonna exist in my head. And before I bury it—I want a wake I suppose," I say, staring out at the endless fields. Just fields. Got to love the Midwest. About as bad as Illinois. Just expanses of nothing.
"What you said. You lie all the time don't you? I've seen the way you lie to people it's easy as breathing to you, suppose it would be by now," he says.
"So. What's it matter? Ask me anything," I say, shrugging, "Doesn't matter if it's true. Does it?"
"When they sent me the case I—they showed us your logs. The ones you wrote, every damn week, sometimes every damn day. For years. Back dated ten or fifteen years in the past, none of them believed it. They said you'd gotten cold feet about something, that you'd done something worse you wanted absolution for. Then it checked. Everything started to check," he says.
"So?" I frown.
"So was any of it ever real?" He asks, glancing over at me.
"Would you believe me if I answered you?" I ask.
"I don't know yet. Does it matter?"
"I guess not. No. And the answer is no. None of it was real," I say, "The logs. The notes I kept. The evidence. I tied my sanity, to that evidence I handed you. No. None of it was really me. Not from the night my mother died. To the day I walked into Chicago PD and put the evidence on the desk. The day I knew I could be free."
"How would you even begin to do that? What was your plan?"
"First, it was to kill my father. That was my first thought. Then I knew if I did one of his brothers would take his place. I schemed. I thought I could take out all of them. One tommy gun, me, and god. I was little. I was ten when I realized that wouldn't work. That I could never take out enough. I'd already started writing down things I saw. I hid it. I thought if I gathered enough evidence, then I could bring them all down. All the names the dates everything. Soon, I started to see the web for what it was. Break one link, and another one holds it together. I knew I had to crush it entirely," I say, twisting the Rubik's cube, not looking at him.
"Why wait so long then? You were how old?"
"Eight when my mother died."
"Why wait twenty years?" He asks, looking over at me, "There had to have been a moment you thought you'd stay. You can't tell me that every tattoo, every gunfight. Every drunken night. That you knew you were leaving, it was too long. University of Chicago. Summa cum Laude, mathematics. You graduated in two years. You're not stupid. And I only know half the cars. The money. The things you had. You're sitting in a filthy Tahoe in used clothes headed for the middle of nowhere to work a dead end job, no car no house no friends, that's not a trade a man makes lightly."
"It was no trade. That was not my life. And as to why twenty years. Well, I was going a bit mad. By sixteen I was sure I was going insane. Nothing felt true. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror. I could hear my own thoughts, just echoing in my head, late into the night. My mother had been gone eight years. Nobody had hugged me in four years. I had killed two people already. I was starting to go really crazy. I had evidence, yes. But every time I asked myself the question, the answer was always there. Never enough. It was never enough for me. It was always, tomorrow. Tomorrow you can get more. Tomorrow you can find something else out. So I set myself a time limit. I told myself that I would do it. For twenty years. Twenty years from the night my mother left me. Then I'd return home," I say.
"Why?"
"In the Odyssey, Odysseus was at war for ten years, then journeyed home another ten. In my, I suppose madness. I told myself I needed some arbitrary time limit. And then when the twenty years was up, I would return home," I say.
"You're not going home."
"Oh yes I am," I say, touching the arrowhead around my neck, "This is home. This is who she wanted me to be."
He sighs a little bit.
"You think I'm crazy."
"I think you know you're crazy. And you'd have to be crazy to do what you did," he says, shaking his head.
"I stayed sane, well, halfway sane, documenting the evidence. I'm not saying I didn't have fun sometimes. You saw, the weekends I'd get away. Go party with college students. Pick up men off the internet. When I got money, fly to Key West to be drunk for a few days. I've done coke. Never heroin. Speed, ecstasy though. With my brothers. Sometimes I'd laugh with my brothers and wish I could be really laughing. Wish it were all real," I say, lowering the Rubik's cube a little. It's done. The squares all neatly lined up.
"That day you walked into to Chicago PD, it was the anniversary of her death, wasn't it?" He asks.
"Yes. It was a risk but I knew they wouldn't know it. It was a normal day to them. Perhaps they remembered now. I don't know," I say, tipping my face against the window. "Do you ever talk to your witnesses like this?"
"Sometimes. Depends. Some are more like you, some are just in it for the plea deal. Whatever. It's just another passenger."
"Yeah, just another passenger. Normal day for you as well then," I say.
"Yeah, it is."
We ride in silence for the next few hours. Wordlessly he takes the cube and messes it up at the next stop before tossing it back. I catch it and fix it before we're back on the way.
"You always been good at puzzles?"
"When I was little I could do a thousand piece jigsaw puzzles. I mean, I suppose I still could. I haven't tried. My mother got them used and I'd lay them out on the floor of motel rooms."
"Why motel rooms?"
"She was a call girl. That's how she met my father, he didn't know about me. Not until after. He sent people around to clean up the mess. He knew she'd gone back in there to die. Didn't expect to find me there. Of course I turn out to be his kid."
"Do you know why he killed her?"
"She said she'd seen something. I never asked him. Once he told me that it was because she'd been seeing other clients when he owned her. I don't know what's true. I still don't. I told FBI, but the case is cold, and his confession to that probably won't give us motive if he even confesses," I say, tossing the cube and catching it.
"What made him believe that you didn't know he'd killed her?"
"Oh he knew I knew."
"Did he know you cared?"
"He asked me. I said she was a whore," I say, my voice cold. I've said it a dozen times. Poison on my lips yet I said it. Again and again. "He didn't think much of it. After they discovered I was his, he took me and put me with another mistress. A couple of my brothers. They're dead now. I lived there till I was fifteen. After that." I wave a hand to indicate I had no fixed abode.
He doesn't ask any more questions for a while. Then if something brings it up he lets me talk. Quietly putting my past to rest. I tell him everything, my voice cold and practical, anything he asks. I will not get such a chance again.
Finally we take turns driving. It's the last two days of the trip. I haven't been behind the wheel in months and it feels surprisingly good to hit the open road, put on cruise control, and turn the radio up. Colorado is beautiful. We see mountains, tall trees. Finally a break from the monotony of the Midwest. Harris turns on a podcast, I dryly request no true crime. He laughs. We settle on Welcome to Nightvale, which burns away the hours. We'll both laugh at it a little. Now and then we'll just talk.
We crash in a Motel 6 finally. I'm weak in the knees from all the riding in the car. I am, however, feeling almost hopeful.
We are making it. The middle of nowhere is calling. And I'm so very close to being free. Reynard Weaver is no one out here. A chance. A chance at a fresh start.
Lying there, on the bed, I finally get up the courage to google Purgatory's Gate. There's sparse accommodation and employment.
"It says here it's a ski town, for Glacier Peak. Right after White Horse," I say, when Harris comes out of the shower. I'm laying in a plank by the bed, as is my custom before bed. A hundred more push ups and a plank as long as I can manage.
"Yep," Harris is looking at his phone.
"Where are we stopping to get a car?"
"We have to go outside of Seattle. So Tacoma. Pick a dealer and I'll take you."
I do. My budget for a used car is a mere $10K, which is not exactly luxury. I realize the tune of this is that I'm not intended to benefit from a life of crime but I think that I deserve a vehicle above a beater. I think I did enough semi-legal work in my life to warrant that. Apparently not. I can't qualify for a loan on a new car with no employment. I don't even have an address so in all technicality I can't buy a car. But the federal government is letting that one slide. I finally find a very used very old Subaru for just under 10K and email the dealership asking to see it.
We get there by noon the next day. Our car is a rental. Harris and I will switch to my car, and then he'll get an Uber to the airport. He's not a flight risk so he can fly home like a normal person. I don't know fully where home is for him nor do I need to. I'm well aware that in the end I'm cargo to him. Even if he's the last person I'll speak freely to for the rest of my life.
The Subaru is as beat as I expected it to be, but Harris and I both inspect it and it runs.
"You know anything about cars?"
"A little," I say, looking directly at him to say that I know how to disable a car and to wire a car bomb.
We both look at the engine for a minute and I ask them to top up oil and gas. That's about it. We're not in the position to bargain it's the only thing for miles that fits my budget. Harris returns the rental Tahoe that's been our home for the past week, and I switch the bags to my car.
I had no idea the weight it would carry till it's in my hands. But having no keys has been eerie. No house, no car, no mailbox, no keys. It made me feel oddly homeless, besides the obvious. Having the keys back in my hands feels ridiculously satisfying. I'm a person again. I can sleep in this car if I need to. I have something real.
Harris drives because we're going to come up on the city and he's navigating us out of that. Then we loop out onto the mountain roads and we switch back again. I get a glimpse of Seattle but I've got no intention of going in. I've never been there; we had no ties but I still don't trust a metroplex.
The little Subaru handles the mountain roads just fine and I feel a bit bad for doubting it. We chug up the hills as we ascend higher into mountains. Hemened in by trees we just get glimpses of the mountain tops as darkness falls. I crane my head to look but soon the mountains are just dark silhouettes against a cloudy sky.
Our last motel 6 is in Purgatory's Gate. So called, according to google, because Glacier peak is an active volcano. Purgatory's Gate was once hit with lava. Apparently this was hundreds of years ago, but still.
Now it's a ski town. A messed up sign welcomes us in the dark. Graffiti is on it, and warm gold lights light up the red letters.
There are some stores, a wall greens, a bank, a post office, a few little diners. But it's clearly a tourist town. The motel is sleepy and we barely wake up the attendant to get checked in.
We don't have to be up in the morning so we both take longer showers. I sit on my tablet, looking up housing and jobs. It's brutal.
"There's—no rentals here," I say.
"Yeah, I googled that," Harris grunts, dropping onto his bed.
"Like, that I can afford," I mutter. I'd rather not share a room. Some Craigslist posts suggest that's a possibility but I do have my pride. Or I thought I did. I would at least like my own space, however small.
I realize I get a stipend for the first six months or till I find a job but I would really like a job. A job would be rather nice. I need normalcy. I'd like to make my own money. And I'd like to get transitioned into the rest of my life.
But the jobs are scarce. WITSEC sets up one interview for me, at the general store. I'll take it definitely but that's a pretty low bar. $12 an hour isn't going to cover rent let alone any moderate entertainment like an actual laptop or you know, eating out once in a while. I like good coffee. New running shoes alone are $200 bucks every six months that's a pretty inexpensive hobby but damn if I can't afford it and food and shelter.
Nine Locks Lodge. There's a want ad, or rather job listing, for a Guest Services manager. It's seasonal, but it's $15 an hour which is better than what I was making elsewhere, plus food and board as you're out at the lodge. General jargon, but looks like manage a front desk.
"Are you awake? Hey, are you awake?" I ask, throwing pillows at Harris who is definitely asleep.
"What is it?" He asks, sitting up.
"I found a job—,"
"You have six months to do that," laying back down.
"At a ski resort, lodge place. They have food and board with it because you're up there, but it's temporary. Can you ask WITSEC if that counts as employment? In six months they said I'll probably testify again anyway and you might move me. So can I do that? Then I get somewhere to stay saves us looking at rentals," I ask, hopefully.
"I'm gonna ask this—can you ski?"
"No."
"Okay then," he sighs.
"It doesn't ask that; you're working in a lodge, can you ask them?" I ask.
"Yes. I'll ask. It's later on the east coast," Harris sighs, "Send it to me."
"Okay," I obey, laying back down.
"What do you want to work at a hotel for if you can't stand being in public?"
"One, it's not public, two it's a lodge with one and a half stars in the middle of nowhere," I scoff, "Plus, I can know who's coming in advance. And it's the last place you'd expect to find me. Not like I'm using my degree at the general store."
"Fair point. We'll see. I'm assuming, yes, it's employment."
"While I find something else, remote maybe," I say, staring at the pictures. I don't know what I want to do permanently. I would rather see people and the like than be totally remote but that may not be able to be helped.
The Nine Locks looks pretty. It's a small lodge, mostly pictures of people skiing. Terrible reviews. One and a half stars because apparently the staff are rude. Well, I assume that is why they are hiring.
"Okay, I asked. We're not gonna get an answer till morning. It looks—I'm sure it'll be fine, go ahead and submit your resume or whatever," Harris says.
"Really?" I ask, hopefully.
"Yeah, go on it's fine like I said I'll confirm in the morning," he says.
I do, going through the steps. It's an email and a resume. I write a brief note that I'm relocating to the area because I wanted a change of scene and new adventure far from the East Coast. That's it, brief and fairly innocuous. Then I say I'm available for interviews at their convenience and thank them for considering me.
I send the email, then go back to looking through job listings.
"Ah—Weaver. Have you ever been to an interview before?" Harris sighs.
"No. But I watched all the job aids WITSEC sent me," I say, "I mean, technically when I was a bus boy at one of my uncle's restaurants I had to go and meet him but that wasn't really an interview he just sort of made sure I was going to follow instructions as I was like twelve. Then when I was in college I had to interview for like, taking one of the classes but I didn't have to to get in my father paid that, they owed him and I was one of the few children taking him up on the offer. So no, not really."
"All right," he sighs, sitting up, "I'm gonna be the interviewer and ask you questions you just answer and we'll go through it."
"I'm sure I'll be fine, you were tired," I say, frowning.
"Yeah I don't need sleep, it's fine," Harris rubs his face, "Let's get you ready."