2011
3:43am |
I'm much better now. I can write again, and my notes are already caught up to that night. While it's clear, let me write down what happened, so I can remember.
I was alone outside the Dude's house, completely cut off. My coffee was kicking in, but I had no phone and only verbal instructions on where and when to meet. As I stood out there in the cold and the dark, all I could think was, if the time or the place was wrong, Harry and I might never see each other again. I only found him again because he made a noise in the garage. Maybe he would disappear for good the next time.
I didn't even know what time it was. Normally, when I ditched the phone from work to keep from being tracked, I could keep the one I used to contact the resistance, but the system got into that one too.
I started to worry I was supposed to meet Harry another night or I was late and he was already in there. I didn't even know what we were doing. Harry told me he had a plan to take down the Dude. I had nobody else left to trust, so I waited.
"Ready?" I turned around when I heard a voice, and there he was, dressed all in black, with a ski mask over his face.
"Was I supposed to wear a mask? You didn't say anything about that."
He shook his head. "No, It's fine."
"Then I guess I'm ready."
As I followed behind Harry, watching him sneak across the lawn in the middle of the night dressed like a ninja, the whole thing felt like a scene from a movie. There were times that would have bothered me, but after so long thinking about the cameras watching me, I was too worn down to feel any difference between my life and something on TV.
I wanted to think we were at the end of our movie. The fallen band Effective Disorder was alive again, half the lineup anyway, together against the world. I saw myself as a knight in shining armor storming the castle, ready to liberate everyone from the system. At least, I assumed that's what we were doing.
"Harry." I whispered.
He turned. "What?" He actually sounded angry, but his ski mask hid everything but his eyes.
"What if they know we're here?"
"They don't. My guy fixed it, but there's still the regular alarms, so shut the fuck up."
Harry changed since the band broke up. I knew him as the stoner who passed out in the back of the tour van after shows, but he was so sure of himself that night, it made me happy to be with someone like that again.
We used to try to make Harry angry before we played, to psych him up for a good set, but the weed always mellowed him out. Mellow wasn't what we were going for, but trying to mess with him in that state just got to be hilarious.
We made it across the lawn, and Harry turned on two narrow flashlights stuck to the sides of his head with some kind of rig. Then he jammed a screwdriver into the edge of a window, pried it open and climbed in. He didn't seem afraid of any alarms there, so I climbed in after him.
The room I landed in was dark except the two beams from Harry's head. I turned on the flashlight I brought and tried to figure things out for myself. I saw chairs. There was a rug on the floor. I don't know. It was all perfectly clean, like a movie set.
Harry's beams were moving, and I spotted him disappearing through a door, so I followed him into the hallway.
When we climbed some stairs, I realized we weren't heading for the throne room I went to before.
We passed door after door, and I had no idea what any of them might be. I couldn't believe how far the house went. I stayed quiet, starting to feel like a spy again. I followed Harry's confidence blindly.
He stopped in front of one of the doors and turned to me, the pair of lights rigged to the sides of his head shining in my eyes. I saw him nod, and then he kicked the door open, and we ran into the room.
There was a bed, but nobody was in it. I shined my flashlight all around, but I didn't see anyone.
Harry turned to me, putting something into the back of his belt. "He's not here."
I nodded. "Who?" My heart was racing. "Wait, we can talk now?"
"This is the Dude's room. I was trying to keep from waking him up, but..."
I looked around again. "So what do we do now?" The house was big, but his room had the same boring lack of decorations as the houses all the other programmers lived in, and the room wasn't much bigger than the one he gave me.
"News has been coming out all week from the Apple conference downtown and E3 in LA, other companies announcing their new stuff. I thought the Dude would be exhausted by now, but I guess he's too obsessive to go to bed. He must have overridden his scheduling." Harry walked back out into the hall.
"He can do that?" I followed Harry back down the hall the way we came. "So we find the Dude, kick his ass, smash his computers, then we can go to bed too, right? It's over."
Harry shook his head, the flashlights on his head lighting alternating walls. "When are things ever that simple? You can't just destroy shit, leave a power vacuum like that and walk away. Ever hear of Iraq?"
I nodded, but I didn't know exactly what he was talking about, and he couldn't see me anyway. "So, what, hold him hostage until he shuts everything down? I don't even know if he can."
"Don't worry about it. Look, this was supposed to be a one-man operation until you caught me in the garage. You ask enough questions for two people. I sure don't need the third man here. Just back me up, and I'll take care of everything."
I lagged behind, but I still believed this was the band reunion I wanted so bad. "Harry, can I at least kick in the next door?"
He laughed. "Feels good, doesn't it, causing trouble again?"
Adrenaline was the only thing keeping me from collapsing, just like our old shows. It was great to be back. "Hey, I love this plan. I'm excited to be a part of it." Yeah, I said a line from Ghostbusters, but I was confused, and maybe something about being in the Dude's house was having an effect on me.
Harry gave me a look, and his headlights blinded me. I wish I knew what was really going on.
We went back downstairs, and Harry led the way to the throne room. With our flashlights, its darkness wasn't any more intimidating than all the other rooms in the house, but the big chair at the other end was empty. "Where's the Dude?"
Harry put his finger to his lips for quiet. Then he pointed behind the throne. The green screen from last time was off to the side, covered with a sheet, and there was a door I didn't see before. Harry went up to it, looked back at me again, and kicked that door open.
"Dammit, Harry." I ran in after him, finding a narrow little room, like a hallway to nowhere or some of the storage rooms we used as backstages on tour. The desk at the far end was cut in half to fit between the narrow walls, with half-eaten plates of food on it, and in the middle of that mess was the Dude's computer.
If the Dude really was a powerless popsicle like the rest of the programmers, then that was the real boss, telling everyone what to do.
