Raised in Captivity Read online

  “I’d love for you to meet Reckless,” he said. “She’s an amazing cook. I’ll tell her to whip up some mashed potatoes.”

  “Where do you two live?”

  “There’s a bar on the corner of Rivington and Essex called the Vagician,” said Marvin. “Go up the back stairs after ten o’clock and knock five times on the red door. That’s the code, if five knocks can count as a code. The doorman will let you into the upstairs bar. It’s themed after the Soviet Union. The drinks are free. The bar is called Occupy Moscow.”

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “Aren’t we supposed to put the word occupy in front of places that represent the tyranny of capitalism? Seems like Soviet-era Moscow would represent the opposite of that.”

  “Yeah, they didn’t think that one through,” said Marvin. “But behind the bartender, you’ll see a rope ladder under a trapdoor. It looks sketchy, but it’s safe. Climb up the ladder and open the trapdoor on the ceiling. That’s our place. That’s the place they gave us.”

  The receptionist called out a name I was unfamiliar with and Marvin got up and went to the front desk. It seemed pretentious to employ an alias at the proctologist, but I let it slide. He waved goodbye and said something about seeing me tomorrow at ten-thirty, and I responded affirmatively, like an idiot, almost by reflex. The idea of going somewhere I’d never been to meet a woman I’d never met and converse with a person I no longer knew was not appealing. I only wanted to know what was happening. I didn’t want be involved with what was happening, regardless of what it was. But you know, I was curious, and it looked like this was the only way to get the information I wanted, and I’d already said yes (like an idiot). I had to go.

  I consider wearing a suit, until I remember I’ll evidently need to climb a rope ladder, prompting me to reverse polarity and go with sweatpants. The trains are fast and I arrive at the Vagician early. I’m able to finish two beers before heading up the staircase at 10:01. I knock five times on the red door and I’m instantly granted access. It’s a dark bar with low ceilings and terrible music from the 1940s. There are at least a dozen nonconformists sitting around hardwood tables, drinking vodka and talking louder than necessary. The size of the crowd is perplexing, because I didn’t see anyone else go up the back stairs before me. Is there a separate entry for regulars, or have they all been drinking up here for hours? To my surprise, I recognize someone in the corner of the room—a stocky, satirical novelist who often writes about oligarchs. He’s telling an elaborate anecdote to three young Jewish women enraptured by his raconteuring. A man behind the bar robotically offers me a shot glass of vodka, but I wave him off and point toward the nine-foot rope ladder located behind him. He nods politely and allows me to pass. Up I go. It’s been a long time since I touched a rope.

  Before I even reach the trapdoor, I hear them arguing through the plywood. Marvin still fights the way I remember, a combination of deft sarcasm and muted exasperation. His red-haired roommate is straight-up screaming obscenities. The nature of the dispute is unclear, though my natural inclination is to worry that it somehow concerns my visit. I wait at the top of the ladder for almost two minutes, afraid to knock but acutely aware of the various Communists staring at my posterior. I finally rap on the bottom of the entrance, delicately. It opens in a flash. Marvin looks down and says, “You’re early.” But he instantly recognizes his rudeness and apologizes. He feigns excitement over my arrival while helping me into the loft. He introduces me to Reckless Opportunist. She is not dressed appropriately. I make sure to keep my line of vision above her neck.

  “It’s so nice to meet you,” she says unconvincingly. “I hear you love mashed potatoes.”

  “My reputation precedes me,” I say.

  “I’m still cooking,” she says. “It will be a while. You two can talk, or whatever it is you like to do.”

  She walks past both of us with her head down, disappearing into a different room that must be the kitchen but looks more like a bedroom. The apartment appears to have been decorated by a teenage boy with newly dead parents. Every wall is painted a different shade of orange. The smell of marijuana is suffocating. There are open laptops on the floor in every corner, surrounded by reference books. The only furniture is a massive collection of high-end beanbag chairs. We sit on the floor and try to make small talk, but Marvin is so visibly distraught that I admit I overheard the argument on my way up the ladder. I tell him I’ll quietly leave if it’s a bad time for a visit. Marvin, relieved that I’ve addressed the rhino in the room, assures me that the dispute is a minor dustup and that he and Reckless have a conflict-driven relationship, partly because of who they are and partly because of what they do. Seeing an opening to learn what I want to know, I ask him to elucidate.

  “The magazine article explained it better than I could,” said Marvin. “There are things in this world that don’t need to be remembered. It’s as simple as that.”

  “That doesn’t seem simple at all,” I say. “I don’t understand how you would select what doesn’t need to be remembered, and I don’t understand how this magic algorithm keeps other people from just replacing whatever you eliminate.”

  “I don’t understand the algorithm myself. That was all Toby,” says Marvin. Toby is one of Marvin’s teenage twins. “Toby is a genius. Tommy, not so much. He’s a little overrated. I mean, don’t get me wrong. Tommy’s great. I love him. He gets all A’s, he’s solid in math. But Toby—that kid is a machine. He’s described this algorithm to me ten different times and I still don’t get how it works. It’s almost like the shit deletes itself.”

  “But what is the purpose?” I ask. “It’s not like eliminating the memory of an event changes what happened.”

  “I don’t think you believe that,” says Marvin. “If that was what you believed, you wouldn’t think what we were doing was worth asking about. You wouldn’t care at all. But you do care, because you know what we’re doing is not insignificant. Concern over the elimination of any memory is proof that the memory itself has power. You should really ask Reckless to describe this in detail. I’ve thought about this stuff a lot, but she doesn’t think about anything else.”

  “Is her name actually Reckless Opportunist?”

  “Of course not. It’s Courtney.”

  “How did the two of you meet?”

  “She was Toby’s tutor,” said Marvin. “Toby wants to graduate at sixteen, so we needed to pump up his scores in the humanities. This was when he was still eleven or twelve. Reckless—this is back when she was still Courtney—worked for this private tutoring company that helps rich kids get into the Ivies. She would come over to the house three times a week, and I would eavesdrop on their sessions. And I just knew immediately. I knew I was in love with her, way before we ever made real contact. The passion of her morality. The intensity of her hatreds. I just knew this was the woman I was supposed to be with. I couldn’t control myself. I had to pursue her.”

  “How did Donna handle all this?” I ask. “How did you explain this to the boys?”

  “The boys get it. They know who she is and they can see what she looks like. They understand what matters,” said Marvin. “Donna wasn’t thrilled, as you might expect. There was some crying, there was yelling. She threw a loaf of bread at me. She hit me with a tennis racket. But she’s also not politically engaged, so there was almost no point in trying to explain.”

  “It seems like such a bold move,” I say. “You just walked away from your family? You gave up on jazz?”

  “No more jazz,” said Marvin. “Say, do you want a tour of the apartment?”

  “No,” I replied. And I didn’t. Why waste time with politeness? It wasn’t like we were going to rekindle our friendship. I didn’t recognize the person in front of me and I had no desire to pursue a fresh relationship with a new person who simply happened to resemble the old person I’d already lost touch with once before. But I did have more questions. I had so many q
uestions that I didn’t know where to start. How could Marvin blow up his entire life to be with a melodramatic woman who, while certainly sexy, seemed like a caricature of how sexy women used to be portrayed in movies that were now considered misogynistic? Why would he devote his life to an enterprise that, while arguably levelheaded, would seem to personify the most unrealistic fears of free-speech absolutists? Why didn’t he like jazz anymore? Was jazz symbolic of a past he now wanted to destroy? Didn’t that seem a little too nakedly symbolic? Why did he have to live in a secret apartment above a secret bar that didn’t even understand its own secrecy? It wasn’t like he was murdering people. Nobody goes to prison for damaging the legacy of Smashing Pumpkins. And what, exactly, was the problem with Smashing Pumpkins? How could he ethically justify committing a crime, minor or otherwise, if one of the principal results was the eradication of Billy Corgan from the historical record? It’s not like anyone was forcing kids to memorize the lyrics to Siamese Dream in middle school. It seemed mean-spirited, and arbitrary, and also a bit loony. He steals his kid’s algorithm and moves 2,800 miles away? He assumes his teenage sons will be cool with all this, simply because his girlfriend is radical and hot? The Internet works everywhere. Why not stay in Seattle and do this from an apartment in Capitol Hill? Did it never occur to Marvin that what he was doing was simultaneously self-righteous and solipsistic, and that his willingness to publicize those qualities in a local magazine pretty much proved the insincerity of his intentions?

  I ask him all of those questions, almost exactly as I have outlined them here. I never even wait for the answers. Every time he tries to talk, I pose a different query. When I finally finish, he smiles. He smiles just like before, the way I’d seen him smile back in the ass doctor’s waiting room. No awkwardness. No tension. I didn’t know this person, but I hadn’t known him for so long that it was almost like I didn’t need to.

  “I think you’re a bit like Donna,” said Marvin. “I don’t think this is something you can really understand. Which isn’t your fault. It’s not a question of intelligence. You’re a smart guy. You’re smart enough to realize that this is important. You just can’t fully grasp the reason why.”

  “That’s condescending,” I say.

  “Maybe so,” said Marvin. “But you’re the kind of guy who loves mashed potatoes. Right?”

  “Quit saying that. My desires don’t define me. Quit bringing that up.”

  “But it’s true.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  The door to the kitchen that looked like a bedroom swung open. Reckless Opportunist walked out into the living room, smiling and wearing only a T-shirt and panties, carrying a huge vat of garlic mashed potatoes. I wanted to cry. I wanted to punch someone. But what could I do? Some things don’t change.

  The Enemy Within

  She was not under arrest. They told her that at least twenty times. She was not under arrest, she was not in danger, and they were all on her side. They only needed to ask a few questions. Her captors did not wear uniforms or masks, nor did they provide identification. They gently shoved her into the backseat of a Toyota Prius and drove to an anonymous brick building in an undisclosed location. They entered the building through a side door that led to a basement, poorly ventilated and sparsely furnished. The leader (or at least the person who appeared to be leading) told her to sit anywhere she liked, but he pointed toward one particular chair as he said this. He offered her a LaCroix, which she declined.

  “Your name is Cookie Dupree,” he said with the upspeak of a question.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “You live at 1332 Weathervane Lane,” he said, again with the upspeak.

  “Yes.”

  “You live with a man named Henry Skrabble.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Henry is my boyfriend.”

  Her captors ricocheted glances. One began furiously typing into her phone. Another crossed his arms and exhaled. The leader seemed to relax.

  “That’s good, Cookie. Thanks for being so straightforward,” he said. “I need to ask some questions about Henry Skrabble. Answer these questions honestly. It will only take a few minutes, and then you can leave. Nothing untoward will happen to you, regardless of what you say. This is a safe place. We are not the Symbionese Liberation Army. You are not Patty Hearst. No one is ending up in the closet.”

  Cookie wasn’t sure why she believed him, but she did. Maybe it was his voice. It was the right timbre for a nonviolent hostage situation: earnest and sincere, but also respectful, but also intelligent, but also monotone, but also similar to the tenor one uses when addressing a child.

  “Let’s begin,” said the leader. “Are you aware of the television programs Henry likes to watch on his laptop computer?”

  “The television programs?”

  “When he’s going to sleep,” said the leader. “When he’s in bed, watching TV on his thirteen-inch MacBook Air, preparing to sleep. Can you identify which specific programs he prefers to watch?”

  “I . . . I think I can.”

  “Do these TV shows, of which there are obviously many, include that series about the transgender family, or that show about young women in Brooklyn, or the show about hip-hop artists living in Georgia, or the show about the woman who kills for pleasure, or the show where the protagonist and the antagonist are the same person? These are his favorite shows, correct? When asked to list his favorite TV shows on various social media platforms, these are the shows he typically lists. Correct?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Cookie. “Maybe. Probably. I mean, he definitely watched shows like that, when they were on. We both did. But I don’t think they’re even on anymore. Are they still on?”

  “That’s irrelevant,” said the leader. “Now, can you tell me why he liked these television programs?”

  Cookie squinted.

  “What was his reasoning?” asked the leader. “Did he think they were entertaining, or did he think they were necessary? Did he appreciate who was creating those shows and the perspective they offered, particularly when those perspectives contradicted his preexisting views? Did you sense his expressed affinity for these shows was, on some level, a form of signaling? When he spoke to you in private about these TV programs, what did he say?”

  “I don’t recall,” said Cookie. “Maybe all of those things? We didn’t really talk about those shows. We just watched them. We followed the stories.”

  Her captors seemed neither pleased nor alarmed by this response, although one of them sighed twice.

  “Let’s try again,” said the leader, less reassuring than before. “What would Henry classify as more violent: physically assaulting a bad person, or anecdotally invalidating a good person?”

  “Maybe equal,” she said. “Henry is not a violent man. He abhors violence. In fact, whenever violence is discussed, he specifically uses the word abhor. He stopped watching football on principle.”

  “Aha,” said the leader. “But tell me this: Did you notice that he stopped watching football, or did you overhear him telling other people that he stopped watching football? Did it seem like he wanted people to know he doesn’t watch football? Did he claim it was because of the concussions, or did he claim it was because of what football represents? Did it have anything to do with players’ kneeling during the national anthem?”

  “I don’t know,” said Cookie. “We don’t even have a real TV.”

  One of the captors threw a phone across the room. The leader glared at her and she nonverbally apologized.

  “Sorry about that,” said the leader. “That was unacceptable. Like I said, this is a safe place. It’s not a place where we throw technology. But—having said that—you do need to try a little harder, Cookie. You need to compromise. These are not invasive queries. Your answers don’t need to be complete or absolute or provable. They just need to help us understand what we are trying to under
stand. Do you understand that?”

  “I’m trying,” said Cookie.

  “I know you are. And that’s all that matters. Trying is all that matters,” said the leader. “Tell me this: Has he ever explained something to you that you already knew?”

  “Like about what?”

  “Like about anything.”

  “Well, of course. We’ve been together seven years. He’s constantly telling me how to sort the recycling. Which, I’ll admit, is pretty complicated in our building. More complicated than it should be. But not so complicated that I need to be told every other month. You know what I mean? The bins are labeled. The compost goes in the blue bin. Or maybe the green bin? Either way, I can figure it out.”

  “Absolutely,” said the leader. “I know how that feels. We totally, completely understand how that feels. How about books? Does he ever tell you to read certain books that wouldn’t normally interest you?”

  “Actually, yes. He has done that quite often,” said Cookie. “And it’s annoying, although sometimes his suggestions are okay. That Norwegian guy was good, for a while. But can you please just tell me why you need to know this? Was Henry in an accident?”

  “It’s a bit more serious than that,” said the leader. “We have reason to believe your boyfriend is Fake Woke.”