Chapter 19 in R.M. Dolin’s novel “The Dangling Conversation“, July 17, 2024.
KYLE: “It’s everything I know at this point, just a hastily written email my lawyer sent from the courthouse saying, “prepare to be arrested.” He’s friends with a fed who tipped him off, some guy at FBI who feeds him stuff from time to time in exchange for favors; not sure what kind of favors my lawyer’s in a position to dole out but I’m certain I don’t want to know. It’ll likely be tomorrow, maybe the day after, certainly soon. They probably need to work out logistics, I’m not someone to perp-walk on national new; in fact, just the opposite, I’m someone who needs to be discretely picked up and put away as quietly as possible. What I do know, is that one day soon, I’ll just be gone without a trace and there’s no telling what becomes of me after that; it won’t be good, that much is clear.
“I need to tell you something; something I very much regret and wish I could take back. You need to pay close attention and do exactly what I tell you. It’s important not to panic, it’ll seem overwhelming at first, but if we stick to my plan, everything’s gonna work out. The thing is Isabelle, and I don’t mean to scare you, but once the government wants you gone, they have ways, both above and below board. Just remember what that arrogant SOB at FBI famously bragged; he can indite a ham sandwich if he wants, which is their way of saying the fine folks at Justice just make shit up whenever it suits them. And they will, they’ll invent shit about me and fabricate all kinds of fake evidence to protect their for-profit enclaves. I told you what’s at stake, billions if not trillions of dollars and that’s small potatoes compared to the mass hysteria that falls out once folks realize the food and drugs approved by FDA are suspect. If nothing else, you should at least understand how far they’ll go to get me gone, and because they act with complete impunity, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them. This is why you must do as I tell you.
“They already know about you and I sitting here night after night, of that you can be sure; hell, they’re probably watching us now. I can assure you though, they’re not listening, I took steps to prevent that; an anti-monitoring dome encases this bench since long before I met you. Like any good engineer, I got my tricks. They do know about us; so, rule one, when you’re questioned, be cooperative. Tell the truth about everything we ever discussed; except, the food and drug stuff, that has to remain our secret. When they ask you about it, say you didn’t even know I worked there. Tell them as far as you know I’m retired from State. Second, and this is important, don’t ever talk about any of the FDA stuff to anyone, anywhere; assume they’re watching; they’re always watching, especially on your phone, computer, and social media.
“Only a handful of people know the truth of what went down and they’re all deep-staters. I’m sorry for dragging you into this. The thing is, you’re my fatal flaw; not only are you a rare and wonderful soul, you’re important to me, and in an unfortunately forgetful moment, I let my guard down and spoke out of turn. That’s the thing about this thing we have; through no fault of your own, I opened up in ways never before imagined. Most of what we’ve shared these past few months are things I’ve never told anyone. I’ve always been guarded, until you and look where it got us. I’m so sorry for dragging you into my shit show; I’m not sorry we met or had our many wonderful conversations, but sorry for sharing the darkest parts of me; you don’t deserve what’s about to happen, which is why I worry way more about you than I do myself. My fate’s been set since the moment I found the software glitch leading straight to the executive cover-up. The outcome’s obvious, this is government, which means the innocent are persecuted while the guilty get rewarded.
“For your safety, hell your freedom, you can’t breathe a word of this to anyone; not on your phone, not during a casual party conversation, not in the privacy of your home, or the sanctuary of close contacts; they’re watching, of that you can be certain. When I’m asked, I’ll deny ever telling you anything. To the bitter end I won’t say I said anything about any of this to you, no matter the consequence, and in case you don’t already know, when an old cowboy like me makes a pledge like that, there’s no fine print and nothing can ever strain that trust. When you get questioned about this FDA shit show, the only answer you provide is, “I don’t remember any such thing.” In political enclaves, it’s called the “Hillary Gambit.”
“In all likelihood they’ll come at you in ways so subtle you won’t even know you’re being worked. They’ll attempt to ensnare you using deceptively devious schemes; perhaps a stranger draws you into a seemingly benign conversation about food safety in the produce department of the grocery story, or some senior citizen engages you in a discussion regarding Big Pharma while you wait to check out. They’ll pretend to share your beliefs as they subtly manipulate you into revealing things without ever actually asking about my troubles. Never forget, they’re not only ruthless and devious, they’re immorally skilled at the deceptive art of soliciting information from people in a way they don’t even realize they’ve been targeted.”
ISABELLE: “You’re scaring me in ways I haven’t felt since the last time my Ex found me. Already my skin’s starting to itch the way it does in a crisis. It’s a helluva lot to dump on a girl just trying to get her life together. I’m not sure if I should be angry at you for dragging me into your shit show or feel sorry for you. If I’m being honest, it’s a little bit of both. Everything about this has me torn in two directions, you tell me not to trust anyone, yet you trusted me enough to share. There-in lies my dichotomy, I’m pissed as hell you shared, but at the same time touched you trust me so deeply. I mean, how do you know I’m not a fed working you; not only to find out what you know, but what you’re willing to share with others so my overlords can decide if they need a more permanent solution to their Kyle problem? How do you know I haven’t been sent here to decide if you live or die?”
KYLE: “I don’t; that’s the sad and tragic truth of my predicament. I initially thought you were a nefarious agent sent to adjudicate my fate; beautiful young women are not in the habit of spending time with someone like me, and certainly not on a park bench like this. If you were, then I reversed the field by probing, you probably never noticed, but there was a series of tests I performed to determine any deep-state affiliation. Go back and replay our conversations to see what I mean. Before long I could see you weren’t trying to drive me to my troubles, but instead were genuinely interested in the long drawn-out story behind how my shit show got going. On top of that, there isn’t a fed alive smart enough to create a cover story as unbelievable as yours. I’m not some sort of shaman or mystic, I have no insight into human psychology, I just felt a connection between your soul and mine and once my soul saw yours, there was only goodness. Mark that down as my optical eye chart of wisdom.
“The other thing you need to brace for is what comes next, the discrediting phase. It’ll start after I’m arrested and will be hard for you to stomach given you know the truth. You have to bite your tongue and stay silent. I’m prepared for the nasty shit they’ll say about me; there’ll be a slew of poorly prepared performance reviews dating back years to demonstrate I’m a problem employee, there’ll be veiled accusations that I was suspected of malicious intent long before the incident occurred. They’ll even most likely say it was me, acting as a lone saboteur, who altered their damn software. From there, they’ll paint me as some sort of sycophantic terrorist and no doubt pin a host of Big Pharma deaths on me, not only to consolidate my guilt, but to release Big Pharma from financial responsibility for the thousands of people they’ve knowingly killed. You see how big and powerful this tsunami is, right?
“When you step back and see things from their point of view, from their need to protect not only their careers but also those of their corporate overlords, you understand everything about to happen to me must happen quickly and forcefully. At the end of the day dear one, as this train pulls into the station, people like you and me don’t much matter, the lives of the people effected by their malfeasance matter even less, everyone and everything is expendable, including truth and trust when money and power are at stake. If nothing else is retained from our time together, mark that down as my tombstone of wisdom.”
ISABELLE: “I’m so sorry for your troubles, as you call them, I wish for words to ease your anxiety, but have none. I can tell you things are going to work out, but it sounds like we’re way beyond that. I can tell you that I’m willing to do anything to help, but we both know there’s nothing I can do. I know it’s not much, but I am somewhat of an expert at disappearing, probably not all that good though, my Ex always finds me; so, I guess I can’t help much there either. My dad holds me whenever I’m overwhelmed, but I get the sense that’s not your deal.
“I remember once when my Ex found me, it was early in our little game of escape and evasion; I was terrified to the point of being frozen. You see that a lot on nature shows, an animal is being pursued by a predator and at first the animal tries to hide, then to flee, but the end is always the same, they just surrender to their fate. I mean you’re watching all this like a spectator in the Colosseum only you’re shouting, “run little rabbit, run!” In the end though, he doesn’t. The rabbit stops, like he’s just decided fate’s going do what fate does and you can’t stop what’s going to happen from happening. That’s the sense I get from you.
“Why don’t you run? You got your cabin in the wilderness with that wild neighbor you talk about, he’d hide in ways you couldn’t be found. Escape to France, certainly Nadia has places where you’d be invisible? I don’t get why you just sit here waiting to be arrested, it’s like you’ve given up, surrendered to an unjust fate and it seems so contradictory to everything I’ve learned about you.”
KYLE: “I’m not going to lie, the thought of running is tempting; I could take all my cash, get on a bike, and just start peddling. I could dip my tire in either coast or head north and not stop moving till I cross into Canada or maybe take my chances down south; only I’d be too obvious as the only person on the continent heading the wrong direction. I can’t escape to France, they’re watching the airports for just such a move, but more important, Nadia’s not cut out for this sort of thing. She already has too much on her plate and doesn’t need my shit served up on any such platter.
“Of all the things about to happen, that’s the collateral damage I fear the most. I don’t see a scenario where Nadia and I survive; it’s not that we don’t love each other, but even unconditional love has its limitations and like I said, Nadia’s not cut out for the difficult road ahead.
“You’re right about rabbits, I’m probably no different. It’s as curious as trying to understand why condemned men walk to the gallows; I’m pretty sure they’d drag me kicking and screaming. In a surreal sense that’s what I’m doing; passively sitting here waiting for the gallows to come to me because I’m too damn stubborn and stupid to walk there on my own; not really sure what Darwin has to say about that.
“I’ve replayed everything that happened so many of times there’s permanent pathways inlaid in my anxiety; there’s things I could, and should, have done different, but at the end of the day, the train’s pulling into the same station either way. I could’ve turned a blind eye to the glaring glitch once discovered, as I’m sure countless other analysts before me did. I could’ve kept quiet about my discovery, but that only puts people’s lives in jeopardy and my conscience just can’t allow that to happen; it’s just not the cloth I’m cut from. Trust is my fatal flaw; I should’ve never trusted the honesty and integrity of senior managers; how could I not know they’d act exactly as they did; my one miscalculation; one that’s about to rain down on me like a mountain storm above a frost filled tree line.
“If I had it again to do over, if I had a chance to go back to the moment I’m given the option to accept or decline the analysis knowing what I now know about how things turn out, I’d still take the analysis. In the end, Isabelle, I saved lives and that matters more than whatever happens next; my slow walk to the gallows is a fixture of fate, a predetermined destiny that began as I backed down my driveway leaving Maggie in one world and driving to this destination in the next.
“Darwin would surmise, evil always prevails. The analyst who found this issue before me but kept quiet are evil. The bureaucrats destroying me to protect their careers are evil. The compliant feds doing the bidding of their demonic overlords acting without regard for the morality of their actions are evil. Anything good that stands in the way of evil is destroyed, including me, which is why Darwin’s right, in the epic struggle for survival of the fittest, evil always prevails.
“I’ve been lying to myself about this for so long I don’t see things clearly anymore. It’s hard to anchor yourself to truth when you constantly lie. For some odd reason, I never lie to others but find it so damn easy when it comes to me; really strange when you think about it.”
ISABELLE: “It is good and right what you do, although I don’t know anyone except maybe dad, who’d choose your path. I damn sure I couldn’t. I did reach a point where I stop running from my Ex and take a stand, that worked out for me, I don’t see a similar kind of outcome on your horizon. I get your decision, and though it’s clearly foolish, there’s an honor in it, even stoically heroic. That’s how you’ll be remembered, maybe not by everyone but for those of us who matter.
“My dad never again works as a machinist after his troubles, but he does rebuild and finds ways to be happy; at least I think he is. There was this deal during my divorce, I just moved back home, and dad takes me to an art gallery thinking it’ll cheer me up. The place is huge and crowded for a show that’s opening. At one point we separate, probably cause I’m looking for wine, eventually I find him standing in front of this rather weird painting. It has a rich swath of deep black paint around the canvas border that gives way to a slightly lighter blackish gray that when taken together looks oddly like a weathered window frame. Inside this framed-in area are random brush strokes of black and gray paint that only partially cover the white canvas. A small plaque below the painting reads, “Window to My Darkness, acrylic on canvas by Olinski.”
“I stand beside dad for several minutes, him captivated by the painting and me watching him wondering how this can even be interesting. To break the silence I joke, “bizarre painting, huh. This guy’s got some crazy-ass darkness going on in his life.” Dad just keeps staring, then quietly, to himself as much as me, says, “everyone’s life is encased by darkness.” He then turns to me and sort of smiles, as if to laugh off his comment, but years later it still haunts me. Not so much the painting, I’ve already forgotten most of it, it’s the way the artist spoke to dad’s soul.
“At first, you look at this so-called piece of art and it seems like something someone did in junior high, but once you read the title and start seeing the way deep black borders do look like a window frame and how that gives way to lighter gray edging like fog encasing a view just beyond your reach, you get this eerie sense your looking out a prison window. The random black and gray brush strokes in the center suddenly seem like bits and pieces of torment floating around in fog with no hope of escape. This ever so simple painting that quite frankly I could do, stays with me more than any other work of true art I’ve ever seen. Listening to you and imagining how you must feel, makes me think of my dad standing in that art gallery, the only person to get the profoundness of what the artist is saying. We all have a window to our darkness even if we’re afraid to have a look.
KYLE: “I’ve never seen anything like what you describe, but know exactly what the artist is going for, sounds a lot like Olivia’s art toward the end. I could define my life through such a weathered window frame; my troubles being the encroaching fog that surrounds and suffocates me in a dense shroud shrinking toward infinity, to the point all I hold dear struggles to breath. Guess that more than anything explains how I wound up in church today; especially given the odd absurdity of me talking to God. Of course it has a lot to do with my collapsing chaos, there’s no escaping that, and of course the deepening despair over what it means for me and Nadia. But like a waterfall of marbles inflicting pain that leaves no mark, I’m also missing Olivia and the way she could talk me through this. I’m hearing the loneliness in Maggie’s voice as our world comes to an end; feeling again the coldness that came coming down the mountains of Milan.
“There’s also lingering after-affects of what we talked about the other night and how fragile life is; how most of us are lost with no way home, even if we’re scared to admit it. Like I said, I can’t explain why, but there I am, in church of all places; the only one in an enormously large and vacuously empty structure that’s cascading in a chorus of silent echoes. I’m sitting in the pew farthest from the alter, no thoughts, no solid sounds, just the beating of my heart and the slow awakening of my soul.
“I really can’t describe how, but after a while, I feel God; I know that sounds caught between crazy and cliché, but I did; but not in a comforting way. It’s more like God’s come to render judgment and it’s up to me to defend myself; or at least offer up reasonable explanations. I stumble around at first, like anyone would, after all, how do you defend yourself to God? No one can, which means we’re screwed, which is a tough spot to be, especially one-on-one. After stammering around and not making much sense, I start to inventory the life of Kyle; the good I’ve done and the much longer list of what needs to be atoned for.
“God though, isn’t interested in discussing the pros and cons of me. He says to dig deeper; that he cares less about the “what’s,” in my life because he wants to drill down to the “why’s.” I have to tell ya, it’s a hell of a lot easier to list the positive things you’ve done and weigh them against the many demerits you’ve earned along the way. I take multiple runs at giving God his answer, but each attempt’s cut short and his impatience’s becoming abundantly clear.
“Out of desperation, I randomly challenge God by asking if he simply weighs my individual parts, both good and bad, or if there’s an overall gestalt having additional gravitas; you know, the notion of the whole being more than the sum of the parts. Here’s where things get interesting because God tells me to list my parts, and he’ll decide, both individually and collectively, how to tip the scale. I sit there quite a while trying to figure out how to complete my assignment, then without premeditation, I grab a collection envelope from the pew’s hymn book holder and find a worn pencil in the bottom tray and start breaking down my life into its disconnected piece parts.
“A part of me,” I boldly write at the top of the envelope, “is afraid to start, but knows it must be done.” and so begins the encapsulation my life, the entire “whys” of my existence, contained on the surface of one small envelope addressed to God.
“A part of me loves my life unconditionally, even while wanting more.
“Part of me lives in hell yet finds bizarre comfort there.
“A part of me willingly trades “this” for “that,” without knowing “that.”
“A part of me knows I lie to myself.
“Part of me is forever a boy. . . a part of me hopes.
“A part of me dreams of being wealthy, but really, just doesn’t want to be poor.
“A part of me is always singing, even in the solitude of sadness.
“A part of me incessantly wonders, what would the real Jesus do?
“Part of me’s a poet, a writer and hapless romantic, a thinker and cycler, mostly though, my soul’s chaotically unsettled.
“Part of me is only at peace in post-day darkness when cold wind lulls my bike into a sudden hairpin curve down a daring descent.
“A part of me long ago gave up yet can’t stop rebuilding.
“A quiet part of me closes his eyes and stops breathing to better see the world and hear wind’s many secrets.
“A part of me craves stillness and calm even though I never am.
“Part of me wonders why while accepting such answers are never satiated.
“A part of me misses the ones I hold dear.
“A part of me hesitantly smiles and pretends as the trepidus train pulls into the station.
“A part of me yearns to be that young man who hikes half a day high into the mountains just to lay under Aspen while wind rustles through and I forgetfully fall asleep as sun warms my face.
“Part of me believes in the profoundness of morning and the excitement of all things possible.
“A part of me is okay with what happens next, on some level needs it.
“Part of me accepts contrition for not being ready or worthy to receive Communion.
“Part of me is lost not wanting to be found.
“A part of me tenaciously listens as other parts whisper things I dare not hear.
“Part of me needs to suffer, though I don’t know why.
“A part of me has been here before, a recursive kind of hell from which there’s no escape.
“A part of me is anxious . . . and scared but finds the fortitude to stand strong.
“A part of me thanks you for your covenant and this day you allow me to be a part of.
“Part of me needs to be alone, though I yearn for intimacy.
“A part of me longs to be loved while facing the unfortunate fact I may never be.
“Part of me does not yet know. The rest of me struggles coming to terms with what that means.
“A part of me stands stoically against bitter prairie wind rather than concede it’s too cold to be outside.
“Part of me wants a redo, even if outcomes remain unchanged.
“A part of me is fearless, part of me is fearful. Most of me spends most my time avoiding these two parts of me.
“Part of me believes in happy endings, which are increasingly hard in the face of escalating troubles.
“A part of me thinks the world needs cowboys even though our sun long ago set.
“Part of me goes on believing everything will be okay, the rest of me struggles to trust that truth.
“A part of me lives in tormented pain from which there’s no escape, but a still small part believes in love and that’s my lifeline.
“Part of me fears prison as its encroaching iron of inevitability shrouds me in darkness, the collateral cost of integrity.
A part of me seeks the strength to look beyond the window of my darkness knowing that I must.
“A part of me wonders what happened to the whole that once was greater than the sum of all these parts.
“Part of me knows you know these things; have always known.“
“And there you have it, the life of Kyle encapsulated into a random collage of piece-parts. The thing is dear Isabelle, the thing I keep coming back to as my world closes in, is something an old Italian told me after I finally recovered enough to finish that ride in the mountains of Milan. I arrive at the airport and before entering the terminal begin the process of stowing my gear. I don’t really pay much attention as this old man stops to look over my mud crusted bike and disheveled body without saying anything. I feel a bit awkward as he continues standing there, so I say to him, “please don’t judge me, you’ve no idea the troubles I’ve been through.” He smiles back still not saying anything. As I reach down to unhook my panniers and dig out my tools, I feel his frail hand on my shoulder and when I look up, he smiles down and in very broken English says, “I long ago learned not to judge a man who knows down to the profound depths of his soul how to judge himself.”
