The Failure: A Novel Read online

  Critical Praise for Artificial Light by James Greer

  *Winner of the California Book Award Silver Medal for First Fiction

  “Greer does a superb job of transcending conventional genrefication, bringing something fresh to contemporary literature … A very enjoyable read [with a] highly inventive structure, full of eccentricities and rock music factoids.”

  —Library Journal

  “Ambitious and intriguing … Strong writing and shrewd perceptions prevail, backed by wry humor, compelling stumblebum characters, and arresting insights into the dream of art.”

  —Booklist

  “Greer’s prose shines [with] moments where the writing becomes urgent and truly moving. This is the way the real and the invented Kurt [Cobain] would have wanted it.”

  —Los Angeles Times Book Review

  “Artificial Light mixes genres for a complex and rewarding head scratch. It’s a love letter to an unlovable city relayed in prose that is fluid with depth and reverberation.”

  —Eye Weekly (Toronto, Canada)

  “Greer is drunk on words and uses this altered state like a hit man with a zip gun, delivering a scattering of one poetic paragraph after another … At times he comes on like a late-night booze hound, purging his drunken philosophies and theories in haphazard but engaging fashion … He is enthralling, slightly buzzed tippler of poetic phrases and brilliant insights.”

  —Dayton Daily News

  “Big-ambition fiction … Carries a whiff of classic Bret Easton Ellis.”

  —Time Out New York

  “Artificial Light is an ambitious … and deliberately perplexing novel about love; of rock ’n’ roll, of substance abuse, of late-night bars, of language, of what or whoever is inaccessible.”

  —Magnet

  “Greer concocts his story in a refreshing way that makes it difficult not to get lost in this wonderful tangle of a story that’s punctuated by hauntingly beautiful prose.”

  —Chart (Canada)

  “When is flight not-flight? How does a dead (very dead) celebrity manage to be not-dead? Why are Dayton, Ohio, and not-Dayton so endgame-compatible? James Greer eats being and non-being for breakfast, and his tale is one of Parmenidian oompah and shebang. As apocalyptic page-turners go, Artificial Light beats the bejeezus out of the last dozen Thomas Pynchons, the last nineteen Don DeLillos, and the last forty-three Kurt Vonneguts. I wouldn’t shit ya.”

  —Richard Meltzer, author of A Whore Just Like the Rest

  “Fiat Lux gleams like an onyx from a vivid and darkly mythical world. She is impossible to forget and her skewed cynicism and solipsistic melancholy linger long after you’ve turned the final page. Greer’s writing is lean and poetic, shot through with sagacious observations and demented humor, but at the heart of his strange semi—sci fi world there is a huge human tenderness, moments of heart-rending lyrical beauty, and a rabid breathtaking imagination.”

  —Helen Walsh, author of Brass

  “Artificial Light skates on the purity of confession. It’s a brutal reveal; an Abyss Narrative with hooks. Read it in a rush of abomination and rise above, rise above.”

  —Stephen Malkmus

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Akashic Books

  ©2010 James Greer

  ePUB ISBN 13: 978-1-936-07076-3

  ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-97-2

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2009922939

  Akashic Books

  PO Box 1456

  New York, NY 10009

  [email protected]

  www.akashicbooks.com

  To W.W.

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  1. HOW GUY FORGET ENDED UP IN A COMA

  2. INTRODUCTION OF THE VILLAIN SVEN TRANSVOORT, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, SEVERAL WEEKS AFTER THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  3. GUY AND HIS BEST FRIEND BILLY DRINKING IN A BAR LATE AT NIGHT, THREE DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  4. MARCUS, GUY’S BROTHER, CONTEMPLATES WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN, STANDING AT THE WINDOW OF HIS OFFICE IN CAMBRIDGE, THE SAME DAY AS THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  5. WHAT GUY NEEDED, AND WHY: IN WHICH THE NOT ENTIRELY OMNISCIENT NARRATOR EXPLAINS THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO AND ITS INCITING INCIDENT, ABOUT TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE ACTUAL FIASCO. FOR THOSE INTERESTED, GUY IS SITTING ON THE COUCH IN HIS APARTMENT, WHICH THE READER WILL NEVER SEE AGAIN AND SO WE WILL NOT BOTHER TO DESCRIBE IT.

  6. SUBSENSORY ADVERTISING (ENABLED BY PANDEMONIUM’S REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGY)—SLIDE 23 OF A 47-SLIDE POWERPOINT PRESENTATION ASSEMBLED BY GUY FOR THE BENEFIT OF POTENTIAL INVESTORS, A PRESENTATION, AS HAS BEEN NOTED, THAT FAILED MISERABLY IN THE ABSENCE OF A BETA-TESTED PROTOTYPE

  7. THE TIME GUY’S FATHER VISITED GUY IN LOS ANGELES AND TOOK HIM OUT TO DINNER AT THE PALM, ABOUT TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  8. PROMPTED BY HIS FATHER’S CONVERSATION, GUY HAS A MENTAL FLASHBACK TO HIS CHILDHOOD IN DAYTON, OHIO, WHILE SITTING IN THE RESTAURANT PRETENDING TO LISTEN

  9. GUY AND BILLY DISCUSS PANDEMONIUM, SITTING IN BILLY’S APARTMENT, FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  10. GUY PREPARES TO MEET HIS BROTHER MARCUS TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  11. THE VILLAIN SVEN TRANSVOORT, STILL IN HIS UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, TALKS ABOUT GUY’S BACKGROUND, AND MAKES BROAD, MOSTLY NONSENSICAL GENERALIZATIONS ABOUT CULTURE

  12. THE NATURE OF BILLY’S DAY JOB REVEALED, AT BILLY’S APARTMENT, FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  13. GUY PITCHES THE IDEA OF PANDEMONIUM TO MARCUS IN THE LOBBY OF THE CHATEAU MARMONT, TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  13A. MINUTES LATER, MARCUS GOES TO THE BATHROOM, JUST AT THE MOMENT HIS WIFE CONSTANCE, WHO ACCOMPANIED HIM TO LOS ANGELES FOR THE QUANTUM CHROMODYNAMICS CONFERENCE, WALKS INTO THE LOBBY OF THE CHATEAU MARMONT LOOKING FOR HER HUSBAND—AGAIN, ABOUT TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  14. THE NIGHT GUY MET VIOLET MCKNIGHT, FIVE MONTHS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  15. GUY AND BILLY DISCUSS PROCEDURE IN RE: PLAN CHARLIE SITTING IN THE PROBABLY STOLEN MINI COOPER IN THE PARKING LOT OF THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING PLACE MERE MINUTES BEFORE THE ACTUAL FIASCO

  16. SVEN TRANSVOORT AT THE SMOG CUTTER, THE SAME NIGHT GUY MET VIOLET, FIVE MONTHS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  17. THE TIME GUY AND BILLY GOT IN A FIGHT AND FELL DOWN A HILL, MERE MINUTES AFTER THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  18. “OH, MARCUS, WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM ANYWAY?” REMARKS THE NOT ENTIRELY OMNISCIENT NARRATOR AS MARCUS VISITS HIS RECENTLY DECEASED FATHER IN A HOSPITAL IN DAYTON, OHIO, VERY CLOSE TO THE ACTUAL TIME OF THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING DEBACLE

  19. GUY, DRIVING IN HIS STOLEN CAR AWAY FROM WHERE HE LEFT BILLY AT THE BOTTOM OF A HILL AFTER THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO, WRITES A SONG, AS YOU DO

  20. THE VILLAIN SVEN TRANSVOORT SLANDERS VIOLET MCKNIGHT IN AN ATTEMPT TO JUSTIFY HIS ACTIONS, SITTING IN AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION SEVERAL WEEKS AFTER THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  21. THE ONLY TIME GUY VISITED VIOLET’S APARTMENT, OR, MORE PROPERLY PUT, THE ONLY TIME HE WAS ALLOWED TO DO SO, FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  22. BILLY DESCRIBES HIS FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH THE MOPED MARAUDERS, APPROXIMATELY TWO WEEKS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  23. GUY AND VIOLET RESPLENDENT IN THE FULMINANT GLORY OF THEIR LOVE, LYING ON THE BED IN VIOLET’S APARTMENT THE ONE NIGHT SHE TOOK HIM TO HER APARTMENT, FIVE OR POSSIBLY SIX DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING
FIASCO

  24. BILLY EXPLAINS TO GUY, SITTING IN THE BAR, THE ABSENCE OF GREGORY, WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO MEET THEM AT THE BAR, WHICH HE MANAGES, TO DISCUSS DRIVING THE GETAWAY CAR, THREE DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  25. THE TRUTH ABOUT VIOLET, AS RELUCTANTLY DISCLOSED BY THE NOT ENTIRELY OMNISCIENT BUT VERY RELIABLE NARRATOR, STEPPING OUT OF THE FRAME OF THE STORY FOR AN INSTANT

  26. BILLY, STRANDED ON A HILL-SIDE BY GUY, HAS AN UNFORTUNATE ENCOUNTER, LESS THAN AN HOUR AFTER THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  27. WHAT VIOLET SAID TO CHARLIE, FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE CHECK-CASHING FIASCO, IN THE BACK ROOM OF THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING PLACE, AFTER HOURS

  28. DAY OF THE LOCUS. GUY AND BILLY SIT IDLING IN THEIR PROBABLY STOLEN CAR IN THE PARKING LOT OF THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING PLACE

  29. THE LAST TIME GUY’S MOM AND DAD ATE AT THE PINE CLUB, THE NIGHT BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO, ALBEIT A COUPLE OF THOUSAND MILES AWAY

  30. SQUIRREL VS. CAT: A DISCUSSION IN THE PROBABLY STOLEN CAR BETWEEN GUY AND BILLY IN THE PARKING LOT OF THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING PLACE, ONE HOUR BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  31. GUY AND VIOLET DO DRUGS ON VIOLET’S BED, THE ONE NIGHT GUY WAS ALLOWED IN VIOLET’S APARTMENT, FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  32. THE VILLAIN SVEN TRANSVOORT DESCRIBES HIS FIRST MEETING WITH GUY, SITTING COWARDLY IN HIS UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, SEVERAL WEEKS AFTER THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  33. GUY AND BILLY DISCUSS VIOLET BEHIND HER BACK, SITTING IN THE BAR TWO DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  34. THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO, FINALLY, TOLD IN A STYLIZED MANNER THAT AT ONCE EVOKES AND MOCKS THE ABSURDITY OF THE SITUATION, WITHOUT STRAYING TOO FAR FROM WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED

  35. WHAT HAPPENED NEXT WAS JUST DUMB, IN THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  36. A PRIVATE CONVERSATION BETWEEN GUY AND VIOLET, SITTING ON VIOLET’S BED THE ONE TIME HE WAS ALLOWED TO VISIT HER APARTMENT, FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  37. BILLY PITCHES PANDEMONIUM TO A NEW GROUP OF POTENTIAL INVESTORS, SEVERAL WEEKS AFTER THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  38. THE MIND READING TRICK EXPLAINED IN FULL, ALBEIT RELUCTANTLY, SITTING IN THE BAR THREE DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  39. MARCUS RECONSIDERS HIS LIFE AND COMES TO A PROBABLY UNSURPRISING CONCLUSION, TWO DAYS AFTER VISITING GUY AT THE HOSPITAL, A FEW DAYS AFTER THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  40. UNORIGINAL OBSERVATION BY GUY FORGET ON THE FUTURE OF THE HUMAN RACE, INSERTED BY THE NOT ENTIRELY OMNISCIENT NARRATOR AT THIS POINT BECAUSE IT’S ABOUT TIME

  41. THE DAY GUY FORGET APOLOGIZED, WHICH IS ALSO THE DAY OF THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO, IN FACT NOT MORE THAN FIFTEEN MINUTES AFTERWARDS, ROUGHLY

  42. GUY TALKS TO VIOLET ABOUT FRIENDSHIP, LOVE, AND THE INTERCONNECTIVITY OF ALL THINGS, AND ENDS BY MAKING A POINT ABOUT THE IMPERMANENCE AND FRAILTY OF ALL HUMAN BONDS, SITTING ON HER BED THE ONE TIME HE WAS ALLOWED TO VISIT HER APARTMENT, FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  43. GUY TELLS BILLY THE STORY OF PANTHERZ, SITTING IN THE BAR WAITING FRUITLESSLY FOR THE ARRIVAL OF GREGORY TO DISCUSS HIS ROLE AS GETAWAY DRIVER, FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  44. GUY AND VIOLET AND BILLY AT A CHINATOWN ART GALLERY, ABOUT A MONTH BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  45. SIMILIA SIMILIBUS CURANTUR

  46. GUY’S MOM COOKS AN IN-ORDINATE AMOUNT OF FOOD FOR NO ONE

  47. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE VILLAIN SVEN TRANSVOORT

  48. BILLY VISITS GUY IN THE HOSPITAL WITH HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND, JULIA

  49. GUY FORGET ON THE CEILING

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book would not have been written, much less published, without the inspiration and support of Stephanie Sayers. Thanks also to Tad Floridis at Canongate for the title and general editorial guidance. Everyone at Akashic—Johnny Temple, Johanna Ingalls, and especially Aaron Petrovich—has been from first to last both supportive and helpful to an unreasonable degree. Thanks to Dennis Cooper, for his initial belief in my writing and continued encouragement. To Robert Pollard for the power of suck, etc. To Steven Soderbergh for screwing up my life in exactly the right measure. To Randy Howze for listening. Finally, a general thanks to everyone who has managed to put up with my self-absorbed, ill-humored, and monkish habits, allowing me to write the only way I know how: stony-hearted and alone.

  The failure is unaware of himself as a failure.

  To fail at failure—even to be aware of having failed—

  could be construed as a kind of success.

  —G. M. Holliston, The Science of Fear

  1. HOW GUY FORGET

  ENDED UP IN A COMA

  Guy Forget—careening across Larkin Heights in a stolen Mini Cooper—suffused with bloodlust and baring a grin full of teeth, failed to hear the polyphonic belling of his cell phone. This was a mistake, for two reasons.

  Had he heard his phone, and answered the call, Guy would have learned three things: that his wealthy, boorish father had died of a heart attack; that his wealthy, boorish father’s will had provided Guy with exactly enough cash, after taxes, to fund the prototype for Pandemonium; and that his wealthy, boorish father had included in his will a personal message for Guy to the effect that, despite their differences, and their less-than-communicative relationship over the years, Guy’s wealthy, boorish father did, in his own unspectacular way, love his second son.

  Had he heard and answered his phone, Guy would also have been distracted sufficiently from his murderous thoughts to lay off the accelerator, and would therefore have slowed down sufficiently to avoid the near-fatal collision awaiting him around the fourth curve of the bendy road down which he was driving too fast.

  Because he did not hear or answer his phone, Guy Forget was in a coma from which he was not expected to recover. His surviving relatives—his mother Laura, tense, brittle-framed, already shaken by the recent death of her husband, who, even though she hated him, represented a kind of vital force that helped make sense of her life; and his older brother Marcus, balding, self-absorbed professor of theoretical physics at M.I.T., whose adherence to the code of abstraction respected by all professors of theoretical physics everywhere extended to forgetting, from time to time, his wife Constance’s existence—were divided on the question of whether to pull Guy’s plug and end what remained of his corporeal viability, or, to be plain, of himself.

  Laura was a seriously lapsed Roman Catholic who felt a distinct unease at ending Guy’s life “without at least asking him,” as she put it to Marcus over coffee at the hospital commissary in Los Angeles.

  -Mom, he’s in a coma. That’s the whole sort of coma issue, replied Marcus, patiently. He was used to treating everyone, especially his mother, as if they were children, and needed to have even the most basic concepts explained simply.

  -People come out of comas.

  -Not people with Guy’s level of brain activity. Or inactivity, more precisely. He’s a vegetable. There’s nothing about Guy that makes him human anymore.

  -Mrs. Sanderson said that she read about this one …

  -Mrs. Sanderson is not a doctor. People magazine is not, I’m pretty sure, a peer-reviewed medical journal.

  -Those doctors don’t get everything right. What about AIDS?

  -What about AIDS?

  -Well, they were wrong. It doesn’t even exist.

  -I’m sorry?

  -It’s like you live in a hole. You didn’t hear about this?

  -Mom, that’s so utterly bizarre I’m going to refrain from comment.

  -Saying that doesn’t make it any less true.

  -I suppose. In crazy world. Marcus reached across the table and wrapped his mother’s tiny hands in his own, almost invisibly pale palms. -Whatever there was of Guy, his essence, has dispersed back into the universe. If it’s any comfort, recent research has led some in the scientific community to believe that quantum consciousness exists independent of physical being—at
very basic levels, on the Planck scale. In that sense—

  -Marcus, interrupted Laura, I don’t want to pull the plug. I just don’t.

  Marcus shrugged. -Okay. He looked at his watch. -I’ve still got time to catch the red-eye back to Boston. You staying, or …

  -God, no.

  2. INTRODUCTION OF THE VILLAIN SVEN TRANSVOORT, UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, SEVERAL WEEKS AFTER THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO

  My name is Sven Transvoort. Obviously, that’s not my real name, but it’s the one everyone who knows me thinks is my real name. Reason: it’s actually my real name. See? I lied! I do that a lot. I am an inherently trustworthy person. I am, in a word, villainous, and I don’t have to explain myself to you, or anyone, because for all you know I may be one of Hegel’s world-historical individuals who doesn’t have to play by the rules. Like Napoleon. I have certain things in common with Napoleon. I’m not French, this much is true. Not a military strategist, or an army man of any sort. In fact, guns make me nervous. If guns didn’t make me nervous, there would not be much to this story, in fact. Because guns make me nervous, I am forced instead to rely on my cunning. On my devious nature. On my villainy. I’m pretty sure Napoleon, from what I’ve read, possessed a certain devious streak. And there are, to this day, countries who consider him villainous.

  Consider this my confession. I brought Guy down, you see, I pricked his pretty bubble. I don’t feel guilty—but I do feel that if I don’t say something I won’t get the credit I deserve, if I don’t speak up. The squeaky wheel gets the credit, or something, right? Am I right?

  Guy didn’t know me as Sven Transvoort, of course. He knew me by that name, but not as Sven Transvoort the guy who’d sell his own sister down the river for a nickel, whatever that means. He knew me as someone he trusted, which is to say he didn’t know me at all. What kind of a fool would trust me? I wear a T-shirt with the name of a punk rock band called Reasonable Sleep five or six days out of the week. I have wild, curly dark hair, thick-lensed glasses, and a gut you can hide things in. Seriously. You can tuck three grapefruits in my belly fat, no problem.