Amnesia Moon

Jonathan Lethem

• Publisher: Ecco
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780156031547
• eBook ISBN: 9780547536927
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

A funny, inventive, and wholly original post-apocalyptic novel from the author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Arrest

Meet Chaos, a young man who's living in a movie theater in post-apocalyptic Wyoming, drinking alcohol, and eating food out of cans.

It's an unusual and at times unbearable existence, but Chaos soon discovers that his post-nuclear reality may have no connection to the truth. So he takes to the road with a girl named Melinda in order to find answers. As the pair travels through the United States they find that, while each town has been affected differently by the mysterious source of the apocalypse, none of the people they meet can fill in their incomplete memories or answer their questions. Gradually, figures from Chaos's past, including some who appear only under the influence of intravenously administered drugs, make Chaos remember some of his forgotten life as a man named Moon.

Edge had the highway to himself. It was his trinket, all that paint and asphalt, thanks to Kellogg’s new law about ownership. You merely have to decide it’s yours. Edge had a knack for recalling Kellogg’s exact words. What you see is what you get, Edge. Adrenaline pumping, Edge leaned on the accelerator. The landscape sped past.

He drove through the left lane and crashed over the dead grass of the divider, into the lanes heading west. I’m my own man, he thought. I drive on the wrong side of the highway. My highway. He teased his speed up, until the old car wobbled on its shocks. The signs faced the wrong way now, but he knew where he was going. Nobody went this way anymore, hardly, except Edge, because Edge was a messenger. Don’t kill the messenger. Edge’s head was a mess of his thoughts and Kellogg’s all mixed together, and often Kellogg’s thoughts seemed stronger. They didn’t leak away as fast.

Nobody went this way anymore because since the war Hatfork was a sick town. Full of mutants and sexual deviants. Kellogg sent his Food Rangers over with supplies sometimes, but he never went himself. He hated Hatfork, calling it a leech on my side, a thorn in my paw, and my abortion. To Edge’s way of thinking, Hatfork was a hairy town. Every woman from Hatfork he’d seen undressed—and he’d seen a few—had hair where she shouldn’t. Every man in Hatfork wore a beard. Except Chaos.

Edge screeched past the exit and had to back up. Driving the onramp, curved the wrong way, turned out to be harder than he’d expected, and he slid off the side a few times, but it didn’t matter. The sand and dirt had blown over the low ramp, making it hard to tell where the highway ended and the desert began, and it was almost as easy to drive on the desert anyway.

The road to Hatfork was littered with abandoned cars. The Hatforkers, Edge thought, didn’t know how to take care of their stuff. They were always letting it pile up, unrepaired. Cars don’t grow on—

Edge struggled for the phrase. Cars don’t come out of the sky, he settled on finally. Kellogg would have said it better, but fuck that. Kellogg wasn’t here.

The Hatforkers were visible as he drove through town, mostly lurking and staring from behind bedsheet-curtained windows, but if you wanted to spread news you were supposed to go to the Multiplex, where Chaos lived. That was Edge’s purpose here: spreading news. He sped through the middle of town, around the dried-up lake, and out to the mall with the Multiplex. Edge didn’t envy the Hatforkers, with their seedy orgies and pathetic, mutated offspring, but he sometimes envied Chaos, who stayed to one side of things and had a cool place to live. The coolest, really. As he drove into the mall. Edge admired again the way Chaos had spelled out his name in red plastic letters on the Multiplex sign, over and over again, where the names of the movies used to go. Now playing in Cinema One: C H a O s. Cinema Two: c H A O s. Cinema Three: C h A o S. And so on.

Edge honked twice as he pulled up in front of the Multiplex, then got out and slammed his door for punctuation. He didn’t see Chaos’s car. He was alone. Schemes stirring in the murk of his head, he stepped up to the door and rattled the handle. Nope. Chaos was too smart to let anyone plunder his goodies.

Edge walked around the back of the vast building, to the alley that separated it from the devastated, plundered Variety store. Sitting there were three green dumpsters, dented and sprayed with paint. Sniffing at the motionless air, Edge thought he detected something good inside one of them. He clambered up on each in turn and peered inside, and in the third he found his prize. Buzzing blackflies wreathed a heap of bird’s bones, which had rotted green and purple in the sun.

Edge let himself slip back down onto the dusty ground. It just wasn’t worth it. Stick to canned food. Kellogg’s exact words. Don’t waste calories pursuing scraps. Edge remembered Kellogg telling him about a food that took more calories to chew than it contained—food you could starve to death on. But in retrospect, Edge concluded that this was part of the small percentage of Kellogg’s pronouncements that could safely be categorized as bullshit. Everything has calories, Edge told himself. Wood, paper, dirt—it all has calories. I know that from personal experience. I know it—what was Kellogg’s word?—empirically.

A big word, and Edge felt good about remembering it, knowing what it meant. I’m not stupid, he decided. I just get nervous when I’m trying to talk to someone and I forget what I’m trying to say. People have to be patient when they’re talking to a nervous person.

The sun made a tentative foray through the morning haze, casting weak shadows across the pavement. Edge squinted up at the ribbons of smoky cloud. Christ, he thought, I hope it doesn’t rain. Better to be indoors from the beginning of a rain, not climbing in and out of cars, getting wet. That goddamn stuff is cumulative. Builds up.

Digging absently in his pants, Edge meandered back out towards the highway, and was startled to find Chaos’s car pulled up behind his. Chaos got out, a heavy plastic bag cradled in his arms, and glared at Edge.

Edge stepped up, almost dancing. “Hey, Chaos,” he said. “Want me to get the door?”

“You’re supposed to park in the lot, Edge,” said Chaos sourly. He hoisted his load higher and fished in his pocket for keys, then unlocked the door and stepped into the gloom. He went in through the staff entrance, a dark, low hallway which ran, like a rat’s route through a ship, inside the walls of the vast, carpeted Multiplex lobby, to the projection booth. Chaos seemed to shun the public parts of the building.

“Looks like rain,” said Edge, half in justification for his parking so close, half to change the subject. He followed the glumly silent Chaos in the dark, tracking the tiny reflective logos on the heels of Chaos’s sneakers while his eyes adjusted. He felt a little indignant; the parking lot, a deserted acre of meaningless yellow arrows and lines, was a good quarter mile from Chaos’s door.

The projection booth was an unshapely, split-level room with tiny windows looking out over six theaters. Chaos had removed the projectors, but splicing and rewinding equipment was still bolted to the walls. Edge stood near the door, waiting while Chaos lit candles. The booth reeked of artificial sweetness: air freshener, and the fruit-scented candles. It made Edge hungry. Wax had calories too.

“Okay, Edge,” said Chaos. “What’s your secret? Spit it out.” He sat on a ratty sofa and lit a cigarette.

Edge sat on a chair and leaned forward expectantly. Chaos pushed the pack of Luckys across the table between them, and Edge took a cigarette.

“Kellogg says we’re gonna communicate with the animal kingdom,” Edge said, trying to present this calmly and credibly. He struck a match and held it to the end of his cigarette. He knew he had to explain further. “Whales and dolphins, primarily. That’s what Kellogg says.”

Chaos laughed. “What animal kingdom?” he said. “We’re in the desert, Edge. The animal kingdom is dead. Kellogg’s pulling your leg this time.”

Edge had drawn deeply on the Lucky. He started to speak, to defend Kellogg, but coughed spasmodically instead. Smoke erupted from his lungs.

“Don’t use up my cigarettes coughing,” said Chaos.

“Sorry, man.” Edge heard himself beginning to whine but couldn’t stop it. “Sorry, really.” He watched Chaos smoke and tried to imitate his technique. Then he remembered his story. “Whales and dolphins primarily. Kellogg says they’re the dormant intelligent species on the planet.”

“What?”

Edge suspected that this meant there was something wrong with the new word. He hated having to go back and fix things. “Dominant?” he suggested.

“Maybe,” said Chaos, unhelpfully. He stubbed a wasteful amount of cigarette into a dish on the table and said, quietly, “Fucking Kellogg.”

Edge was tired of his Lucky, but he sensed that to follow Chaos’s lead and stub it out would be a tactical error. Cigarettes are so valuable, he thought. Because everyone seemed to want them so badly, he always thought he’d enjoy them. But he didn’t, really. He decided to smoke it down to his fingers anyway, to be safe.

“I’m sure he could explain it better,” he said to Chaos. “It made sense when he told it to me. You know, Chaos, I get excited, I fuck it up.”

“That’s okay,” said Chaos, sympathetic for the first time. “It might’ve been a little fucked up to begin with.”

“No,” said Edge, encouraged. “You should have heard it. Kellogg’s astral chart says we’re gonna merge with a higher species. Pisces, the twin fish. His chart says—” In desperation he peppered his speech with fragmented quotations from Kellogg.

“I don’t give a shit what Kellogg’s chart says.”

“Listen,” said Edge in a whisper. He’d saved a vital fact for the clincher. “Did you know that dolphins used to walk on land?”

Chaos didn’t say anything, and Edge thought he’d found an angle he could work with. “Kellogg proved it,” he said expansively. “Blowholes. A disaster up here drove them back to the water. Just like us, you see? A planetary disaster.” He paused significantly. “Can you see it?“

“Yeah,” said Chaos drily. He obviously recognized the usage. “I see it.”

An hour later Edge was gone, scurrying back to his car in fear of rain. Chaos extinguished half the candles and stretched out on the couch, crossing his legs on the armrest. Wind howled quietly through the ventilation system, and nervous shadows flickered against the ceiling. He wrinkled his nose; Edge had left behind a faint calling card of smell.

Chaos felt there was some source of comfort missing, from before Edge’s visit; it nagged at him like déjà vu. The package, he remembered. He hauled himself upright, pulled the plastic bag across the table and ripped it open. Inside were three waxed-paper containers sealed with black electrical tape. Printed on the side of one in blurry black and white was a photograph of a young girl, captioned: MISSING. No more milk, thought Chaos. No more wax, no more paper. But she’s still missing.

Cradling one of the cartons, he fell back against the couch. He tore away the tape, pulled open the ragged spout, and took a long, steady draft of the unflavored alcohol, letting it splash down his chin and neck, feeling it rush like a fiery waterfall into his withered, empty stomach. Once, twice. Then, temporarily sated, he let it rest against his stomach and gulped air for a chaser.

His first snore woke him halfway, enough that he moved the carton to the floor and noticed the candles. But not enough that he got up to blow the candles out. He’d been avoiding sleep for two days, waiting for Decal to distill the alcohol, hoping the drink would keep him from dreaming. Now he couldn’t fight the sleep off any longer.

The dream was so hard-edged and real that it seemed to come before he’d even fallen back asleep.

Chaos was out on the salt flats, digging a hole in the dense, dry sand with his bare hands. There was something important there, underneath. The sky behind him was purple with radiation. He scrabbled at the earth, desperate, compelled.

Too fast, it crumbled under his fingertips, opening to a hollow beneath the desert. The sand caved in towards the opening, and Chaos tried to back away, but it was too late. He was drawn inexorably into the darkness. He fell.

He plunged into cold water and opened his eyes. He was immersed in an underground river, and though his wet, heavy clothes bound his limbs, he felt secure. I’ll swim underground, he thought. He trusted his sense of direction. He paddled his arms, righting himself in the water. Maybe he would swim all the way to Cheyenne, underground.

Then a form rose above him, blocking his view of the entrance. Chaos saw, with bitter disappointment, that it was the gigantic body of Kellogg, flapping ridiculously in the water, a giant cigar still clenched in his smiling mouth. He loomed over Chaos like an underwater zeppelin.

Kellogg was transformed, he saw now. Flippers for arms, and legs tapering to a wide paddle tail. He grinned at Chaos, who began to panic. Kellogg was swelling, stretching like a cloud above him, blocking his access to the air. Chaos looked down; the depths extended into darkness.

Shit. He found himself on the couch, bathed in sweat. It was like clockwork, Kellogg’s obsessions radiating outward, invading Chaos’s dreams.

Now was probably the worst time to sleep, he realized. When Kellogg was so excited about something that he sent Edge out as a town crier. Or maybe it went the other way, maybe Kellogg sent Edge out because he sensed that Chaos hadn’t been dreaming.

Chaos thought again about tuning up his car and going for a long drive. How far would he have to go to get a good night’s sleep? Would he ever get out of Kellogg’s range? He wondered if he was the only one who cared, if the rest of them were all so used to Kellogg’s dreams that it didn’t bother them anymore.

Someday he had to do it. Find out what was left, if anything was. He was afraid he’d waited too long. He should have done it back—when was it? Years ago. When all the cars worked.

Only Kellogg could do it now; nobody else had the resources to make that long a run. Kellogg had the resources because everyone did whatever he told them to do. Wh...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Contents
• Copyright
• Dedication
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 11
• 12
• 13
• 14
• 15
• 16
• 17
• 18
• 19
• 20
• 21
• 22
• 23
• About the Author