Absolution

(2,824 words)

One moment there was nothing, followed by the jarring perception of an antiseptic smell, a metallic taste in his mouth, the feeling of old fabric against his skin, a monotonous beeping sound . . .

He opened his eyes to the cold, fluorescent lights overhead, and the beeping increased in tempo. The source of the sound was a vital signs monitor to his left, attached to his body by colored wires. Next to that was a deflated saline drip; his eyes followed the tube from the bottom of the bag to a needle in the back of his hand.

Straight ahead was a door, flanked by a counter with an embedded sink. To his right, rising from the tiled floor like the horizon, was a wall so white, his eyes couldn’t focus on it.

He removed the IV from his hand and let it fall to the floor. Next, he tugged at the wires connecting his body to the vital signs monitor, feeling the adhesive give way as he pulled the electrodes from his skin. The beeping sound merged into a steady, insistent alarm.

Stars crowded his vision as he pulled the sheet to the side and tried to sit up; he registered his nakedness before keeling sideways and passing out.

“Mr. Carney?” A voice entered his awareness. A pair of cold hands reached under his armpits and lifted him back onto the bed. “I’m giving you something to counteract the sedative.” A needle violated his arm. Blood rushed back into his brain.

A sturdy-looking nurse in a crisp, white uniform. She smiled. “I’ve never had one of you guys take out your own IV before.”

He remembered that he was naked and suddenly felt embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s happening, where I am, who . . .” his voice faltered on that last word. “Carney?”

“Yes, Mr. Carney. Duncan Carney,” she added as she went to the counter by the door to retrieve a manila envelope. “That’s the name you chose.”

“Have I been . . .”

“Absolved?” She handed him the envelope. “I’m not supposed to answer any questions until your parole officer gets here. Something to do with liability issues stemming from continuing memory displacement. Which is a fancy way of saying that your brain might be processing a lot of information without recording any of it.”

He opened the envelope and upended it over the bed. A thin stack of papers fell out. The topmost one was a notarized letter with an ID card attached, bearing his face, a new, unfamiliar name, and a birthdate he didn’t recognize. The next one was a court order outlining Duncan Carney’s probationary terms: Halfway house. Continuous employment. Cannot leave the state of Utah without authorization.

“I’m from Utah?” he asked.

“You are now,” the nurse replied. She opened a drawer in the counter, pulled out a stack of clothes—a newish-looking pair of jeans, a button-down shirt, boxers, socks, shoes—and placed them on the bed. On top of that, she placed a folded towel and a small toiletry kit. “I’ll walk you to the bathroom.”

But he was already pulling his pants on. “Were these mine from before?”

“Mr. Carney, you really oughta clean up first.”

“They don’t fit right.” He reached into his pockets and turned them out to show they were empty. “I have an ID, but no credit card, no cash.”

“Don’t worry about it, buddy,” the bus driver said.

Duncan looked up at the man in the blue uniform, seated before a steering wheel like an inverted ship’s helm. He looked to his left at the rows of mostly empty seats, then at the people behind him, queued up to board.

“How did I . . .”

* * *

“You’re holding up the line, buddy.” The bus driver pointed with his nose toward the back of the bus. “Grab a seat. I’ll let you know when we reach the station.”

Duncan nodded and moved toward the back, trying to figure out how he got there. 

Silhouettes of memories surfaced in his mind—a fire escape, an empty parking lot, a friendly face at a bus stop—but as soon as he tried to focus on them, they disappeared like words on the tip of his tongue.

He chose a seat halfway down the aisle. A handsome, vaguely familiar-looking twenty-something with bleach-white teeth took the seat next to him. The bus lurched into traffic.

“Anyway, what I was saying is you gotta have a plan, right?”

“Uh.” Duncan looked around, but there was no one else the guy could be talking to. “Sure, yeah.”

The twenty-something smiled encouragingly. “Yeah, so what about you? What are you goin’ do when you get there?”

“Uh, I mean, what does anyone do when they get there?”

“I don’t mean the bus station, bro. I mean LA. You know your way around? You sound like you from there.”

“It’s been a while. I just hope I remember where everything is.”

“I’m couch surfing at a friend’s place in Pacoima. Just for a couple days after the audition, hope I get a call back. If not, all’s I got is enough to get home, that’s the plan. I don’t wanna be the guy bussin’ tables his whole life waiting for a break.”

Duncan nodded. “Right.”

“You’re up!” the bus driver called back. Duncan exited and entered a Greyhound depot that looked like every other Greyhound depot in America.

“We got some time to kill before our ride,” his actor friend announced. “I’m goin’ grab a drink.”

“Okay. See you later.”

“A’ight,” he replied, disappointed that Duncan wouldn’t be joining him.

But Duncan was too busy looking for a restroom. There was a large one in the center of the concourse with a line of people milling in and out. He kept going until he found a smaller one with an out-of-order sign on the door and a strip of yellow caution tape draped across it. He pushed the door open, ducked under the tape, and went inside.

A motion sensor turned the lights on for him. He picked a stall, shut himself inside, and sat down to ponder why he was heading to Los Angeles, and how he was going to get there without money.

The door opened. Footsteps shuffled across the old linoleum floor, pausing in front of each stall. Whoever it was picked the stall next to Duncan’s.

A shoe slid under the partition and tapped Duncan’s foot. He pulled his leg back. “Hello?”

“I knew it,” came a familiar voice. The actor stood up, went around, and let himself into Duncan’s stall. “You’re so old fashioned,” he said with an open smile.

“I think you have me confused with someone else.”

“Someone else? Like I even know who you are? Bro, d’you even know who you are?” The actor stepped back, disappointment in his voice. “I mean, one minute you’re flirting, the next minute it’s like you don’t even remember me. It’s like I’m talkin’ to someone who’s been absolved or something. Do you even have a ticket?”

Duncan’s eyes fixated on the ticket peeking out of the actor’s shirt pocket. He looked down at his own hands, expecting to see them empty.

* * *

Except he was holding a bus ticket now, and the actor was nowhere to be seen. And he wasn’t in a bathroom stall—he was sitting on another bus, this one with upholstered seats and dim overhead lighting. Engine noise and hushed whispers filled the space around him.

Duncan couldn’t recall how he got there; fragments of memories came into his mind, but they slipped through his fingers when he tried to grab them. The effort was exhausting; he leaned his head against the window, and before he knew it, was lulled to sleep by the sound of the engine.

When he woke, the bus was pulling into Los Angeles. He disembarked as soon as the door opened and started walking, following sidewalks that led him past strip malls and apartment complexes and fast-food restaurants that all looked like they’d been built from the same set of blueprints. The sun felt different here—brighter, more artificial, as if it were being projected from somewhere above the smog.

“Chili!”

Duncan’s stomach responded before his brain did, growling at the mention of food. He turned around, expecting to see a street vendor.

Instead, he saw a man in his fifties, wearing clothes that had once been expensive but now suggested someone trying to maintain appearances on a declining budget. The man’s face showed recognition, concern, and something that might have been fear.

“Jesus, Chili, you look like hell,” the man said, approaching cautiously. “When we didn’t hear from you after the arrest, when there was no trial, no mention in the news, we figured you must have been absolved.”

“I was,” Duncan nodded, the words coming out automatically.

“Shit. I didn’t actually—” The man stopped midsentence and looked over his shoulder. He took Duncan by the arm and guided him away from the main sidewalk, into an alley between two buildings. “What’s it like? Absolution, I mean.”

“I woke up in a hospital room with no memory of my past,” Duncan said. “And I’m experiencing . . . gaps in time.”

The man nodded as if this made perfect sense. “Memory lapses are a side effect. The government won’t say why, but it’s obviously brain damage from having your memories wiped.” He paused, studying Duncan’s face. “Your real name is Chilion Kahn, right? You were a musician; you went by Chili Kahn Carne on stage.”

“Duncan Carney. That’s the name I picked for myself.”

“You shoulda gone with Chili Khan Comedy,” he said, shaking his head. “Listen, Chili, a lot of people are gonna recognize you. You need to find your way back to whatever state they allocated you to. The absolution program has rules.”

“What was my crime?”

The man hesitated. “Look, I don’t buy into the whole you-are-what-you-do-therefore-if-you-don’t-remember-what-you-did-you-aren’t-that-person-anymore school of criminology. But maybe it’s better if you don’t know.”

“How can that be better?”

“I don’t think I’m even allowed to do this.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

He looked into Chili’s pleading eyes for a moment before relenting. “You killed your wife and the man she was cheating on you with.”

The news hit like a punch, but it also felt weirdly inevitable. As if a part of him knew something like this was coming. “No, that’s . . . that’s not me, that can’t be. Why would I kill them?”

“Heat of the moment?” the man said. “I don’t know, you found them together, you lost it, bang bang, they’re dead. And now you have a predicament. You don’t know who was involved with the case, what neighborhoods to avoid, what cops might recognize you. You don’t know who might see you and decide not to keep their mouth shut.”

Chili felt anger rising in his chest—not at the warning, but at the implied threat that came with it. He balled his fists and took a step forward. “So, what are you suggesting?”

Suddenly, an old-fashioned revolver appeared in the man’s hand. He pointed it at Chili’s chest. “I’m suggesting you need to control your temper.”

Chili raised his hands, palms out to show he wasn’t holding anything.

* * *

Except he was holding the gun now, cold and heavy and real. He was crouched in bushes outside a house in a residential neighborhood. The sunny sky above had given way to stars and scattered, wispy clouds with silver moonlight halos. That he couldn’t recall how he got there wasn’t as disturbing as the fact that he was holding a gun—and that it felt comfortable in his hand.

He took a few breaths to calm himself and stood to leave when a car pulled into the driveway. A woman got out—middle-aged, well-dressed, and moving with the confidence of someone who knew the world was hers for the taking. She took one look at Chili and sprinted into the house.

Some primal instinct kicked in. Chili ran after her, through a living room decorated with new furniture toward a staircase lined with family photos.

She was waiting for him at the top of the stairs, a semi-automatic pistol in her hand, eyes calm and calculating.

“Well, what do you know,” she called out.

Chili ducked around the corner as her first shot splintered the wall where his head had been. “I know I’m not a killer!” he yelled back at her. “Did you set me up?” He inched forward and quickly pulled back again as a second shot rang out.

“I didn’t set you up, moron! You confessed!” She fired another shot.

“Why would I confess?” It was hard to tell through the ringing in his ears, but it sounded like she was slowly working her way down the stairs.

“I don’t know, maybe because they always go after the husband? Maybe because you have to confess before trial to get absolution?” She fired again. Closer this time. He didn’t know how many bullets she had. All he knew was that she was talking to keep him distracted until she could get a clear shot. And that she liked to finish her statements before firing.

“They’re gonna know now!” he shouted.

“How are—” She stopped midsentence as he jumped out of hiding, gun raised. He pulled the trigger before she could react.

Click.

Empty.

She smiled, stepped closer, and raised her own weapon as he looked down at the empty revolver in his hand.

* * *

Except it wasn’t a revolver in his hand. It was a semiautomatic pistol.

And he wasn’t in the house, he was sitting on the front porch, watching police cars arrive in a choreographed sequence of flashing lights and controlled urgency. He dropped the gun. A dozen cops swarmed him, pushed him to the ground, cuffed his hands behind his back. Some asked questions he couldn’t hear. Some went inside.

One emerged moments later and announced to his colleagues: “One decedent. Gunshot wounds to the head and chest.”

* * *

A moment or a day later—Chili was getting used to these memory lapses now—he found himself in an interview room wearing a jailhouse uniform that fit him perfectly, as if it’d been tailored for the occasion. His hands were cuffed to the table. Sitting across from him was his lawyer: A confident, enthusiastic-looking young man who was probably eking his way through a stint as a public defender to build his resume.

“The good news is,” the lawyer said, consulting a folder thick with documents, “security cameras in the victim’s house showed us who brought which gun to the shootout. And her gun matched the ballistics on the one used to kill your wife and her husband. You’ll be exonerated for those ones.”

“What about the woman?”

“You took the gun, there was a struggle; it’s all on camera. If we had to, we could argue self-defense. But you probably won’t even be charged, given the circumstances.”

Chili felt something like relief, though it was complicated by the sense that he was missing something important. “So, I’m free to go?”

The lawyer blinked at him. “Well, I don’t think we can get away with self-defense on the other three.”

“The what? What other three?”

“The nurse at the facility where you were processed. The man at the bus station in Utah. Your friend whose body was found in an alley in Los Angeles.” The lawyer’s voice remained professionally neutral, as if he were discussing parking tickets.

The words installed themselves into his consciousness like an unexpected software update.

“I don’t remember,” Chili said.

“That’s the funny thing about absolution,” the lawyer explained. “It doesn’t just remove certain memories. It can also block new ones from forming, if they’re similar to the old ones.”

“So, what are my options?”

The lawyer closed his folder with the finality of someone delivering a verdict. “Trial, with the possibility of life in prison. Or . . .”

“Or?”

“Absolution. Clean slate, new identity, another chance to be someone else.”

Chili looked at his hands—hands used to create music and end lives, neither of which he remembered. 

“How many times?” he asked.

“What?”

“How many times have I made this choice?”

The lawyer’s expression didn’t change, but something in his eyes suggested the question wasn’t entirely unexpected. “Does it matter?”

He closed his eyes and tried to remember what it felt like to be innocent.

“Absolution,” he said.

The lawyer made a note in his file. “And what would you like your new name to be? You can’t use the same one as before.”

Chili opened his eyes and looked at the man across from him—polished, professional, and naïve in a way that made Chili nostalgic.

“Surprise me,” he said.