The Whale
1
—wake up.
Wake up, Dave—
“—wake up!”
Dave’s eyes snap open.
“What the hell, bro?” Matteo swims into view, thick brow knitted in concern. “Jesus. Stay right there. Don’t move. There’s glass … well, it’s everywhere.”
The room flexes, shivers. Dave blinks, trying to clear his head, to orient himself. The bank of closed-circuit TV monitors. The smoke detector’s blinking battery light. The crimson glow of the exit sight. The steady red indicator on the security camera. All of it familiar, but not from this angle.
I’m on the floor, Dave realizes. Why am I on the floor?
Dave runs his hand through his hair. “Ouch,” he mutters. He inspects his hand in the dim light. It’s streaked with ink. No. Blood. He plants his hand on the floor, intending to push himself upright, but snatches it back in pain. “Fuck!”
“I told you not to move, man,” Matteo says, reappearing with a plastic first aid kit. He crouches next to Dave. “All the glass, remember? Give me your hand.”
“My head, not my hand,” Dave says. The words come out cottony and heavy. “Shit.”
“Yeah, you tore yourself up. Hand.”
Dave winces as Matteo brushes glass fragments from his palm. Then he sucks air over his teeth as Matteo pours hydrogen peroxide onto his skin. An array of tiny cuts bubble and froth.
“Chill,” Matteo says, annoyingly calm. “It’s hardly a scratch. A paper cut.”
“A flesh wound,” Dave says on autopilot.
“Yo, I love that movie. ‘My name is Enrique Montego. You sworded my dad. Prepare to be killed.’”
Dave doesn’t correct him. “What happened?”
Matteo dabs Dave’s palm dry, clucking his tongue. “Check this. I go out for a smoke, right? Hank told me he thought someone tagged the Daxalab sign on day shift. So, I take a walk, right? To investigate.”
“Someone tagged the sign?”
“Hank’s full of shit. Sign’s fine. So, I have my smoke. I come back, and the card reader won’t read my access card.”
“I thought Hank said they fixed that.”
“Full of shit,” Matteo repeats. “Like I said. Point is, I couldn’t get in, right? So, I knock on the glass, trying to get you off your ass to come get the door for me. But I could see right into the security office, right? And there you were, lurching around like a goddamn zombie.” He laughs to himself, then leans over Dave to grab something. He rocks back onto his heels, waggling an empty prescription bottle. “You were shaking this around like a champagne bottle. Pills like a fountain. Everywhere, bro.”
Dave scans the room. Matteo’s right. There are small pills scattered among the shards of glass.
“So, like, I finally get in—you gotta sorta press the card against the scan strip while you slide it, that’s the trick—”
“Matteo.”
“I’m getting there.” Matteo strips open a gauze packet, then straps it to Dave’s palm with a roll of medical tape. “So, I get inside and I’m, like, yo, Dave, and you, like, flinched. You shouted some nonsense about elephants. And then—” Matteo breaks off, laughing at the memory. “And then! Then you tried to fucking make a break for it. But you tripped over the chair. You squawked like a chicken. Literally, bro. B’gawk! And you broke Hank’s favorite glass. Which he will make you pay for.”
“Elephants?”
“I felt a little bad for laughing. Seeing how you cracked your head and all.” A grin splits his face. “Shit was funny, though. It’s on tape, too! I can play it back for you.”
“Let’s not—”
But Matteo’s already shifted his attention to the desk. “Right about here,” he says, and taps a key. Black-and-white footage of the security office appears on the computer monitor.
It’s a strange feeling, Dave thinks, watching himself on TV. He doesn’t remember doing any of this. On-screen, Dave drums restlessly on the arms of his chair. He yawns, then sharply pats first one cheek, then the other.
“That never works,” Matteo offers. “Trust me. You wanna stay awake, you gotta move your legs.” He probes Dave’s scalp. “Jesus, bro, you weren’t kidding. You’ve got a bump already. There’s a cut. Feels small, though. Probably you won’t need stitches.”
Matteo pours more hydrogen peroxide onto Dave’s head.
On the monitor, Dave watches himself rest his head on the desk. Almost immediately, he appears to be asleep.
“Am I talking?” he asks, pointing at the screen.
Matteo squints at the screen while pressing a fresh gauze pad to Dave’s wound. “Sure looks it. Probably dreaming about … Shit. What was the name of that elephant in the picture books? Bob? No. Barber.”
“Babar,” Dave corrects, without thinking. “He was French.”
“Yo, this is my favorite part,” Matteo says. “Watch, watch. Look, you can even see my shadow at the outer door.”
In the footage, Dave abruptly shoves back from the desk. The chair corkscrews away while Dave fumbles the pill bottle from his pocket.
“Here goes, man. Look at your crazy ass.”
Cradling the pill bottle in his cupped palms, Dave extends both arms skyward.
Matteo cackles. “Like you’re the Lion King or something, bro.”
Dave watches his TV self pull the bottle close to his chest and struggle to open it. When he finally manages to pop the cap—
“This is my favorite part,” Matteo howls. “You crazy idiota. Shit belongs on TikTok. I gotta find my memory stick.”
Dave shakes the bottle at the ceiling. Little green pills geyser all over the room. He’s shouting something. Matteo was right. It’s unintelligible nonsense. The word elephant is definitely there.
“You ever see that one chick who records her sleepwalking episodes?” Matteo asks, scouring the desk for a thumb drive. “There’s this one where she sleepwalks to the fridge in her footie pajamas—footie pajamas!—and collects all of her beers, then goes outside and throws them all over the lawn. Whole time she’s narrating. Like she’s Richard Atten-bro or some shit.”
“David.”
Matteo glances at Dave. “What’s that?”
“Richard Attenborough was the crazy billionaire from Jurassic Park. And David Attenborough is the voice of the nature docu—Who gives a shit, Matteo? Help me find my pills.”
“Ew, bro, you don’t want those pills. Hank walks his nasty boots on this floor. Besides, you don’t seem to have any problem sleeping. What do you need them for?”
You don’t know the half of it.
Dave spots one of the pills on the chair cushion and scoops it up. Matteo looks on in horror as Dave blows lightly on the green capsule, then dry-swallows it.
“Man, Hank’s meaty ass is parked there all day.”
“You’re not going to help me, are you?”
“How much of that shit are you taking? They aren’t Tic Tacs, bro.”
“Yeah, and what do you care? Long as you get more snaps for your Instagram.”
Matteo clutches his pearls. “I care, David, because I can’t get you laid tonight if you’re slack-jawed and glazed over.” He spots a pill and covers it with his boot. “Don’t take any more. In fact, cough up the one you already—”
“Move your foot.”
“I don’t think so.”
Dave grips Matteo’s ankle. “Lift up, asshole.”
Matteo leans forward, grinding the pill into the thin office carpet.
“Goddammit.” Dave falls back on his knees. “I don’t need to get laid. I need sleep. And I don’t need a fucking mother.”
“What you need is someone to sleep with,” Matteo corrects. “I believe I can help with that.”
Dave plucks a pill from beneath the desk chair, then pops it into his mouth defiantly.
“You’re an animal,” Matteo says, watching as Dave chews the pill. “Yo, that rich fucker’s party is tonight. And we’re going, even if I have to drag you around like Weekdays with Barney—”
“Weekend at Bernie’s, you lunkhead.”
“And I’m going to hook you up with the first chick I see. She’ll be blisteringly hot, and really into—” Matteo frowns, looks Dave up and down. “—guys with bandages. With frog voice. Who likes … elephants. Fuck, are you ever not giving me much to work with.”
Dave inspects the pill bottle. A few loose pills rattle around inside. He drops the handful he’s found on the floor in with them.
“Look, you go,” Dave says. “I’ll finish out the shift. I’ll cover for you, even.”
“Nobody’s even gonna know we left,” Matteo argues. “Ain’t like anyone ever watches the footage.” He waggles the USB stick. “At least not most of it.”
“Hand it over.”
“You know what you are? You’re a stick, David Torres. A skinny little stick in the funky-ass mud.” Matteo closes his fingers around the USB stick. “I’ll make you a deal: You come to the party with me, and when you wake up in the morning, you’ll be so thoroughly fucked you won’t care when this pops up on YouTube.”
“I come with, you give me the stick.”
“Or that.”
Dave sighs. “Fuck you. Fine.”
“Right on.” Matteo turns to the security camera, thrusts his hips as elegantly as possible, and waves both middle fingers like he’s guiding a plane to the tarmac. “Yo, Daxalab! Fourth of July, mofos. We is out!”
2
In Matteo’s Camaro, Dave rests his head on the window and closes his eyes.
“Yo, no, dude. Two things,” Matteo says. “One, you’re gonna get blood on my window. I just had this sweet honey detailed. Two, wake the fuck up!”
“I’m tired. I just want to lie down—”
“Nope.”
“—and sleep until next July Fourth.”
Matteo pats the wheel. “This car? This car’s on a rail, and that rail goes only one place: rich motherfucker’s party.” He reverses out of the parking space, even though the whole lot is empty. “Look. I get it. Katie might be there. So what? Girl did you dirty, ghosted your ass. Welcome to the real world. Anyway, it’s been three weeks. Tonight, you’ll find some fresh thing, and you’ll forget all about her.”
“She didn’t ghost me. She just needed—”
“Space.” Matteo scoffs. “That’s what they all say. Right before they ghost your ass.”
“It isn’t like that.” Dave pushes his features around, trying to wake himself up. “I’m happy to give her space when she needs—”
“It’s a breakup, Dave. You’re not giving her space. She made it. She took it. She threw your clueless ass overboard.”
“Whatever, man. Just take me home.”
“I ever tell you about my buddy Spinks?”
“Spinks.”
“Like the pharaohs.”
“You mean Sphinx.”
“That’s what I said,” Matteo insists. “Spinks got the PTSD, my friend. Combat flavor, worst you can get, and in a hella bad way. But what did he do? He didn’t lay down and take it. He came home, came right to my door, said, ‘Matteo, do me right,’ and you know what I did? Took him out, bro. Introduced him to this girl, Sonya. You know what?”
“He’s magically fine now.”
“Motherfucker got some booty. He’s fine now.” Matteo punches Dave’s thigh. “That’s you in twelve hours.”
Copyright © 2023 by Jake Emanuel and Willie Block with Jason Gurley
