Kris Saknussemm

Camouflage Discipline

Someone must manage the debris in vacant lots beside bus depots and railroad tracks, he thought, because there always appeared to be the same number of bottle shards, shreds of paper, rusted cans and absolutely miscellaneous things.
Across the street was a bench and he went over and sat down — and was rather too quickly joined by a man about his own age with a wet egg transparency of skin that was suggestive of a blind snake. Somehow that always seemed to happen to him. He was like a magnet. The clothes and the smell were all too familiar.
“They look just like people don’t they?”
“Who?” Casper asked.
The man with the even more unfortunate complexion than his own pointed to some people in the street.
“Down to the tiniest detail. It’s amazing. The subtlety. That’s what interests me most…the subtlety of them. The way they blend in so completely. You think you see them. Then they’re gone. And you can’t remember what they looked like. Like birds. You can’t say if you’ve seen them before. Maybe you see them all the time — the same ones. Maybe they’re watching you. You’d never know. Of course, they’re watching us. All the time.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Casper said.
“Who does?” the man shrugged. “My bud Maxwell — you know Maxwell? Hanged himself in the Gatwick Hotel. Hell of a thing. He thought they were all one species…but nothing like us…more like intelligent energy that was somehow all one…like a colony of insects. I don’t know. I miss Max. He was trying to help Tweetie Boy, this kid who collected parakeet toys…stole them…from pet shops. Tweetie Boy was all chromed out from inhaling spray paint. Doctors shaved his head. Haven’t seen him in a long time.”
“I’m…I’m sorry to hear that,” Casper said, wondering if the man was on drugs. He spoke very clearly for someone who was high on something.
“How do I know who’s one and who’s not?” the man asked after a moment’s pause. “I go with my gut. It would take sophisticated technology to be dead sure. To see through the camouflage. That’s what it is. And it isn’t just people,” he continued. “I had another friend, Lala. She said that wacko things go on all the time at zoos and you never hear about them. Like one morning, in St. Louis or San Diego…somewhere like that…one of the keepers went to check on the male tiger. His name was Sultan or something. Rajah. Well, you know what? He was there all right…in his enclosure…this big male tiger. Only it wasn’t Rajah. It was another tiger. That same day…on the other side of the world…at the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, I think it was…their male tiger went missing. In its place was Rajah. Like they’d been switched, you know? Like pieces in a game or something. Thousands of miles. Tigers transferred! Freaked the zoo keepers right out. They put a lid on it of course. Didn’t want anyone to know. Maxwell was still alive then. He thought maybe it was a test. Like an experiment…before they started on the real stuff…you, know replacing Presidents and heads of companies and shit.”
Casper had had many strange ideas cross his own mind — he was glad he didn’t have this particular concern to cope with. “You be careful,” he advised, seeing an opportunity to slip gracefully away.
It was something he’d learned. Validation. One of the handiest skills there is. All you had to do was find out what someone’s favorite show was — that’s what he called it — their favorite show. Once he’d cottoned on to that, everything became much clearer. He got over the choking fit that sometimes overcame him at cash registers or on the brink of conversations. He stopped getting into fights. People nodded. Smiles came at the right times. He realized everyone had a favorite show — not just the residents, but the staff and doctors too. Once you could talk about their show with them, or listen sincerely, it was okay. You didn’t have to agree with them — most times people are as suspicious of too hearty an agreement as they are upset or angered by outright disagreement. What people want is validation.
“They don’t give themselves away easily,” the man replied, seeking to hold his attention a moment longer “You know what they call that in that military? Camouflage discipline.
Ah, thought Casper. The military. Everything’s connected.
“But I’ve gotten sharper. They each have their own individual tale. That’s the thing that gives them away in the end. That’s what makes the watching worthwhile. That’s what gets me by — I’ve turned the tables on them. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen.”
Actually…Casper mused as he sidled back toward the bus station…he would believe what the man had seen. He believed many things.
He’d seen shooting stars over Death Valley and the lights of Sing Sing from across the Hudson River.
He’d known a man in jail called The Pelican, who could swallow and regurgitate light bulbs whole without breaking them.
He’d had a truly delusional period in his late teens and early twenties…periods of bizarre visions…black-robed judges with the ears and snouts of limestone cave bats — highway patrol officers with the heads of grasshoppers — skeleton girls shimmying around glittering poles before corpses rotting at a mirrored bar.
Then things had gotten clear again. For quite a long time it seemed.
He’d picked up many skills over the course of his haphazard journey, but the one thing he considered himself really good at was listening to strangers — believing they were really there. That’s what people were most afraid of — not actually being. Phantoms. Nothingness. And so people opened up to him. They came to him as if called. They came like the wounded and the destitute had flocked to Jesus. Children…and children of trial.
That was an important part of his own favorite show. Listening to the troubled, the emphatic, the hopeful and the haunted…needy believers and those who seemed to have abandoned all faith. Like the strips in his Medicine Bag, their messages always seemed to connect with something that was happening to him, as if they were messages from his Bag brought to life.
He knew that if you listen closely enough to strangers, you always end up hearing your own story, however strange it may seem.

Kris Saknussem is the author of the novels Zanesville and Private Midnight, which recently became a bestseller in France. Enigmatic Pilot is due out from Random House in 2011. This story is excerpted from his latest novel, Reverend America.

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