Roger Asks a Question
Bill
Thursday, October 4, 1973. After Wednesday night, Roger will be walking around asking folks in the office the following question: "If you could interview anyone known to have died in the Bay Area, for the benefit of the Project, who would it be, and why?"
Brant
While standing at the office mailbox collecting the various mainstream and alternative psychiatric journals he subscribes to, along with a few SANDMAN policy memos: “Died, specifically, in the Bay Area?” he says, shuffling the mail and without looking up.
“Suzanne Cassirer-Bernfeld, I guess. One of the founding members of the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute — I know psychoanalysis isn’t as trendy these days as it was when I was your age, but we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Freud and Jung. They were onto something. She trained under Freud, you know, and knew his daughter well. No real formal training but who needs it when you’re seated on the master’s knee? Bit of wild card, bit of a freak. Had some strange philosophical ideas. Probably could’ve gone on to great things had the Nazis not driven her out of Berlin. Or was it Vienna?”
Bill
Roger takes notes, asks Marshall to spell the name. "Solid! Uh, since she sounds like a headshrinker, how do you think she'd respond to being asked questions from her, uh, state of repose? Friendly or hostile witness?"
Brant
Marshall gives Roger a curious side-eye glance. “Gosh, I have no idea. She was, like I said, something of a radical. Assuming she’s even reachable and hasn’t migrated to her next subtle body, she’d probably be thrilled.”
Bill
Roger makes a couple of check marks in some columns in a grid in his notebook. "Groovy." He walks off, but he turns and points back at Marshall as he does: "I listened man, just like you suggested! Worked great! You the man this week!"
Leonard
Roger finds Jocasta in one of the research cubicles, surrounded by a cloak of cigarette smoke and head down in her sketchbook, working on … nothing in particular. The page in front of her is just a senseless agglomeration of science-fiction imagery, comic book superheroes, strange old occult symbols, and a number of dates with question marks next to them. She's crossed a lot of things out and seems distracted.
"Sorry, what was the question? Who would I speak with … from beyond the grave? Huh," she says, her voice first filled with tension — almost annoyance — and then relaxed and curious. "There's a lot of people I know who died that I'd like to talk to again, but I don't think they'd have anything to do with SANDMAN. Or, at least, I hope not." She thinks for a minute, chewing on her pencil. "I thought about Johannes Sutter, but he died back east, I think," she muses. "Maybe … Francisco Guerrero? One of the alcaldes of Yerba Buena, one of the last in fact. A Californio. Guerrero Street is named after him. He's buried at Mission Dolores."
She puts her pencil down and sips listlessly from a can of Tab. "He got murdered. The American prospectors hired someone to kill him while they were trying to invalidate all the Californio land claims during the Gold Rush. He was kind of the last big figure of the period of Spanish control of California. I bet he saw some shit," she says with a half-smile.
"Why do you ask, Roger?"
Bill
Roger writes quickly. “Yes! I love that idea. Do you know if that’s buried on the grounds or in the church itself? And what question would you ask?”
“And, hey, Jo: you ever getting out of this room?”
(He seems to have missed Jo’s why question.)
Leonard
"He's in the cemetery, if I remember my 5th grade field trip correctly. It's been a while," she smiles. "I'd ask him … oof. I dunno, really. I guess I'd ask him if he felt anything … change right before they got to him. California became a different place then, you know? Kind of its own little ontoclysm. This used to be paradise, Roger. The Miwok, they lived right here where we're sitting. For, like, 3,000 years. They had the whole bay to themselves! From Bodega Bay all the way down to … Crapitola. They didn't have enemies. No war. Pax Miwoka. All they did was fish and hang out on the beach. For 3,000 years."
She takes another sip of the Tab. "And then the fucking Spanish showed up. And then the Americans came and did the same to them. I just wonder what it was like."
She puts out her Slim, gets up, and smooths her rumpled pantsuit. "Yeah, I should probably head home soon. I got a room there just like this one."
Bill
“Wait. You clearly need to escape the grind for a minute. How about a drink and we talk about something stupid?”
Leonard
"I can't say no to you, Roger, especially when it's about something stupid," Jocasta laughs, closing her disjointed sketchbook. "I forget, are you a baseball fan? I'll talk your ear off about Reggie Jackson."
Bill
“I may not know crap about America’s Game, but I’ve heard enough about Reggie around the neighborhood to be all ears. And you can help me plan my field test for a really bad idea. Should be good for an hour or two breathing outside the boxes.”
Leonard
"Lead the way, amigo."
Rob
Friday, October 5, 1973. When Roger asks Archie, he's walking out the door to get lunch. Once the two are safely outside, he smiles, a little quizzical. "This is a theoretical question, right? You're not imagining a cabinet of, ah, Houdinis and Counter-Houdinis, or, what was it, the ghost of Napoleon on a 45?"
Bill
“Well, sir, respectfully, no, it’s not theoretical. I’m taking about a practical exercise. I believe, with some testing, we can make the rather unique experience our team had with Houdini repeatable. I don’t think we can contact every deceased person, but I think there’s a strong possibility of tapping an untapped source of intel.”
“But it’s only worth pursuing if we have ideas for worthwhile targets of intel. Thus the question.”
Rob
Archie takes this in. "Well, okay, if we're looking for people 'in the business' as it were, personnel files could tell us which if any SANDMAN assets — or the opposition for that matter — died in the Bay Area. You could ask our Librarian. If we're talking about public figures with some relevance to the job … hmm. Did you know Al Jolson died at the St. Francis?" Archie suddenly gets a stricken look on his face. "Oh! You might not be a big fan. Anyway, I don't see as how he'd be useful to the project."
He waves that off, thinks a minute more. "All I can think of is show business folks. I believe Harry McClintock died in San Francisco. … Radio Mac? And his Haywire Orchestra? He's the fellow who wrote The Big Rock Candy Mountain. Well, he was a vector for the memetics, put it that way. He had a radio show when I was a tyke. He was an honest-to-gosh hobo before that, and a Wobbly with Joe Hill." Archie laughs, a little embarrassed. "Before your time, I expect."
Bill
“Uh, yes sir. A bit. And what kind of intel: confirmation of a more conscious part in the, uh, vectoring, or something else?”
Rob
"Oh, I don't know. I mean, that song is rich soil, memetically: A magical mountain? A hidden land of plenty, where everything is upside down? But I wouldn't call McClintock a high-priority target. I was a 'fan', is all."
Bill
Roger looks intrigued when a magic mountain is mentioned, but doesn't mention it aloud. "Right, priorities. Uh, cool. Why I don't take your suggestion and speak to the Librarian to generate a list, get it in front of your eyes for prioritization. I'll add your personal suggestions to it, along with other team members', and we can see what's actionable. With your permission, of course."
Roger takes some more notes, glancing at his watch and writing down the time. His reporter's pocket notebook is filling up.
Jeff
[I just came up with a reason to roll Don Kirshner's activation, so I'm going to do that before I think better of it.]
>> SUCCESS by 5
(Yes!)
(Okay I'm just gonna paste this in as I always feel awkward doing a scene where the goal is to do the thing we've already decided to have happen.)
"I, we, it felt like it was me pushing for it at the time but the whole thing was a team effort … we retrocreated him, the historical figure, up on the hotel roof. If you're trying to evaluate who's real and who's pretend, he's in a different category, as he was in a sense never alive. There's a timeline full of empires and zeppelins where he became the Emperor of the United States, and Protector of Mexico. There's a timeline — there's a lot of timelines — where he was a bum, maybe with some kind of mental illness, maybe not. None of those timelines are more or less real than any of the others, but here in this timeline, he was imaginary and then he wasn't.
"Him and his dogs.
"Maybe he lived two lives, the bum and the statesman. During his life he saw people pour into the bay area, and when he died they had a funeral for him that ten thousand of his subjects attended. Maybe there was never such a guy, in any timeline, and somebody made him up for a story and the story was too good to not be true.
"He's a man who might have opinions about reality and the eternal war between the good times and the bad vibes.
"Or, shit, you know Gram Parsons died? I missed his cremation, I was talking to Bigfoot that day. True story. Though Gram I wouldn't have any real questions for. Maybe apologize for missing his funeral, nobody told me. Don called me last week, out of the blue, that's when I found out. But Joshua Tree is an all-day drive, so maybe not."
Bill
“So, wait, Bigfoot is dead?” Roger looks again at his hastily scrambled notes. “Woah: Gram Parsons. That’s genius! He was at Altamont that day. Plus he’s got to know what drugs the Stones were on. That’s good stuff. I don’t mind a desert drive — practically racing.” Roger scribbles some more. “Three amazing ideas, although you’ll have to tell me where Bigfoot is buried.”
Jeff
"Bigfoot is fine. I mean, he brought a terrifying warning of the grim world that's coming but other than that, he's okay."
Bill
“Man the universe down on you to fix the future. Your breakfast cereal, Bigfoot— all these reminders. What’s next, your watch talking to you to remind you you’re late to save the future?”
Jeff
"I do not want to live in a world of two-way wrist communicators and gangsters with bizarre physical deformities, no."
Michael
By late in the week — after Sophie's and Roger's Wednesday "date," certainly — Sophie's desk and the library are starting to look more like they did back in July when she left. And of course Sophie couldn't help overhearing some of the stray bits of the conversations Roger had been having with the folks in the office. "You know, Roger... as I've been going through these reports from earlier in the year, it reminds me about the local history angles we've not fully run to ground, like the Montgomery Block, the Barbary Coast … Bohemian fin de siècle San Francisco. All those dodgy deaths and disappearances where you're never sure if it's suicide, madness, misadventure, or murder … London. Bierce. George Sterling! Nora May French! I wouldn't mind finding out what that lot knew about History B and the power of art, blood, belief, and architecture to twist men's minds."
Bill
"That's good stuff, Sofie". Roger is trying out a French pronunciation as a diminutive. He asks for names again, and notes the time. "I was coming your way with this eventually. I could use your help. I'd like to make a file for this, a minor project. Maybe call it ‘Project Bay Channel’ or something. I've collected a few names where I need death locations or burial sites, and I'd like more info on access to those locations. I've got a contact at the Mission Dolores, so I'm in the graveyard there. But I don't even know where a few of these people, uh, 'are'". Could you help flesh out the file with the needed local info? This isn't a rush project, no. So priority lower than our usual. But could you look into these?"
"Oh, and one more little extra favor? If you make calls on GP resources in your research — calling contacts or calling up GP files, could you note what time you call the person or put in the request?"
"And if GP should send an inquiry back about these inquiries, could you let me know when that happens? Time stamped?"
Michael
"Well," Sophie says, effortlessly tossing off all this obscure information on the Bay's Bohemian literati, "Ambrose Bierce of course mysteriously disappeared, presumably in Mexico, but some say Texas, or New Mexico, or even that he never left San Francisco and just … vanished. Jack London died in Sonoma at his ranch. Nora May French killed herself down the coast aways in Carmel-by-the-Sea, in Sterling's and his wife's bed, by cyanide. And of course Sterling, also by cyanide years later, at the original Bohemian Club itself."
After a pause, during which Sophie smiles realizing Roger thought she'd need days or weeks of research time, "I did a lot of research on this in … happier times. I found the patterns in these people's lives and psychologies … suggestive. And of course, I can easily keep all this schtum, although of course I did pass along our observations on the Montgomery Block history and the Transamerica Pyramid back when we dealt with Frank DiGiuseppe."
Bill
“So you know where Emperor Norton was buried, too? And what are the hours at this Bohemian Club?”
Michael
Sophie takes a little longer to puzzle over the Emperor Norton question than she did the Bohemians. Then it comes to her, in a flash. "Oh, of course. Buried under Masonic colors at their cemetery, at first, then moved out to Woodlawn in Colma in the 1930s when they were clearing the old burial grounds. If you're asking, if he's still there as a, er, 'waveform' as Houdini might say, he's at the site of the old Masonic Cemetery. That's where all the pomp and circumstance of his imperial funeral cortėge happened."
"Funny old thing about the Masonic Cemetery. The site is now on the campus of USF. And most of the monuments and stone were re-used and turned into the approach of the Golden Gate Bridge. Highly suggestive, isn't it? Considering what we just talked about with the Montgomery Block becoming the Transamerica Pyramid."
Bill
“Sounds like a washout. How much would be underwater? I’m not sure I can do anything as it is, much less holding my breath. Well, this is all just possibilities.”
“But if nothing else is going on, wouldn’t hurt to try the easy options first. I really want to see if I can crack into this source for something useful.”
Michael
"No, Roger, I'm saying you could go to the campus of USF and try there. The stones and obelisks may matter to the ghosts of the Masons but the Emperor will remember the end of his glorious funeral route. I would wager the belief energy settled in there at the graveyard during the 50 years within the living memory of the San Franciscans who actually saw the Emperor alive, when the Masonic cemeteries weren't run-down yet and people still walked through them."
Bill
“Solid! But … definitely would need Mitch there. This will sound nuts, but I’m not 100% sure those fifty years aren’t really just a few months.”