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part 1 of the story
The Treasure of the Inebriati

James Scargill

    “That’s fascinating! Pat, may I tell you a story?”
    At the man’s words Emma switched on the hidden camera pointed at the two seated at the bar: a young man whose blandly attractive face made an effort to hint at mysteries, and next to him a middle-aged woman whose hopeful gregariousness seemed as distinctly applied as her elaborate make-up.
    “Sshhertainly!” the woman said, slurring only slightly.
    The man had sought her out as soon as he had entered, heading straight for the empty barstool next to hers, and though at first he had just stared into his drink, pretty soon she had struck up a conversation with this intriguing and handsome individual. She had already had a few drinks by this point, and he continued to buy her more as they chatted, though only occasionally sipped his own. Patricia, or Pat to her friends, as this man was fast becoming, was a divorcée, had two children who spent most of their time with their father, was an assistant manager at a local supermarket, and a fan of home renovation tv shows. Emma had made a note of all these details, which came out in the course of the conversation.
    The man began his story by describing a house, though a sentence in he had an idea and asked the bartender for some napkins, then said, “Now Pat, I’m going to ask you to draw what I’m saying makes you think of. This may seem strange, but don’t worry, there’s a reason. So anyway, this house...” Handing the napkins and a pen to Pat, he continued with the description. As he fleshed it out along with the characters who had lived in this house over the years, Pat followed with intensity that belied her inebriation and shared her attention between his story and the napkin quickly filling with her pen marks. “And in that chest in that attic is...” Pat leaned in at the story’s crescendo, but when the man paused and looked like he was having second thoughts about the whole thing she playfully slapped him on the arm and said, “Psshh, you silly billy! What’s in it?”
    “Well...more money than a legal life could accrue.” he said solemnly.
    At this Pat’s eyes lit up, and she said, “And this house is abandoned, you say?”
    “Yes, and in a terrible state of repair.”
    She considered this for a few moments, and narrowed her eyes slightly, “How do you know all this?”
    He fixed a deep gaze upon her. “There are certain...vibrations...that connect people across space and time,” he said, nodding gently, “They connect people in ways science doesn’t understand but which are all the more powerful for that. So, when I say this came to me in a dream, you know that is not mere flippancy.” Pat was nodding now too.
    Emma rolled her eyes. He often went for this sort of quasi-mystical approach when talking with a woman, supposing they were more receptive to such explanations. The man continued, “So this house is out there, derelict, with the treasure waiting to be claimed. And I am telling you what I know because I sense there are vibrations connecting us. Let me have a look at what you have drawn. There, look! The finial!” he pointed to a smudged detail at the top of Pat’s drawing, “I didn’t mention it in my story, but you knew it was there nonetheless! And here too, you have drawn out details even I was unaware of. I believe you could find this place, Patricia!”
    Pat flushed at this praise. “But I don’t even know where it might be.”
    “Close your eyes and think, deeply. You know where it is. Somewhere special. What comes to mind?”
    “Hmmmm...Tr...Trenton? Yes, Trenton, New Jersey!”
    “Well, there it is!” the man said, triumphantly, and bought her another drink in celebration. “So, Pat. What will you do with the money?”
    “Oh, I hadn’t thought.”
    “Just whatever comes to mind.”
    “Well, my niece was in an accident a few months back, and is now saddled with medical debt, so I guess I’d help her. Oh, she’s lovely, so vivacious and...”
    This answer clearly didn’t satisfy the man, who interrupted her and said, “But what else would you spend it on?”
    “Oh, erm, my son is getting ready to apply to college. We can only afford in-state tuition, but I can just imagine the look in his eyes when I tell him he can go to that fancy liberal arts school he’s been dreaming of!”
    Again the man frowned, “There must be something you want. An indulgence. This is a lot of money we’re talking about.”
    “Maybe some new jewelry, something a bit flashier. Just a bit of fun, you know?”
    “And there you have it!” the man grinned. “Now Pat, there’s just one final thing I have to tell you.” To her confusion the man got a small video camera out of his pocket and pointed it at her. “This,” he said, holding up her drawing—“is only good for telling us about you, your desires, and your greed. Patricia, thank you for contributing to the Treasure of the Inebriati.” He grinned as the prank was revealed.
    For a shocked second she was silent, processing what he had said, then she chucked the remaining half of her cocktail over the man and fled the bar, sobbing. At this point Emma stopped recording and put her own camera away.
    The man slid Patricia’s drawing into his pocket and spent a few minutes wiping sticky liquid from his face with the remaining napkins. He then picked up his own glass, still half full, and walked over to the table at which Emma sat. “I think that went about as well as could be expected,” he said. “Cut the drink finale, or do you think that’s worth keeping in for a laugh?”
    “I did think it was a bold move to buy her a new drink so close to the reveal, Geoff,” Emma replied to her colleague.
    “Indeed. Well, we can certainly cut those first two self-serving answers. Who does she think she is? Mother Theresa?”
    “How were her artistic skills?” Geoff took the napkin drawing out of his pocket and flipped it in front of Emma, who considered it. “Hmm, good, there are things we can use here. I take it this is the ‘finial’ you mentioned? Looks more like a cock, and not for the weather.”
    “Repressed sexual desire as a consequence of her divorce, perhaps? We could mention Freud, that always goes down well. What do you make of the wavy lines at the foundation?”
    “Oh, clearly, she’s beset with uncertainty, that she tries to foist onto other people. It would tie together nicely if she’d said Atlantic City instead, but Trenton should still get a laugh.”
    “I’m glad I asked her to picture somewhere special!”
    The two of them continued to discuss the picture, using it and what Patricia had said to draw conclusions about her psyche, jotting down notes and speculating what would get the most views. At home that evening Geoff would scan the drawing whilst Emma would write a provisional script for them to record the following day. A short editing session later and, all going well, their latest video would be ready to upload to YouTube, to the delight of their fans. The show was called ‘The Treasure of the Inebriati’ and involved one of them befriending a drunk and spinning a story of long-lost treasure whilst getting them to create a treasure map or similar. This they analyzed to reach cod-psychological conclusions about their subject, to be shared with their audience along with clips of the encounter, which culminated in inducing the subject to reveal what they would do with the money, before the ruse was revealed and the reaction filmed. It was formulaic, but it worked, each video getting enough views to sustain the two of them.
    Emma speculated that it was the combination of pseudo-experiment and prank which did it for them—the analysis allowed the viewer to tell themselves that was why they were watching, not just to see a gullible drunk made fun of. There were times, in the middle of the night, shed of daily disillusions, when she wondered about the ethics of it, but one has to make money somehow and it was really rather tame in comparison to some of the other prank channels. Besides, most of the people in their videos probably never even saw them, and on the few occasions they had been contacted by an angry mark, it hadn’t taken long to negotiate a payoff that left all parties satisfied. Everyone has their price, after all.
    Geoff went to the bar to pay his earlier tab. The bartender grumbled about having to clean up after the drink had been thrown, and how he’d rather his customers leave smiling than crying, but the oft-repeated adage about the goodness of all publicity went some way to mollify him, helped by a hefty tip. Back at the table Emma asked what the damage was. “About two hundred bucks, all told,” Geoff replied.
    “Right. So long as this one doesn’t underperform, we should be alright.”
    “Relax. Let me buy you a drink—not business, but pleasure.”
    “Thanks, but I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

    As they left the bar, Emma and Geoff fixed a time to meet the following day and went their separate ways. This was a bar they had used before, so the route home was familiar to Emma—three blocks, then left and another seven to get to Tower Bridge. Here she stopped and watched the Sacramento River flowing in the moonlight. She didn’t need a map, not even one of those phony ones they got unsuspecting revelers to produce. Her route was clear and simple, like the river, drifting between the banks. Why, then, did she long for an eddy? She sighed and looked up at the bridge, towering in the darkness, occluding the stars, the streetlights making its paint seem the color of vomit. What if she were to go visit its namesake? She could catch a bus to the airport and just get the next flight heading east, there was bound to be one last one even at this time. Then she would just get another, and another, rushing headlong into the dawn, until she reached the land where one of her ancestors may once have been doing something far more edifying. She could stand on the banks of another river and look at another Tower Bridge and have exactly the same thoughts. She sighed again and headed across the bridge towards her home.

    The latest video was a success, doing better than any of their previous ones. Geoff attributed this to the drink thrown over him—it generated something of a lively discussion in the comments and they both knew how the algorithm devoured engagement. But even the most outrageous video will find its popularity wane, and so it was on to the next one. This time it was Emma’s turn to inveigle.
    As she walked into the bar, a kind of faux-western saloon, she didn’t expect all heads to turn but was glad when her entry went unnoticed. It was about a quarter full—perfect. She scanned the room until she spotted Geoff, at a table, and the occupied barstool he indicated. She wandered up the bar, making a show of looking at what drinks were on offer, until she reached the kind, yet lonely, looking gentleman reading a book—she couldn’t see what it was called, but it looked suitably anodyne as to not cause a problem. Ordering a pilsner—not her favorite, but it fit the character she wanted to inhabit—Emma sat down next to him.
    The first thing that struck her was how he seemed perfectly unperturbed by this woman choosing to sit on the adjacent stool when there were plenty of others available. He was probably un-confrontational. Good, Emma thought, for she had no desire to be doused in beer at the end of this, no matter how that might boost their views. To press his quietude, she got out her own book, an intentionally esoteric looking tome on the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Sure enough, after a few minutes a light voice to her side said, “Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt, but I couldn’t help but notice what you were reading.”—she had the book open on a page with an intricate drawing of the Aztec sun stone—“It’s magnificent, isn’t it?”
    “Oh yes,” she said, turning to him, “it speaks of a different world.”
    “A lost one, sadly. I often wonder what mysteries from that period will never be discovered, let alone resolved.”
    This was too easy, Emma thought. “Though you’d be surprised what turns up in archives, having lain undisturbed for so many years. Are you interested in history?”
    “Yes, as an amateur. Who isn’t? I’m Don, by the way.”
    “Ah, short for Donatello, perhaps?”
    “No, nothing quite so exciting. Just plain Don.”
    “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m Maria.” Emma held out her hand, which Don gregariously shook.
    “And what about you, what drives your interest in...?” Don gestured at the book.
    Normally she would have spent longer building a rapport, to say nothing of mining the mark for information that could be wound into the analysis, but Emma felt the segue was too convenient, to say nothing of how Don radiated engagement. “Well, it’s funny you should have mentioned lost mysteries, and you’re right that there are things barely recorded that are impossible to imagine. Treasures untold. Are you familiar with the Archivo de Indias, in Seville, in Spain? Beautiful building, in a beautiful city. Anyway, it holds original documents dating back to the earliest days of the Spanish Empire. Sure, there are the big, important documents, the letters from Columbus, the papal bulls, the things that are known to all, and there are the administrators’ reports, the requisitions, the kind of documents that in bulk are no doubt fascinating to one diligent historian but otherwise might as well turn to dust, except, however, for the occasional oddity that pops up. A quill stroke that goes on a little too long, an ink spot that refuses to be a circle, a burnt edge, the kind of things that might mean nothing, or might mean everything. For example, have you ever heard of...actually, forget I said anything, it’s not that interesting. History’s just a passing fancy for me.” Emma made to turn away and close the book—although she was fairly sure she had Don hooked, there was no point not guaranteeing it.
    “Oh, well I don’t think it’s just the drinks I’ve had talking when I say I found what you were saying fascinating! Please continue Maria, I beg you!”
    “You flatter me!” she smiled and touched his arm, “I’ve actually just returned from having examined a few of these odd documents, and I have what can best described as a basket of clues.”
    “Clues, for what?”
    “You’ll laugh.”
    “I promise!”
    “Well then, for a treasure map.” Don was true to his word and received the explanation with solemnity. Emma flipped to the back of the book, where there was a scribbled series of numbers. “All that’s left is to assemble the map.”
    “Well, surely once that’s done one still has to find the treasure?”
    “Right, of course,” Emma said, loving Don’s enthusiasm. “Well, there’s no time like the present—care to be my scribe?”
    Don was pleasantly taken aback and to Emma’s surprise he got a pad of paper out of his bag—it was so nice when a subject came prepared, she thought. Emma explained that the numbers referred to locations in her book, which was a facsimile of a sixteenth century tome, and that the clues would likely require some interpretation, which she was certain Don would ably accomplish. She then read a seemingly random string of words and phrases—in fact they were random, but she hoped they might act as some kind of Rorschach test, plus it spared her the effort of having to come up with a story. Emma peered at the map as it was taking shape. Don was quite the artist, and she had to admire the way he was synthesizing the ‘clues’, giving genuine thought to each one and incorporating it confidently even when it contradicted some earlier element. What did that imply? He didn’t exude arrogance, quite the opposite in fact, and he accepted without judgement or presumption.
    They had just about made their way through the list when a loud noise began blaring throughout the bar. Confusion reigned for a few moments and drinks were spilt, but the bartender yelled over the sound of the fire alarm and directed everyone outside. What had seemed a small number of people spread out in the bar became a crush as they all scrambled out of the doors and when she took stock of the situation once outside, Emma realized she and Don had become separated. She cast around among the milling people, but he was nowhere to be seen.
    “Lost him?” Geoff asked as he found her.
    “It’s strange, it shouldn’t be so difficult to find someone. But I guess it doesn’t matter. I can’t imagine it would be possible to get back into that groove.” Emma was disappointed. The effort of this evening was wasted, though she supposed there was no reason she couldn’t re-use the ploy. But more than that, she realized she had actually been looking forward to seeing what Don would produce, if not how he would react—maybe it was fate that had prevented that, she wondered.

    The following day, having declined Geoff’s invitation to go out clubbing after their evening had fallen apart, Emma was once more with her colleague, who was sat on his couch, in a bathrobe, swirling a glass of Alka-Seltzer. She had called him and said they needed to meet, though his bearing betrayed a desire not to have answered.
    “We need to think about what’s next after Inebriati.” Emma said.
    “Sure, eventually. But why this morning? It’s going strong!” Geoff replied and affected a debonair attitude.
    Emma wanted to explain her misgivings, but they were too vague to enunciate, coming out as cold porridge, and Geoff assured her that it was just the fire alarm that had spooked her. “I’m not a fucking horse,” she retorted.
    “Yeah, you’re a YouTuber.”
    What did that even mean, she wondered, but the stats showed their audience was still firmly behind the format. She was about to suggest they forgot the whole conversation when her phone started buzzing. She frowned at the unfamiliar local number and answered it.
    “Hello?”
    “Hi, uh, is that Maria?” Emma froze. “Uh, it’s Don. From the bar?”
    Emma remained silent for a few more seconds, but in the absence of a plan said, “Oh, Don, hi! Sorry, the connection is bad.” On hearing the name, Geoff looked up.
    “Listen, I’m sorry about disappearing last night. Just the alarm and the confusion, you know? Anyway, um, well, I’ve got the map, so, do you want to go find the treasure?”
    “Ah, well, Don, you see, the thing about the map is...” Emma felt herself rolling down the hill, but Geoff stopped her, and she muted the call.
    “Wait,” Geoff said, “don’t waste the reveal. Meet up with him, you can at least grab the map and spring the surprise?” He rubbed his fingers together indicating the money they could make from salvaging this video.
    Emma was uncertain. What of fate? But Geoff did have a point about money, and it was not like this was any worse than telling the man over the phone—if the issue was duping him, they had already done that.
    “Maria, are you there? What about the map?”
    “Sorry Don, motorbike rally passing. The thing about the map is that it needs to be properly interpreted, we can’t just rush out into the desert. Why don’t we meet up again?”
    “Sure! Same place?”
    The thought of returning there made her uneasy, but feeling the lead weight of lethargy shackle her, she agreed, and they fixed a time after lunch.
    “Meet you there?” Emma asked Geoff.
    He groaned and said, “After last night I can’t possibly set foot in licensed premises until at least teatime.” He wished her luck and shuffled into the kitchen to make breakfast.

    “So how did it go? Have you got the map?” asked Geoff over the phone, “Bring it to my place and we can discuss it over a vermouth.”
    “I don’t have the map.” Emma replied.
    “What? Why? What happened?...Are you alright?”
    “It’s all alright. I’ll explain tomorrow.”
    “And so, what, I’m supposed to just twiddle my thumbs until then? I thought we were partners.”
    “You can twiddle whatever you like, Geoff.” Emma hung up. Such adversarial banter was part of their working relationship, but Emma resented his perceived intrusion.
    Her sense of unease that morning had stayed with her, germinating trepidation by the time she was sat in the bar on her own. It was more than just the danger of an adverse reaction from Don—she hoped the middle of the day minimized that—but sitting at the bar waiting for someone to come to her felt an inversion of the normal routine.
    Don arrived smiling and whipped out the map. “Hi Maria! I’ve had some thoughts about its meaning.” Emma was used to being the one to guide the conversation in such circumstances, to say nothing of interpretation, so was taken aback by Don’s immediate dive into the pool of possibility. For a few minutes she just let him talk, his words a testament to pareidolia, though she wondered if her videos could be described any differently. Eventually, however, she interrupted him. “Don, what is it you do? For work, I mean?”
    She sensed his disappointment at her changing the subject, but he answered nonetheless, saying, “Oh, you know, this and that.”
    “Such as?”
    “The usual odd jobs. I suspect it’s the reading I did as a child that inspired some of what I was just saying.”
    “Oh really? In what way?” Emma was glad to be able to get a handle on the conversation and direct it, as she built a mental skeleton of the man sitting next to her. He explained how his parents had instilled a sense of exploration in him, despite never leaving California, or even the Central Valley; he implied they had never amounted to much, and she sensed his fear of going the same way. Every time he veered back to the map, she deflected him, trying to learn more, but also unwilling to perform the coup de grace. She realized there was a reason this was better done with the subject drunk, because as he spoke now, in the middle of the day and not even tipsy, his life became more than the background to a fifteen-minute video. She shouldn’t have listened to Geoff and should have just let Don down over the phone—why was she even thinking of it like that? Only a fool would be taken in and fools deserved what came to them.
    Therefore, when Don next brought up the topic of the map, Emma decided it best to cut this off in a quick and clean manner, not even bothering to ask about the money—she knew she wouldn’t like the answer. “Listen Don, about that map. It’s not actually real.”
    “Not real?”
    “Yeah. As in, made up.”
    “But I know that. I drew it, after all.”
    “Right. But it’s not based on anything.”
    “Sure. If there was an original, you would have found it in the archive. What’s your point?” Emma was silent, but after a moment Don’s face lit up in understanding, “Oh, I see! You’re just making sure I know it might not be completely accurate, that it’s just my interpretation of your clues. I know that! But I still believe we can find the treasure. We’ll make a great team! So anyway, the interaction of these two elements here...”
    Emma groaned silently. There was no helping this guy. The following day she related most of this to Geoff but stopped short of admitting Don’s refusal to accept the map’s false premise and claimed instead that there hadn’t been quite the right moment to reveal the ruse.
    Geoff commented, “It sounds like he’s quite torrential? But I suppose that gives a lot of useful titbits to use, or even some entertaining audio clips—you were recording right?”
    “Oh yes.”
    “Glad to hear it. And I take it you’ll be seeing him again, to record the reaction?”
    “Naturally.” In fact, Emma and Don had agreed to meet later that day, and when Geoff made no motion to join and observe, Emma did not ask him to come. She wondered how she might again broach the subject of the map’s unreality, but this time as she sat chatting with Don, she found it easier to be swept along. Don spoke so effortlessly about the world the map inhabited that her job felt like floating down a river, only occasionally having to prod an oar against the bank.
    “The bell there, for example. I find your suggestion that it indicates the direction of the east wind intriguing, but what does it mean to you, personally?” Emma asked.
    “Oh, well, a bell calls, doesn’t it? Like the bell summoning the workers from the fields. Could this be myself calling me?”
    “Hmmm, to what?”
    “To adventure? My life is, for lack of a better word, boring. Perhaps this is where it all changes?”

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