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Conspiracy!

Alex Moreaux

    The key was in the spaces. On this intersection the space between the lines of the crosswalk measured two inches narrower than the spaces between the crosswalk lines at the intersection a block away. This minor difference in spaces might not strike the lay person as catastrophic but it did cause there to be one less stripe on the one intersection. That was key! One less stripe!
    It occurred to him as he sat at the coffee shop exactly in between the two intersections, which just goes to show that this coffee shop was a point of communication for them. No doubt this spot was the one where they met at a predetermined time so they could set up locations for their more secretive meetings. The one intersection had eight stripes, the other had seven. That made the meeting time 8:07 every morning.
    He tested his theory everyday for two weeks. He arrived at the coffee shop halfway between the two intersections and made discrete mental notes (written notes would give him away if they ever found him) and drawings of the key symbols along the street. And lo! Everyday (Monday through Friday), two men walked into the coffee shop in the morning between 8:00 and 8:15. Accounting for normal human error screwing up the time, he figured these had to be the messengers for the conspiracy.
    Last Saturday he sat at his normal table on the outside terrace, gazing absently at the stripes painted into the road. The stripes told the time, clearly. But something was missing. Where were these men on Saturday and Sunday? And that (along with the apologetic waiter that cold cocked him in the back of the head with a metal tray) was what made him see it! The spaces told the date of their annual meeting. 9/8: September 8. The two men who checked in every morning were just lowly messengers sharing important information in between that all important annual meeting.

+++

    Alan Giffin’s parents drank a lot. Anything that came out of a bottle was fair game to make into a beverage. If they found any fluid left anywhere, they threw that into the grand mixture in an old alcohol bottle that lost its label such a long time ago that nobody could quite remember how the bottle came into being in the Giffin house. Alan didn’t mind his parents drinking because they became more conversational during those hours. They rejoiced his twenty-first birthday by going to the liquor store themselves instead of sending Alan with a fake ID and extra money in case he needed to give a small bribe to stay out of trouble. This never happened; nobody cared about age in small towns. Everybody knew his age anyway. He kept the extra money.
    By the time they returned from the store, all the liquor was gone. But his parents brought back a story that confirmed their suspicions that a great global government ruled the world and a small collection of elite secretly ran this global empire. They said they saw the lens in the security camera flicker like it took their picture. They also knew that the camera followed them around the store, tracking their movements and what kind of products they bought. That was why, Alan would say later, they bought a different brand and type of liquor each time. Throw them off.
    So, when his parents made a pact to quit drinking altogether, Alan decided it was time to head off to college. By the time he packed his last book (The Codes and Ciphers Never Taught at School) into the last crevice in the rear of his antique station wagon at the age of twenty-five, he had a wad of cash as thick as his ankle. He remembered the conversation vividly when he suggested he put his cash in the bank:
    I think I’ll put it in a checking account, Alan said without realizing the words that dribbled out of his mouth.
    What? His mother shrieked like a howler monkey caught in a trap.
    Don’t you know that the banks just serve the big bank owned by the global empire! This was not a question when his father screamed it.
    Yeah, they are like little ants gathering bits of dirt to make the anthill larger. And do you know what you are? A bit of dirt that’s waiting to be rolled onto the stack. Alan’s mother nodded like nothing more needed to be said to prove her point.
    Oh, Babe, his father choked out with admiring tears in his eyes, Do you want to break your mother’s heart, Son, by putting your money straight into the empire’s wallet?
    Alan just shrugged. He guessed he didn’t want to hurt his mother. So he stuffed the wad of money into his glove box, with an extra push on the door to make sure it was shut tight. Halfway between his home in Judsonia, Arkansas and the University of Virginia he took a few bills out of the glove box, closed it again but failed to secure it with that extra tap, and paid for a hotel room. The next morning, the cash was simply gone. The windows remained intact, the doors still closed; the cash simply gone.
    That was the moment he knew the conspiracy was true. He cheated the global empire out of $1,346 cash taken from his parents, and they took it. They had no need to break his windows or pick the lock, they had a copy of his car key. That was the only explanation because he knew (or at least felt somewhat sure) he had locked his doors.
    That very day Alan abandoned his car and all in it, except his suitcase with his clothes and toothbrush, and walked. Coins, half eaten bags of chips, and an almost full can of flat soda dotted the side of the road like a trail of bread crumbs. Having followed this trail, he looked up in shock to find himself at a bus station and believed himself blessed to be holding enough chips to constitute a lunch, $1.14 in coins, and even a beverage. The very moment he reached out his hand to drop his coins on the counter in front of the ticket guy at the bus station, however, he saw the hour hand on the clock click to 10:00. Like his parents who saw the lens flicker, Alan knew they had his picture. They had led him, tempted him with little treasures, to come to the bus station. They took his money just to draw him here with trinkets.
    He ran away from the station (still clutching his $1.14, two half bags of chips, and partial soda). The blood pumped through his body, preparing him for a fight like a hunted animal realizing the flight could only last so long. Alan’s soft body tired quickly and he rolled down the side of the ditch without considering the large amount of trees between the top and bottom of the small hill. He rolled, cursing each time he hit a tree. All that night Alan walked along the bottom of the ditch with his ears trained on the sounds of the road and his eyes focused on nothing in particular but everything all at once. By the middle of the night he had such a headache he finally laid down and slept.

+++

    Alan ran from them for a solid two weeks. He ate crops from farmers’ fields, tore the mold from old bread he pulled out of trashcans, and found an unopened package of jerky that he abandoned because he was sure they left it out for him. The third week brought unexpected blessings for Alan when he tripped (literally) over a box of used crayons. A sign from the anti-conspiracy!
    Now, up to this point in Alan’s story, we neglected his childhood other than his parents’ habits. Ever since elementary school, Alan was rightfully called a prodigy in the Judsonia art community, which consisted of the elementary/middle school art teacher, high school art teacher, and the big wig artist from New York who moved to Judsonia because no one there knew his name or that he was an artist until he let it slip over a round of beers. He took a break from art just to be thrust into the position of judge of all art competitions filled with less than mediocre school kid drawings. The entire time the New York artist ever commented on a student’s art was when he wrote, This doesn’t suck, on the back of Alan’s sketch of Friendly Acres Park.
    To no one in particular on the day Alan found the crayons he blurted, “Of course!” What he meant, of course, was that the anti-conspiracy would want to use his artistic talents to reveal the truth. Nothing could, of course, reveal the truth quite like a landscape drawing.
    Alan marched into town, reeking badly because of his lack of hygiene facilities, and threw his $5.86 (his $1.14 had grown during his journey) onto the counter of the miniscule art store. The clerk bagged the sketch book and tried to remain congenial while she bid Alan a nice day.
    The global empire renewed its search for Alan during that bold venture into town: a couple walking alongside their child (or newly initiated member, as Alan called her) followed him along the entire length of the sidewalk. They stopped when he stopped at each intersection, turned when he followed the generous sidewalk along Main Street, and stopped to watch him slip into an alleyway that wove between garbage cans. The young girl even waved at him. Poor thing; the conspiracy would discipline her severely for revealing herself like that.
    Finding the alleyway was an unexpected blessing for Alan because that was what led him to the coffee shop halfway between the two intersections. The heat of late August ate at him before he slipped through the doors. He groaned with pleasure at the air conditioned cold that gripped him. A kindly woman dressed like a hippie straight out of the sixties and clearly not part of the global empire handed him a card with an address to a homeless shelter with beds and showers. Alan took advantage of this kindness and opportunity for cleanliness before returning to the coffee shop the next morning.
    Every morning Alan drank the free water and day old muffins the shop owner gave him and drew pictures of the street and people that ran in front of the shop. He shaded the final stripe in his latest picture after he realized the difference in the stripes of the two intersections equal distances away from the coffee shop. So, the anti-conspiracy drew him to this spot after giving him the equipment to survey the area. In its infinite wisdom, the anti-conspiracy understood he would find the messages the global empire left along the street to communicate with its members. And he did it!
    The morning of September 8, Alan rolled out of his cot at the homeless shelter before even the sun rose. He could miss nothing that day; it would be so easy to fail the anti-conspiracy. He straightened his shirt, stuffed the remainder of his crayons in his pockets, clutched his sketch book under his arm, and marched out of the homeless shelter to complete his most important mission. Today, Alan Giffin would break the global empire by attending their meeting.
    They would meet at the coffee shop at 8:07, order simple lattes with extra foam (the favored drink of the two messengers), and leave one at a time for their secret meeting. The coffee shop owner opened the doors early for Alan, greeting him with a smile and a blueberry muffin. Alan took his regular table on the terrace and waited for two hours until the two men met at the door. Every muscle in his body tensed. He returned to a new drawing so the messengers would not realize he was on to them but strained his ears to hear their discussions. They spoke too quietly but he swore he heard them mention the man with the muffin and sketch book sitting on the terrace. He instinctively searched for an escape route: easy, jump the short terrace fence and run.
    The messengers looked at him, looked at his drawing. They approached him. The conspiracy knew about his mission! He puffed up his chest so he would seem threatening to them. Maybe he could get the messengers to leave. They stopped right next to him. He was surrounded!
    “Those are good,” the largest of the messengers said, pointing at his drawings.
    They knew Alan broke their code and wanted to eliminate the evidence he had gathered. How stupid he was for drawing his surveys of the street instead of memorizing them.
    “What is your name?” The second messenger reached into his pocket, searching for something.
    Alan swore he saw the shape of a gun. This was it. Everything was over.
    “I am Louis Elderand and this is my partner Timothy Mellermeyer,” the first messenger said, holding out his hand.
    Maybe if he gave up they would give him an easier sentence?
    “Ah, here we go.” The second messenger thrust something into Alan’s hand.
    Alan dropped his eyes to the card. E&M Galleries, it said.
    “Galleries?” Alan asked, sure the card was meant to say E&M Gallows. Professional hangmen?
    “Yeah, we own the largest art galleries in New York and London. We would like to sell your work, exclusively.” The first messenger, Louis, smiled.
    Alan stared at the card for awhile. This was what the global empire had in mind? To sell his art? He just asked, “What?”
    “Both Louis and I agree that your art could sell huge. Probably $5,000 for an original right now, with the right representation of course. Make that $10,000 and upwards once you’re well known,” the second messenger, Timothy, responded.
    Alan squinted his eyes while he calculated how much money that would bring if he sold each of the drawings in his sketchbook for $5,000. It would be plenty.
    “Could I go to London, too?” Alan asked.
    “Of course, to gallery openings and other gala events. What do you say?” Louis reached out his hand again.
    So the global empire conspiracy, not the anti-conspiracy, had given him the crayons, the extra money to buy the sketch book. They made the couple with the little girl push him down that alleyway so he would find the coffee shop. They wanted him to survey the street, to do the drawings. They put the stripes on the crosswalks to tell him what time and on what day to meet the messengers. The conspiracy recruited him: the conspiracy would, in the end, add him to the anthill.
    Alan shrugged. If the conspiracy would make him rich and pay for a trip to London, he could accept it. Besides, every man had his price. Why else would they have made this a proverb?

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