Josh: Poisoned By The Magician, Somehow Josh Valiantly Struggles On For The Sake Of The Team. Margaritas? No, No, I'm Sure It Must Have Been Poison

First, a quick update on how I'm feeling this morning: ow. Owowow.

Moving on, reading Mary's posts regarding yesterday's happenings were eye-opening, considering that I was there pretty much the whole time and don't remember most of it. Last night was even more of a blur which, again, Mary clarified for me:


ME: I remember singing really loudly and off-key in the hotel lobby and puking in my shower.

MARY: That's exactly right, except the locations were reversed.

ME: Um. Whoops.

MARY: We'll be exiting through the rear of the hotel when we checkout today, by the way.

ME: Carry me?


Later that morning I heard many loud, loud noises that threatened to shatter my skull, and then somehow I was on a jet, streaking out over the sparkling, bejeweled Pacific Ocean on my way to Australia. On the plane I had full access to DVD's, books, magazines, the Internet and probably stewardess/strippers, and I took no advantage of any of them, instead promptly falling asleep for another six hours.

When I awoke once again Mary was eating lunch and food actually smelled good to me for the first time that day. We ate our beef stroganoff in silence sitting facing one another. After we'd finished eating I polished off the last of my bottled water, looked at Mary and said, "I think I'm falling in love with you."

"I take it you enjoyed the stroganoff."

"I'm serious."

"You're feeling pretty spry for a man who spent last night throwing up into a hotel fern."

"Still serious."

Mary took a deep breath and turned to stare for a long moment out of the window at the bright blue sky, a few high clouds dotting the horizon in the distance. "I can't, Josh. The responsibility I feel to your mother... I have a responsibility."

"It's more than a job, you said so yourself, Mary. I'd say going on the run from the law and becoming an accessory after the fact means-"

She put up a hand, stopping me. Turning back to me she said, "It wouldn't be right. Wouldn't feel right. And our ages-"

"What, five, six years? It's not like you're in cougar territory here." I saw her eyes widen and knew I'd stepped in it, but pressed on. "I don't care about that, or the work thing or anything else. Look, I'm not good at this, I know that. Some other guy, flying in a private jet over the water, they'd make some cool move. I'm not that guy, unless you think ranking Godzilla movies in order of rubber-costume believability is a cool move."

She smiled in spite of herself. "Josh-"

"I know you have a responsibility. I know you don't want to let my Mom down. You think I don't know about that kind of pressure? When I was four, the woman wouldn't let me have a cookie unless I could name the majority of its ingredients in Latin. You want her respect but you already have it."

Her mouth tightened. "I also want to keep it."

I leaned over the table toward her, wishing now that we'd flown commercial so we'd be side-by-side. "All this other stuff... just tell me you don't feel anything for me. Nothing else matters. Look me in the eye and tell me I'm just a job. Tell me."

Mary shook her head slowly, clenching her jaw and taking a few deep breaths. Just then the stewardess walked up and asked how we liked our lunch, cleared the dirty plates and offered dessert. Mary declined, excusing herself to the bathroom. I leaned back in my seat and stared out of the window, fighting the urge to strangle the oblivious stewardess and wondering all of a sudden if I was going to write all this stuff down. Having promised my mother that I would be as forthcoming as possible in this journal (hey, thanks again, Mom!), I decided that I would continue to be as humiliatingly candid as possible.

Mary and I spent most of the rest of the flight writing, reading up on Australia and avoiding eye contact. I'll try and write out another post on the drive to Port Victoria from Adelaide.

Mary: San Diego

November 7th, 2008: Josh and I touched down at San Diego International Airport early this morning and unlike Yoshida I have nothing but positive things to say about the flying experience, though the fact that Josh and I were the only passengers and we whiled away the flight by sipping champagne and napping in fully reclined chairs might have had a little something to do with it. If this is life as a fugitive, I wish I had been wanted for a crime I didn't commit a long time ago.

After our arrival we argued over what car to rent. I wanted a BMW or Mercedes Benz- something that wouldn't attract attention, while Josh insisted on attempting to locate a "Lotus Esprit" based on the merits it displayed in, as he put it, "That Bond movie where it turned into a submarine". I'm embarrassed to reveal how long we argued over the issue standing on the tarmac, but eventually we decided to compromise, find some middle ground and do what I said.

Our five-star hotel was located right on a curved, perfectly manicured, golden beach- the Pacific's blue water glittering alluringly right outside our bedroom windows. Once the valet parked the Benz I headed straight to my room, changed into my swimsuit and wandered out onto the beach to make phone calls and soak up the sunshine, the temperature a perfectly comfortable seventy-four degrees. Meanwhile, Josh went to his room, closed the curtains, turned off the lights and began playing video games for four straight hours, grudgingly agreeing to pause at one o'clock to meet me for lunch.

By the time I sat down at our table at the hotel's poolside restaurant I had secured two meetings for later that day with representatives from the Coast Guard and the shipping company that owned the Liberator. Josh- fifteen minutes late for our lunch- staggered out of the hotel shielding his eyes and snarling at the sun. Over lunch he touted his recent war record in Halo, gloating over his virtual victories against what I assumed were random, hooky-playing fourteen year-olds in other parts of the world.

"I'm just impressed that when you stepped outside you didn't burst into flames."

"Don't jinx me." He washed down the last of his enchiladas with a long gulp from a margarita and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "You want me to go along to these meetings? Nice swimsuit, by the way. I was wondering if you ever wore anything but business suits."

I sighed. "See, you started out doing great there, but then you kept talking. Next time you should shut up a bit earlier."

"Whenabouts? The jinx part, the meetings part, the-"

"The sooner the better. I'll go to the first one alone. It's a meeting with the Coast Guard and their rep sounded a touch bland for your tastes." I rose from the table, preparing to go back to my room and change for my appointments. "In the meantime you can do battle with your prepubescent nemeses."

Josh waved me off. "Those little bastards can shoot the wings off a fly. The younger the tougher in video games. You pray you get matched up with someone old in their late-thirties or-" He stopped, the realization dawning on his face. "Um. This was one of those stop-talking times, wasn't it?"

"And how old do you think I am, exactly?" I crossed my arms, subconsciously reaching for the gun that was usually there.

To his credit Josh only looked flustered for a moment, then stood up and looked me right in the eye. "The right age. I look at you and think... you're just right, that's all." I kept expecting him to say something else or break eye contact, but he just kept looking right at me. Finally the bus boy lumbered up and started clearing our table, mumbling that other customers were waiting to eat.

As I made my own excuses and began heading up to my room, Josh said behind me, "Is this going to be one of those things where you write a post about it and you saw it totally different from how I thought it was?"

"I don't know what it was."

He took a moment, then nodded and fled to the outdoor bar, braving the "elements" for the sake of another margarita. I went to my room, changed and left for my first appointment.

Yoshida: 17

Flying to Nagasaki was as dreadful as you would imagine. I'm certain you would find my complaints concerning air travel just as banal as I found Howland's account of his journey to the American South. Take it as read that my excursion made me hope that the Magician would somehow bring about the end of the world sooner rather than later.

If I was unimpressed by the airline's absolute absence of competence, I grew positively nostalgic for their mundane failures when faced with the troglodytes at the Nagasaki shipyard. I must have explained that I was seeking information on the missing ship Liberator a dozen times to various laborers, foremen and crane operators before one could finally direct me to the only man on the dock with at least a partial college education.

Goto-san was overworked, harried and annoyed by having to take a few moments of his precious time to answer questions from someone whom I'm certain he perceived to be a young, foolish dilettante. To his credit, he refused my offer of money and explained that there still was no word as to the ship's whereabouts. The disappearance of the vessel seemed to genuinely bother him as he was friends with the ship's first mate. At this late stage Goto-san was resigned to the probability that the crew of the Liberator would never be seen alive again, but he still retained a morbid curiosity as to how the ship was lost. I did not volunteer the information that the Magician's knife was on board or what that might mean.

In all, my journey to Nagasaki provided no information that we did not already possess. While I was hardly enamored with him personally, Agent Pierce's loss is keenly felt as far as his access to government information. Perhaps sensing my dejection as I left, Goto-san said to me, in English, "To do so truly you must know His Will." The absolute last thing I was interested in at that point was a pep talk from some religious fanatic, and my frustration boiled over onto the imbecile with a stream of expletives. He stood there looking more confused than anything as I exited the offices cursing him, his ancestors and his pathetic superstitions.

Needless to say, should you call the dockyards at some later point it would be best to avoid mentioning my name.

Josh: The ATL

Typing on the Blackberry while waiting an eternity for my rental car at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport...

Did flying always suck? I mean, you see those posters from back in the halcyon days of the 50's and 60's of people actually smiling on airplanes, and there's a sexy stewardess handing them trays full of edible food, and it doesn't appear, looking out the tiny window that they've been taxiing around a runway for five hours. Was it actually like that, or was that just highly effective propaganda? Is the past just a lie? I see the same type of advertisements like that now for airlines, with grinning passengers and sunshine beaming through the windows, and let's just say that's not an entirely accurate picture of reality. At this point, a more timely, comfortable and customer service-conscious mode of transportation would be hitchhiking.

Speaking of propaganda and preconceptions, I'm not all that wild about traveling to the South. It's my first time here, and as a Northerner who bases his entire worldview on the movies I've seen, the South gives me the creeps. Southern people think (generalizing? mmmaybe) that Yankees like me are so jealous of their quaint, gentrified, countrified way of life. That we pine for the lovely southern belles like Scarlett O'Hara (played by Vivian Leigh, a Brit, by the way) and yearn to stroll down by the old crick under the weeping willows while our slaves mournfully belt out some classic Blues as we sip gimlets and chain-smoke tobacceee cigarettes we grew and rolled ourselves.

Northerners do not think the South is or ever was like this. That's not the Hollywood myth we bought into. For the most part, we think the South is crawling with toothless, shirtless, illiterate, Waffle House-patronizing, hopelessly-inbred rapists. Sorry to burst your bubble, any Southerners who happen to have someone to help you translate what these little squiggles on the computer screen mean.

I know this preconception probably won't last long and I certainly hope it won't. Actually, so far Atlanta (okay, the airport) looks just like any other American city, with the exception that the security guards are wearing possum-fur hats.

No, really, so far it's been-

Car is here. Finally. Damn it, I didn't order a pickup truck with a drooling bloodhound riding shotgun and a wooden rocking chair for a back seat!

More as I go...


...At the stoplight... McDonald's... Starbucks... same buildings you'd see anywhere else...

A Waffle House! Aha!


...Now at the hotel, totally exhausted. I'm glad I waited to send this post. Please forgive all the previous jackassery and Confederacy-bashing and understand that I'm running on absolutely no sleep. Despite this, I'm dying to see what's in the storage locker. I'm going to grab my tenth cup of coffee and drive over to it. It's only a few blocks away anyway.


...And I'm back once more at the hotel after my trip to the storage area. To recap:

I was amazed at how bright all the lights of Atlanta were even late into the night, and was considering heading downtown to check out all the action before realizing that all the light was actually dawn. Crap. Overall, Atlanta looks like everywhere else in America. Everyone has been friendly, helpful and sporting an acceptable number of teeth. I'm not sure why I'm disappointed.

You had to enter a security code to get in the gate, a nice setup that must have set back the Doctors Yoshida a fair amount of Yen. Once inside the gate, I drove the rental car up to the storage garage, parked, and used the same code to get into the individual storage area, which was about the size of a walk-in closet.

Once inside, I found a grand total of one box containing file folders. Again, disappointed. I admit I was kind've hoping for racks of beakers containing weird liquids, cages filled with bunny skeletons, and/or the Ark of the Covenant. A box of file folders. Whoop-de damn doo.

As I began to rifle through the box, I heard a car engine outside. Peeking out, I saw a black sedan driving up to the security gate out in front, a spotlight attached to the driver's side window sweeping over the storage area. I had every right to be where I was, but for whatever reason I started freaking out a little. Then the front gate began to slide open and the car crept forward, the spotlight darting back and forth over the asphalt in front of it. Maybe it was because I was so short on sleep and in a "foreign land", so to speak, or perhaps it was something about the car, the way it rolled up so very slowly, but acting on instinct I lowered the garage-style door to Doctor Yoshida's storage area and knelt down inside, my ear to the metal door.

I could hear the rubber on the tires squeak as the car pulled up in front of my door and stoped, the transmission shifting into Park. I held my breath as it idled for a long moment, then the car door opened. My breathing was rapid and shallow as I heard footsteps coming closer and closer until whoever it was was standing right outside the metal door on the other side of me.

I heard a voice. I was surprised to hear that it didn't sound Southern, but instead had a completely different accent I couldn't place. His speech had a professional, even military cadence. I pressed my ear harder to the door and could barely make out what he said: "Red raw to blower. Bongo, advise." A pause, then, "Acknowledged. Knock at the door need to know only. There's-" I couldn't make out anything else as he started walking away, back to his car. The car door shut, and I could hear it slowly drive off. Just in case, I waited in silence inside the storage area until I thought I could distantly hear the front security gate open and close.

It occurred to me at this point that my rental car was parked right where he was just standing, and I hoped that he hadn't slashed the tires or something. I gently opened the storage door, sighing with relief that I actually could open it from inside, something I hadn't considered when I panicked and shut myself in.

Giving my car the once-over and deciding that everything looked normal, I tossed the file box in the backseat and threw it into drive before noticing a slip of paper stuck underneath the windshield. Without getting out, I rolled down the window, reached out and grabbed it. I turned on the dome light and read it. It was an address in someplace called "Hollis Crossroads", followed by the words, "Tanaka. Today."

Now back at the hotel, the adrenaline rush has given way to utter exhaustion. Before I pass out, Doctor Yoshida, does the name Tanaka mean anything to you? My eyes are closing even as I'm sitting here. Too tired to process what happened. Please advise.