Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? Read online

  PUBLISHED BY

  ALFRED A. KNOPF

  & ALFRED A. KNOPF CANADA

  PUBLISHED BY

  MCSWEENEY’S BOOKS

  SAN FRANCISCO

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

  Copyright © 2014 by Dave Eggers

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House LLC, New York, and in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, Penguin Random House companies.

  www.aaknopf.com

  www.randomhouse.ca

  www.mcsweeneys.net

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Knopf Canada and colophon are trademarks.

  McSweeney’s and colophon are registered trademarks of McSweeney’s, a privately held company with wildly fluctuating resources.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Eggers, Dave.

  Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? :

  a novel / by Dave Eggers.—First edition.

  pages cm

  “This is a Borzoi Book.”

  ISBN 978-1-101-87419-6 ISBN 978-0-307-94754-3 (eBook)

  I. Title.

  PS3605.G48Y69 2014813′.6—dc23 2014014536

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Eggers, Dave, author

  Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? / Dave Eggers.

  ISBN 978-0-345-80959-9 ISBN 978-0-345-80961-2 (eBook)

  I. Title.

  PS3605.G34Y69 2014 813′.6 C2014-902193-3

  Jacket design by T. S. Hawkins and Stephanie Ross

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1: Building 52

  Chapter 2: Building 53

  Chapter 3: Building 54

  Chapter 4: Building 55

  Chapter 5: Building 52

  Chapter 6: Building 52

  Chapter 7: Building 55

  Chapter 8: Building 52

  Chapter 9: Building 52

  Chapter 10: Building 57

  Chapter 11: Building 52

  Chapter 12: Building 57

  Chapter 13: Building 53

  Chapter 14: Building 57

  Chapter 15: Building 55

  Chapter 16: Building 60

  Chapter 17: Building 53

  Chapter 18: Building 48

  Chapter 19: Building 53

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  Reading Group Guide

  BUILDING 52

  —I did it. You’re really here. An astronaut. Jesus.

  —Who’s that?

  —You probably have a headache. From the chloroform.

  —What? Where am I? Where is this place? Who the fuck are you?

  —You don’t recognize me?

  —What? No. What is this?

  —That? It’s a chain. It’s attached to that post. Don’t pull on it.

  —Holy shit. Holy shit.

  —I said don’t pull on it. And I have to tell you right away how sorry I am that you’re here under these circumstances.

  —Who are you?

  —We know each other, Kev. From way back. And I didn’t want to bring you here like this. I mean, I’d rather just grab a beer with you sometime, but you didn’t answer any of my letters and then I saw you were coming through town so— Really, don’t yank on that. You’ll mess up your leg.

  —Why the fuck am I here?

  —You’re here because I brought you here.

  —You did this? You have me chained to a post?

  —Isn’t that thing great? I don’t know if you’d call it a post. Whatever it is, it’s incredibly strong. This place came with them. This was a military base, so there are these weird fixtures here and there. That thing you’re chained to can hold ten thousand pounds, and just about every building here has one. Stop pulling on it.

  —Help!

  —Don’t yell. There’s no one for miles. And the ocean’s just over the hill, so between the waves and the wind you’d barely hear a cannon fire from here. But they’re not firing cannons anymore.

  —Help!

  —Jesus. Stop. That’s way too loud. This is all cement, man. Hear that echo?

  —Help! Help!

  —I figured you might yell, so if it’s going to be now, just tell me. I can’t stay here while you do that.

  —Help!

  —My respect for you is plummeting.

  —Help! Help! Help! Hello—

  —All right. Jesus Christ. I’ll be back when you’re done.

  —You done?

  —Fuck you.

  —You know, I’ve never heard you swear before. That’s one of the main things I remember about you, that you never swore. You were such a serious guy, so precise and careful and upstanding. And with the crew cut and those short-sleeve button-downs, you were such a throwback. I guess you have to be if you want to be an astronaut—you have to be that kind of tidy. Have that kind of purity.

  —I don’t know you.

  —What? Yes you do. You don’t remember?

  —No. I don’t know anyone like you.

  —Stop. Just think about it. Who am I?

  —No.

  —You’re chained to a post. You might as well guess. How do we know each other?

  —Fuck you.

  —No.

  —Help!

  —Don’t. Can’t you hear how loud it is in here? You hear the echo?

  —Help! Help!

  —I’m so disappointed in you, Kev.

  —Help! Help! Help!

  —Okay. I’m leaving till you get your shit together.

  —Now are you done? It’s cold out there at night. The wind comes up the bluff and the Pacific— I don’t know. It gets bitter. With the sun out it’s almost balmy, but when it drops it gets arctic quick. You must be hoarse. You want some water?

  —

  —I’ll just leave this bottle here. Drink it when you want. That’s why I left your left hand free. We’ll be here awhile, so just know I’ll make sure you eat and have whatever else you need. I have some blankets in the van, too.

  —How’d you get me here? Were you the guy moving that couch?

  —That was me. I saw that trick in a movie. I can’t believe it worked. You helped me move the couch into the van, and I tased you, then I used some chloroform and drove you here. You want to hear the whole thing? It’s pretty incredible.

  —No.

  —You can’t really park very close to this building we’re in, so I dragged you out of the van onto that cart there—you can see it outside. It was already here, and it works perfectly. I could push an elephant on that thing. So I got you onto that cart, then I pulled you a quarter mile from the parking lot to this building. To be honest, I’m still just dazed thinking that all this worked. You’ve got me by, what, thirty pounds, and you’re definitely in better shape than I could ever be. But still it worked. You’re a fucking astronaut and now I have you here. This is a great day.

  —You’re nuts.

  —No, no. I’m not. First of all, I’m sorry. I never thought I’d do something like this, but every
thing lately made it necessary. I’ve never hurt anyone in my life, and I won’t hurt you. I would never harm you, Kev. I want you to understand that. So you don’t need to struggle or anything. I’ll let you go tomorrow after we talk for a while.

  —You’re really fucking nuts.

  —I’m really not. Really. I want you to stop saying that, because I’m not. I’m a moral man and I’m a principled man.

  —Fuck you.

  —Stop saying that, too. I don’t like you when you swear. Let’s get back to remembering me. Do you?

  —No.

  —Kev, stop. Just look at me. The sooner we get through all this, the sooner I can let you go.

  —You let me go and I’ll kill you.

  —Hey. Hey. Why would you say that? That doesn’t make any sense. You just set yourself back hours. Maybe more. I was planning to let you go later on tonight. Maybe tomorrow at the latest. But now you’ve got me scared. I didn’t picture you as a violent type. Jesus, Kev, you’re an astronaut! You shouldn’t be going around threatening people.

  —You’ve got me chained to a post.

  —Still. What I did to you was methodical and nonviolent. It was a means to an end. I wanted to talk to you, and you haven’t answered my letters, so I didn’t think I had a choice. I really do apologize for having to do it this way. I’ve been in a strange place lately. I was getting these migraines, I couldn’t sleep. Holy shit, the pressure! The questions were piling up and were strangling me at night. Have you ever had that, where you’re lying there, and the questions are just these asps wrapping themselves around your throat?

  —You are so fucking nuts.

  —You know what, Kev? I’m not. But I have to say, right when I said asps I knew it was a mistake. Someone like you hears that word, the specificity of it, and you think I’m some obsessive weirdo.

  —But you’re not.

  —See, the sarcasm, too. That’s new. I remember you being so sincere. I privately admired that. I don’t like this new edge. Now listen, I think you can tell I have my faculties together.

  —Even though you kidnapped me and brought me here.

  —Exactly because I brought you here—successfully. I made a plan, executed it, and I brought an astronaut to an abandoned military base one hundred and ten miles away from where I abducted you. That makes me a pretty competent person, correct?

  —

  —Kev. You work for the government, right?

  —I work for NASA.

  —Which is a government agency. And every day the government is bringing some enemy combatant to some undisclosed location to interrogate them, right? So what’s wrong with me doing the same thing?

  —So I’m an enemy combatant.

  —No. Maybe that was a poor comparison.

  —Buddy, you’ll be in prison the rest of your life.

  —I don’t think so. Only dumb people get caught.

  —And you’re a brilliant criminal mastermind.

  —No. No, Kev. I’ve never done anything illegal in my life. Isn’t that amazing? I really haven’t. The great crimes are committed by first-timers. I see you looking around. Isn’t this place great? How cool is it that we’re actually on a military base? You recognize this stuff? Look around. This was some kind of artillery storage building. I think they would fasten the cannons or whatever to these posts so they could move back and forth to absorb the kickback. I’m not really sure, but why else would they have these posts here?

  —I’m going to fucking kill you. But the cops will kill you first.

  —Kev, that won’t happen.

  —You don’t think there’s a massive manhunt to find out what happened to me?

  —Don’t be conceited. You were never conceited. You were one of those guys who knows he’s smart and strong and destined for great things, but you also knew it wasn’t going to help you if you advertised it to the world. So you had a nice kind of public humility thing working for you. I liked that. I understood your whole gambit, but I liked it and respected it. So don’t blow it with the “I’m an astronaut” bravado.

  —Fine. But you’re still dead. They’ll find me in twenty-four hours.

  —No, they won’t. I texted three people from your phone, telling them all you were in different places. I told one of your NASA coworkers you had a death in the family. And I told your parents you were on a training assignment. Thank god for texting—I can impersonate you perfectly. Then I turned your phone off and threw it away.

  —There’s a hundred things you haven’t thought of.

  —Maybe. Maybe not. So are you wondering where you are? This whole base is decommissioned and falling apart. No one knows what to do with it, so it’s just standing here, rotting on billion-dollar land. You can’t see it from here, but the ocean is about a half mile down the slope. The views are incredible. But on this land there are just these crumbling old buildings. There are hundreds of them, and twenty more like this one, all in a row. I think this one was used to test chemical weapons. There’s one nearby where they taught interrogation methods. And the ones like this, they all have these posts you can hook things onto. Why are you looking at me like that? Does that mean you recognize me?

  —No.

  —Yes you do.

  —I don’t. You’re a fucking lunatic and I told you, I don’t know lunatics. My life’s been charmed that way.

  —Kev. I really want to get started. So we’re either going to get started the way I hope we can get started, with us talking, or I’ll tase you, get you in line a bit, and then we’ll get started. So why not just talk to me? Let’s go about this like men. We have a task ahead of us and we might as well do it. You were always all business, getting things taken care of, moving on. I expect that kind of efficiency from you. Now where am I from? How do you know me?

  —I don’t know. I’ve never been to prison. I’m assuming you escaped from somewhere.

  —Kev, you see that taser there? If you decide not to talk with me then I tase you. If you yell for help, I leave the building till you shut up, then I come back and tase you. It’s so much better if we just talk.

  —And then what? You kill me.

  —I couldn’t kill you. I’ve never killed anything.

  —But if I tell anyone about this, you’re in prison for ten, twenty years. Kidnapping an astronaut?

  —That’s my problem, not yours. Obviously, you’re locked to a post, so I have the upper hand in terms of when someone finds you and how far away I can be by the time you’re found. Kev, I don’t mean to be a dick, but can we get started? Obviously I have this whole thing figured out. I brought you this far, and I managed to get you chained up. I mean, I’m not an idiot. I’ve been planning this for a while. So can we start?

  —And if I talk to you then you let me go?

  —I won’t harm you. You’ll be rescued eventually. I leave, I send a message to someone, telling them where you are, and they come to find you. By then I’m on my way. So one more time before I get angry. How do we know each other?

  —College.

  —Ah. There you go. College. You remember my name?

  —No.

  —Kev, c’mon.

  —I don’t know.

  —But you knew I was from college.

  —I didn’t know that. I guessed.

  —C’mon. Think.

  —Bob?

  —You know my name isn’t Bob. No one’s name is Bob.

  —Dick?

  —Dick? Oh, I get it. That’s a name you’re calling me. Listen. I want to think you’re a nice guy, so just tell me you remember my name.

  —Okay. I remember you.

  —Good. And my name is …

  —Steve.

  —No.

  —Bob.

  —Bob again? Really?

  —Rob? Danny?

  —You really don’t know! Okay, let’s walk through it, slowly. Was I from undergrad or grad school?

  —Undergrad.

  —Thank you. I was three years younger. Ring a bell?
<
br />   —No.

  —Think Intro to Aerospace Engineering. You were a TA.

  —There were a hundred and twenty kids in that class.

  —But think. I stayed after a lot. I asked you questions about time travel.

  —You used to wear Timberlands?

  —Aha. There you go. And my name is …

  —Gus.

  —Close! Thomas.

  —Thomas? Sure, I remember. I could never forget you. So Thomas, why the fuck do you have me chained to a post?

  —Kev, did you know Neil Armstrong died today?

  —Yes, I did know that.

  —How did that affect you?

  —How did that affect me?

  —Yes, how did that affect you?

  —I don’t know. I was sad. He was a great man.

  —He went to the moon.

  —Yes he did.

  —But you won’t go to the moon.

  —No. Why would I go to the moon?

  —Because you’re an astronaut.

  —Astronauts don’t go to the moon.

  —They don’t anymore.

  —No.

  —Right. And how do you feel about that, Kev?

  —Jesus Christ.

  —I have a taser, Kev. You’re better off answering.

  —I didn’t care about going to the moon. It hasn’t been a NASA priority for forty years.

  —You wanted to be on the Shuttle.

  —Yes.

  —I bet you wonder how I knew that.

  —No, I don’t.

  —You’re not curious?

  —Every astronaut wanted to go on the Shuttle.

  —Sure, but I know how long you’ve wanted it. You told me one day you were going to go up in the Shuttle. Remember that?

  —No.

  —You probably said that a lot. But I remember it so well. It was so steady, you were so sure. You inspired me. You asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I think you asked me just so you could answer the question yourself. So I said something about being a cop or FBI agent or something, and do you remember what you said? This was right outside Moore Hall. It was a crisp fall day.

  —I said I wanted to go up in the Shuttle.

  —Exactly! Do you really remember, or are you just humoring me?

  —I don’t know.

  —Kev, you really better take this seriously. I take this seriously. I went through a fuckload of trouble to get you here, so you must know I’m serious. Now with all fucking seriousness, do you remember that day when you looked me in the eye and told me you were absolutely sure you would go up in the Shuttle?