"Exit Zero" Exit Zero: Stories (5 of 7)
Five down, two to go. Exit Zero was mostly created in my car. I was sitting at a light off of Cape May a few years ago, and this David Lynchian nightmare came in a flash.
I am going to finish up the two other stories quickly because they are already done in my head. I want to get cracking on my next sci-fi novel. Thanks for reading. The next one won’t be as dark!
Exit Zero
Dating is hard in your forties, especially when you feel like you’re going half crazy.
My name is Mike Edgemont. Sometimes I go by Michael. Obvious, right? But for this story, it matters. More than you’d think.
This is a tale of five dates. You’ll want to stick around for the fifth one, because that’s when things get weird. Weirder than you can imagine.
“Tousha”
Bay Ridge, Brooklyn
Tousha was just as striking as her photos on Bumble. Indian on her father’s side, Pakistani on her mother’s. Raised in a strict Muslim household. She came from what she described as a great family. We didn’t have much to talk about, but we found a thread in music. She liked country, which surprised me—so many women I meet seem to. Her profile was tasteful, but the cowboy hat in one picture sealed it. Very cute!
I admitted I like jazz to relax, but country was fine. Still, it nags at me. What is it with country music? We live in New York City—what do we know about catfish, muddy boots, PBR, and trucks? Jazz is the city’s pulse: I grew up in the West Village, went to NYU. Jazz is a uniquely American art form. So is country and rock and roll. But jazz is the sound of the city. I like country well enough, and even blues. But when I listen to the blues and folk of the deep south, I don’t feel at home. I feel like a tourist. Jazz feels part of my identity. It feels authentic to me. TLDR: I can’t wear cowboy boots. Understand? Anyway…
Tousha kept circling back to her ex-husband. She described him glowingly: great with the kids, successful, dependable. Almost too good.
“So why did you leave him?” I asked. “He sounds wonderful. Honestly, I want to date him.”
Tousha smiled faintly. “It just didn’t work.”
I thought: He cheated. Had to.
“When does he have the kids?” I pressed.
“Oh, tonight. They’re asleep. He’s working on his laptop.”
“At home?” I asked.
“Yes, he’s a builder. He builds buildings. He’s good. Takes care of his family. He has his faults, but he takes care of them. I’m grateful for that.”
He sounded very successful. And I could feel myself shrinking under the comparison.
She turned her gaze back on me. “What do you do again? Like online surveys? Quizes?”
“I run political polls.”
“Does that pay well?”
“Well enough. It’s seasonal, but these days, politics is 24/7. I fill in the gaps with corporate work. There’s always something. I have a big California ballot initiative I am shooting for. I am really excited about it.”
Her eyes drifted. She asked about my relationships. “How many serious ones have you had?”
“Maybe a dozen. Engaged once. Divorced once.”
“And your faults?”
“Plenty,” I admitted. “Quick to anger. Defensive.”
She nodded. “How do you blame yourself for the failures in your relationship?”
I hesitated. “Not sure. Honestly, this doesn’t feel like first-date talk.”
“Well,” Tousha said softly, “my ex is watching the kids on his weekend off for a reason. I’m looking for a partner. Not looking to waste time.”
“I’m not really ready for that type of thing.”
Tousha countered, “Well, I am. I’m so done with man children.”
I sighed. “I’m not sure what to say to that. Maybe we’re not the right fit.”
“Agreed.”
We sat quietly for a moment. She checked her phone for the twentieth time that evening.
When the waiter came with dessert menus, I tried to lighten the mood. “You said you liked crème brûlée. I’ll take the chocolate cake. Let’s not waste the evening. Let’s keep your ex guessing.”
That dessert saved us. We ordered, and I suggested port wine. Tousha had never really tried it, but agreed. Sweet, she said.
We lingered over dessert. When silence stretched too long, I asked, “Have you ever heard of Reddit’s Am I the Asshole?”
“Of course,” Tousha said. “Everyone has.”
So I told her. “When Gmail came out—twenty years ago—I liked to send files to myself. My name, Edgemont, is not that common, so I got the golden address without all the stupid numbers. My address is mikeedgemont@gmail.com. There is another lawyer dude, somewhere in Jersey, also named Michael Edgemonf. His is michaeledgemont@gmail.com. Close enough to be dangerous. One day, around 2008, I accidentally sent him a huge file—polling data. He replied: Please refrain from sending me emails.
“Some years later, like the ADHD dope I am, I did the same thing again. Sent him another batch by mistake.
So, he replied: Again. Please refrain from sending me emails.
Then just recently, almost ten years later, I am working on a big polling job in California that I mentioned, and I sent my whole damn proposal—five attachments—to him instead of me. Look, it auto-populates. I know there’s a way to fix that. But I never take the time.”
I grimaced. “He wrote back: Asshole, stop sending me shit. Are you fucking stupid?”
I tried to play it off. “I wrote back, joking that since we share a name, we should be on the same team.”
I paused, remembering. “He replied: You are a fucking loser.”
I laughed nervously. “So, AITA for writing back?”
Tousha tilted her head, unimpressed. “Just ignore it.” She checked her phone and said she needed to check in with her ex. She liked the port, at least. I wished her luck and lingered over the last sip. I loved it. Port wine felt like the only thing that made sense that night.
“Nikki”
Great Kills, Staten Island
Nikki was drop-dead gorgeous—almost too much so. Her dark, smoky eyes caught the low light, and her voice carried across the bar, husky and boisterous as she joked with the bartender. She had mentioned working in a strip club, only as a waitress, but I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Arriving early, I saw her leaning against the counter, perfectly at ease, as if she belonged to that world entirely.
I slipped into the bathroom and texted my friend Sam. Dude, she definitely looks like a stripper.
He texted back instantly: Stop being a baby. You’re not marrying this person. Have fun.
We started talking. Nikki kept circling back to the strip club, telling me how she’d met her ex-husband there—a cop. She complimented him. Said he was a good guy. What is it with these women and their exes—builders, cops, men who radiate stability I don’t seem to carry?
Nikki said she doesn’t work at that bar anymore. Now she works for a company developing AI. She spends her days choosing pictures—selecting which images she prefers. Twenty dollars an hour, all day. She still bartends sometimes, she admitted.
Then she looked at me directly. “I want you to know I’m really into BDSM. My ex—not the cop—the one after him, was into it. What do you think of that?”
I froze. I didn’t really know what to say. Of course, I’d heard of it, but the words behind the acronym escaped me until I googled later. Maybe one day I could be more adventurous, but right now? I just wanted someone to go to the movies with me.
“I’m open, I guess,” I mumbled.
In my head, I could hear Sam’s voice screaming at me over the phone: Don’t be fucking stupid, Mike!
But it was clear—too clear—that I was vanilla, and she lost her attraction for me almost instantly. The feeling was mutual. She was gorgeous, but not for me. My thoughts drifted to Issy, a different girl I’d been messaging. She sent me photos in her pajamas, hair messy, always smiling. None of the duck face, fish gape bullshit.
She was busy, scattered, and a bit shy, but real. When I realized I thought about Issy more than Nikki sitting across from me, I knew this wasn’t it.
I tried to change the subject. “Do you know Am I the Asshole on Reddit?”
“What?” Nikki blinked.
She didn’t. So I told her about the emails, about the other Mike Edgemont who kept showing up in my inbox. I told her about the one I got the night before. He sent a photoshopped picture of me in a toilet bowl. Really weird stuff.
Nikki’s phone buzzed. “That’s fucked up. Do you want me to talk to Louie?”
“The cop?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah, he just texted me.”
I shook my head. “I think I’m okay. I blocked him.”
“Okay, sweety. So, where to next?”
“I think I’m going to have to call it a night.”
She sighed.
“Will you call me?” she asked.
“I might be headed to California for six months,” I said. “It’s going to be crazy.”
“Well, the night’s not over for me if you’re not interested. Don’t you like what you see?”
I admitted that I did, but fessed up and told her it wouldn’t work.
She smiled with something like pity. She could tell I was attracted but afraid of her.
“Well, thank you for dinner. Like I said, the night’s not over for me.”
“Back on Tinder?” I teased.
She shook her head. “Don’t need it.”
As I left, I could feel the men circling her like vultures.
“Good night, Nikki.”
“Good night, Michael. Maybe we would flip it? I could be in charge if you are not man enough. You have my number, sweety.”
I turned white and smiled awkwardly as she struck up a conversation with three meatheads.
Did she notice the irony of calling me Michael, not Mike? I actually think she did. I think that was fun for her. Still, it rattled me. I felt old, but also like I was visiting another planet.
Driving home, I was nervous, like I was bathing in cortisol. By the time I reached Queens, I was so worked up I stopped for a Wendy’s Baconator, fries, and large strawberry shake—thirty minutes after eating a full steak dinner. And yes, Sam screamed at me the whole way home. What is wrong with you, dude?
“Peyton”
Ronkonkoma, Long Island
I was wary of Peyton, but she was fun—very pretty, compact, blond, with a slow Southern drawl that made everything sound like a dare. She talked a lot about guns. Shooting was her hobby; she loved the range. Fine, I thought. Interesting hobby. I grew up in New York City, so most people didn’t keep guns like Peyton’s family did in Concord, North Carolina
She seemed to be sizing me up as much as I was studying her. “You listed politics as an interest,” she said, leaning back, eyes on the television where a talking head was yelling at another talking head.
“What do you do in politics?” Peyton asked.
“Well, right now nothing. But I am hoping to create polls to guide us on a new ballot initiative.”
“What’s a ballot initiative?”
“Well, this one is to help increase ballot access in California, particularly among minorities. People left out of the system”
‘Sounds woke,” Petton said. “Do you just think about that stuff all day? Watch it on TV.”
“I keep Anderson Cooper or Abby Phillip on all day.” I said. “It’s background noise.”
“Oh,” she said.
“What’s that,’ oh’?” I asked
I just want to know, “Are you a patriot?” Peyton asked, bluntly.
“What do you mean?” I answered.
“Are you a patriot? Do you support our president?”
“I—no. Not always.” I hedged.
“Hmmm,” she said.
“Not usually.”
She shrugged. “Well, that sucks. For you.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess if it does. It won’t work.”
“Guess so,” she said, and took a long sip of her drink
We weren’t having dinner, only drinks. My second IPA arrived, hers was a Long Island iced tea, served in a tall glass. I tried to explain my work—why I do it, how I tell people what neighborhoods to knock on, how numbers are less venomous than people assume.
“I just can’t support him.”
“Well, he’s your president too,” Peyton said.
“Right, and I don’t support him.”
“You can’t even say his name!”
“I don’t support President Cantonari.”
“You just don’t like his style. He’s too brash.”
“That’s part of it, but not the whole story. My father worked for Lindsay, then Rockefeller, on to the White House press,” I said. “I sort of inherited it. I started as a congressional aide, but the polls—those were mine. They felt scientific, removed from the vitriol. That’s changing. Every day it’s foaming mouths and howling at the moon.”
She frowned. “I don’t trust polls. They’re fake. They rig elections.”
“I try to make them accurate so candidates know where to put resources,” I said. “If a neighborhood looks lost, you send help there. It isn’t exact, but it’s not a conspiracy.”
Silence. She tossed her hair. “It’s too bad you’re a liberal. You’re cute—when you sent those pics, you said I was hot.”
“Well, you are hot, Peyton.”
She blushed, “Why, thank you, kind sir.”
She spun around the room and tripped on a loose floorboard. “You know what’s in a Long Island Iced Tea?” she called, half-laughing.
“Everything,” she answered her own question. “Everything.”
I helped her up. “Let me call you an Uber?”
She pressed against my arm and murmured, “Ugh—this is frustrating,” and stroked my forearm in a way that made the bar feel smaller.
I lowered the temperature. “Yes. It sucks. You’re very cute.”
“I live and breathe this stuff.” I said, “ We’d be at each other’s throats. We can’t be like Mary Matalin and James Carville.”
“Who?” Peyton asked.
I changed the subject—“Can I tell you something that happened to me last night while we wait for the car? It’s really weird, and I want your advice.”
“Shoot, sporto.”
I explained the other-Mike—Michael Edgemont—and the wrong-address emails. Peyton’s fourth Long Island sat untouched in front of her as she tried to follow. I explained the email thing. My New Jersey doppelganger. And the threatening emails. And she oddly understood despite being trashed.
“So this doppelgänger called my electric company and said he wanted the power shut off,” I said. “Two days ago, he sent packages to my place. Packages with a pile of shit in them.”
“Eywww,” Peyton said.
“Agreed. Ewww. I didn’t even know who sent it. And it took me a day to fix my electricity.”
Peyton sipped her drink.
“What should I do?” I asked
She blinked. “Stop right there. You need a gun, man.”
“I don’t like guns,” I said. “It’s just not my thing.”
“You know it’s more than that.” She leaned in. “You, you need to protect yourself, my pasty liberal friend.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Where does this Michael Edgemont live?”
“Cape Joy.”
“Oh my lord. That cesspool. You need ten guns. Ain’t nothing good happening at Cape Joy. Exit Zero! Jesus Christ! President Cantonari sent our troops in, you can’t fix that shit.”
I admit I have not been there since I was a kid, but it was always pretty shady. Filled with skells, as Sam would say.
She asked if I wanted another drink. I agreed.
“Another shitty IPA for my hipster liberal friend here. Serve up that bitter swill.”
“Actually. She’s right. This beer sucks. I’ll take a Shock Top.”
“My man!” Peyton raised her glass.
“Hey, it’s not going to work out. But cheers to an interesting night,” I said
“You should come to the range,” she said, beaming. “It’s fun.”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s a date.”
As I sent her off into her Uber she texted: Fun night, liberal! XO. Call me when you get smart. And buy a gun, dude!.
“Ashley”
Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens
Ashley was a last-minute date. I was supposed to see a fantastic girl, Issy Butler, but she got COVID. I had tickets to The Book of Mormon and ended up selling them. Instead, I met Ashley and tried to make conversation about the Unisphere. I’m forty-ninet and thirty-twoseemed young at the time. Bumble has this thing where the girls reach out to you first. My profile is pretty nerdy, so I assumed she saw something she liked.
Yes, I have a picture of me and Sam holding a fish. One of the major online dating faux pas. But I was proud of that fish. I’m a kid from NY catching a godamn huge Tarpon. It took both of us to carry it. It was 100 pounds! Anyway…
My conversation about Flushing Meadows was about as interesting to Ashley as my fishing adventures with my bros. “Did you know the World’s Fair was here twice? 1939 and 1964,” I said. “The Unisphere, those space-age towers—you’ve seen them in Men in Black.”
She nodded politely. I brought up my update on Am I The Asshole, but Ashley looked baffled. I decided not to waste the story on her. I’d already told it to half a dozen people that day anyway. I mean, the box of dog shit did not faze her. That was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. That was until I received a dead dog. It looked just like my old Yorkie, André. That was minutes before this date. I planned to go on our walk and then head right to the 109th precinct and show them all of these texts and emails.
I had been emailing back and forth with him all day. Petty stuff. You suck, and worse. Then I got a text. A photo. It was me, sitting at a table with Peyton, the date before. Pics of her swirling around the bar, buzzing off of her Long Island Iced Teas. The caption read: Three strikes. Will Ashley be the fourth?
The date was going nowhere. Ashley was too young. We had nothing in common, even though we lived five blocks from each other in Flushing Meadows. We bid farewell, and I checked my phone as I walked to my Subaru Outback.
Don’t call the cops. I will know.
That was the part where I should have gone to the police anyway. Instead, I blocked the number. I didn’t even know what else he might be sending. For a while, the email went quiet too.
I threw myself into work—pitched a California ballot measure, felt good about it. The competition didn’t have my record or experience. I felt like celebrating, but I didn’t feel like doing much. I went home, passed out, and let the weekend slip away. Even Wednesday. No word from the PAC. Silence. So I lay low, kept quiet—until I got a text from Issy Butler saying she had a clean bill of health. Tested negative for Covid. We set up something the next day!
II. “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow”
“Issy”
Issy was different—cute in a way that lingered. She’d send me pictures in her pajamas, hair loose, unguarded. I loved the crooked tooth that made her smile imperfect and unforgettable. I liked her before we even met. She was bookish, grounded, and had a quiet grace that countered my own, chaotic soul. She worked in publishing as an acquisitions editor for a Random House imprint that specialized in food and gardens.
We had planned to see The Book of Mormon originally, but instead I went out to her place and we had dinner near her home. By the fifth date, I felt I was already in love. To be honest, I fell in love with her on Bumble, and many of my other dates fizzled because I was already waiting to see how it would work with Issy. When our plans finally aligned, I felt jittery but hopeful. Three good dates had passed without a single message from that asshole—no shut-off utilities, no mailing of excrement from god knows who or what
My apartment in Corona, Queens, is pretty spare. Any sign of a woman’s touch vanished years ago. It’s been five years since my last serious relationship. At 49, I feel ready for a partner—someone easy to talk to, who makes me want to be better. Someone like Issy.
She came over and noticed my record collection. “You’re really proud of this, aren’t you?” she teased. “Is it really worth having all these just to hear that hiss and crackle?”
I told her, “It’s hard for me to explain the affection I have for them. It’s like collecting books—they’re souvenirs from the journey. A record isn’t just sound. It’s liner notes, cover art, the ritual of listening all the way through. Jazz especially. It asks you to sit down, be still, and stay in the moment.”
I think I convinced her somewhat. She smiled, curious.
She grinned. “Honestly, my hearing’s shot from standing in the front row at too many rock shows. Spotify sounds fine to me, and I can carry it all in my pocket, play it in the car. But I get the appeal—the material. The embodied.”
“Interesting,” I said.
“The corporeality of it,” she added.
“Corporeality? I like that. The feeling of sliding the record from its sleeve. Setting it on the turntable. Lowering the needle.”
“The haptic ritual,” Essy said with a smile.
“Now you’re showing off,” I laughed.
“Don’t you like having those shelves of Victorian novels?” I asked. “You could keep those in your pocket, too. But you don’t. You understand.”
“Touché,” she laughed. “You’ll be easy to buy for at Christmas.”
I wanted to remind her I was Jewish—well, agnostic—but the thought of her picturing us exchanging gifts six months from now made me happier than anything.
For dinner, I baked chicken with honeyed carrots and vegetables. She was a person surrounded by food in her work, so I kept it simple. She seemed pleased, nodding with a smile at the first bite. I opened a bottle of red wine she liked. I worried about sulfites—I break out in hives—but hoped it wouldn’t flare until the weekend date was over.
“You love the royals and the Victorians, and yet you’ve never been to London.”
“It’s on my bucket list. Maybe it can be on our list.”
Our list! I melted.
As we ate, she noticed the song playing. “The Girl from Ipanema.” I like that one—I think I heard it in a movie.” I promised her a beginner’s jazz playlist and admitted it was easier, less expensive, and more convenient to share said list on Spotify/
She noticed a photo of my old Yorkie. “Who is this handsome gentleman?”
“That’s my André. I miss him. My walking buddy”
“Where’d he get that sophisticated name?”
“Oh, from a movie—”My Dinner with André.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I saw that. A little boring. I get it, but not for me. I had an artsy film-snob boyfriend once.”
“Well, now you’ve got a Jazz-snob boyfriend.”
“I certainly have a type.”
“Pretentious snobs?”
“Apparently!” she laughed.
She asked why I didn’t have a dog now. I explained that I travel too much for work, especially with a California ballot measure coming up. She nodded. “I’ll miss you when you go.”
“You can visit. It’s statewide—I’ll be polling people in wine country, Hollywood, San Diego, even up in San Francisco.”
“Can those other Bumble guys take you to wine country?”
“Are you worried that if you leave for six months, I’ll be back on Bumble?”
“What do you mean, back on? Are you off Bumble?”
“Yep. And off Tinder and Match, too. I had those tough conversations with the ones on the back burner.”
“You cleared the deck?” I teased.
“All clear,” she said, smiling. “You’re on my front burner now.”
We curled up on the couch—well, as much as you can curl on a leather futon. She told me she loved Victorian novels, especially Emma, and British culture in general. So I cued up a Netflix profile.
She frowned. “Wait—you have The Crown and Emma saved?”
“Yes—the one with Gwyneth Paltrow. I know you like that era.”
“That’s Regency, pre-Victorian,” she corrected. “But I admire the effort.”
She squinted at the TV. “Wait—did you make me my own Netflix profile? Is my avatar Queen Elizabeth II?”
“Of course. For The Crown,” I said.
Issy saw the profiles. Hers was the Queen, mine was Waldo from Black Mirror, and Sam was the baby from Boss Baby.
She laughed and kept scrolling. “Who’s Sam, mister?”
“My buddy. The one holding the other end of that fish in that photo.”
“Oh. I thought maybe a chesty Sammy, like on The Real World.”
“You mean Jersey Shore.”
She smirked. “Oh, you knew exactly who I meant.”
“Nope. He definitely doesn’t look like Sammi ‘Sweetheart’ Giancola from MTV’s Jersey Shore. He’s an adorable, short, balding married CPA from Staten Island’s North Shore.”
“Let’s see what you watch.” She scrolled through. “Serial killers and cults? More red flags than a Chinese parade. I’m thinking this sleepover party is over.”
I pulled her closer on the futon, grabbed the remote, and clicked on the Queen. “Let’s just start the show.”
We watched the first episode, and kissed after it ended. The futon wasn’t comfortable. “This isn’t good for snuggling,” she laughed. “Let’s go to your bed for the next episode. Do you have a TV in there?”
I scooped her up. “Yes.”
“But you know—it’s not good to watch TV there. Beds only for sleeping and sex,” she grinned.
“Then let’s not watch TV,” I said.
________________________________________________________________________
The next morning, I heard her get up early and wander around my condo while I scrolled through the news on my phone from the couch. She kissed me on the head and said, “Good morning!”
She was cold, so she pulled on a sweatshirt that read Point Pleasant with a pair of sandals and seashells printed on it. Her sweats were from her alma mater, Bryn Mawr. Her fingernails were painted purple, her toenails red—a little mismatched, a little endearing.
She brazenly walked upstairs and drifted into my father’s old room, the one full of World’s Fair memorabilia. She was a little snoopy, I thought. I walked upstairs to find her pausing in front of a large model of the Unisphere. My dad had built custom models of towers and pavilions, and filled the shelves with coins, stamps, toys—relics from another era. The whole room carried a retro-futurist feel, like walking into a frozen diorama of optimism. The future that slipped away from us.
I slipped in behind her and tried to startle her. “I told you never to go into the West Wing,” I said, imitating the Beast from the Disney movie.
She laughed. I admitted I’d left the room exactly as my father had when he died.
“Were you two close?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yeah. He was respected, a politico behind the scenes in NYC.”
She said she hadn’t heard much about my own work. I told her I preferred the background—the polling, the numbers. I wasn’t really partisan. I liked the game, but not the ideology. I admired the boring politicians, the ones who didn’t tweet. People like Michael Bloomberg. Normal people. Normal people were an increasingly rare commodity in politics. I worked with some crazies, but they seemed to be getting crazier by the minute.
She lay down on the couch and started scrolling. She shifted about uncomfortably. “Dude, you are the best, but this futon sucks hard.”
“I am already on it,” I said, meaning I will hopefully remember when she leaves. I was fine with the futon. Sam never complained, but I only watch the Giants and Knicks with him, and we don’t snuggle on it.
I cooked her eggs sunny-side up, low and slow, and sat down to eat. She looked at me and laughed, “What happened to your nose, Pinocchio?” That’s when I noticed the sulfite allergy had bloomed—a painful welt along the side of my nostril. I told her I was allergic; she said she’d switch to white next time.
That afternoon, we walked in Flushing Meadows. I rattled off the World’s Fair history my father loved—the fairs, the Unisphere, how rides ended up in Disney World: Carousel of Progress, It’s a Small World. She was genuinely intrigued. “I never knew that,” she said. I joked that we’d add London and Disney World to our bucket list. I mentioned the Book of Mormon tickets I’d had to sell and how I’d be trying for dinner that night, but the show was sold out.
She stepped away, called a friend in NYC publishing, who called another, and by the time we finished our lap, she came back grinning with two third-row seats. I couldn’t believe it. Issy was amazing. We agreed it was shaping up to be an epic weekend date.
We climbed into my Subaru Outback and, with congestion pricing in effect, traffic was light. We took I-495 West through the Queens–Midtown Tunnel, swapping between the beginner jazz playlist I’d made and her eclectic “Road Trip” mix. Just then, a call came over the line. It was my friend Steven who was running the Prop 77 campaign. He said I would have the contract sent over right away, and the announcement for the whole team would be made tonight. I was ecstatic. Everything was going perfectly. My life was running on all cylinders. I forgot about all the darkness, just for a moment, everything was light.
One of the songs from the World’s Fair’s Carousel of Progress—my favorite ride- started to play. Issy said she vaguely remembered it. The lyrics filled the car, and I could not help but sing along:
“There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow
Shining at the end of every day,
There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow,
And tomorrow’s just a dream away.”
My smile started to fade as the rain started coming down after the song ended. Almost on cue. It became hard to see. I started to get very anxious, and Issy noticed. I glanced at the medallion she always wore—a small head of Christ with a crown of thorns to try and make some conversation to distract me from the treachery of the rainy road. “Is that from your father?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. He was religious. It’s not so elegant, but it meant a lot to him. He even had tattoos of Jesus on his chest—he’d pull up his shirt and joke when I went on dates, ‘I’m always watching.’ He was a goof.”
I told her I wasn’t religious—my mother was Jewish, my English father had agreed to take the religion but was basically an atheist; I was agnostic. She said she usually went to Our Lady of Grace in Hoboken every Sunday and that it brought her calm. I said I could use a little calm, too. We agreed we’d go together next Sunday.
As the traffic eased and cars spread out, the rain only came harder, a solid curtain. I began to feel dizzy, as if the window glass were rippling. A panic attack? The tacit understanding of traffic—that fragile trust that every driver will comply—suddenly seemed impossible.
“Things fall apart. The falcon cannot hear the falconer,” I muttered under my breath.
Issy turned her head, frowning slightly. “What?”
I shook it off. “Nothing.”
I whispered the three-second rule like a prayer: one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand. At fifty-five miles per hour, that’s 240 to 275 feet.
“The centre cannot hold,” I murmured, and again she shot me a look, cautious now.
My vision blurred. “Are you okay?” she asked. I must have gone pale.
“What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born.”
Her silence was sharper this time, uneasy.
Then I saw it: a car in the distance, bearing down, swerving into our lane. I stared at the driver’s face and froze. It was me—same jawline, same mouth—but the hair hung long and filthy, and the eyes glowed bright red. The car lunged. I swerved. Whether it vanished or spun away, I can’t say. For a moment, everything went black.
Issy’s voice came tight, wary. “What’s happening?”
I forced a laugh, hollow. “Must have been… some kind of strange daydream.”
Her eyes lingered on me, searching for an explanation I didn’t give. She looked unsettled, even a little wary. I could feel it—the silence between us thickened, like she’d just discovered something she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
We had dinner at Joe Allen in the theater district and stumbled into the show tipsy and giddy. The Book of Mormon was excellent—we laughed hard—but afterward it rained again. I tried to keep my spirits up, but Issy was quieter, cautious. She was studying me now, weighing my moods.
As we walked to the car, she mentioned, almost offhand, that she was getting a massage the next evening. “Do you like massages?” she asked.
“Not really,” I said.
“Never? I love them. I’d get one once a week if I could afford it.”
“I never got one in my life,” I admitted.
“Really? Why?” Issy asked. “You seem tense. It might help.”
“I don’t like people touching me,” I said.
“Really?”
“You can touch me, of course. Just not strangers.” I kept my voice light and tried to laugh it off.
We walked in silence for a moment as I scanned for the garage.
She looked at me and gave that crooked smile. “I can be the only one who touches you, if you want.” But when she said it, there was a softness—no, pity—wrapped around the words, like she was protecting something fragile she wasn’t sure she wanted to keep.
“Okay,” I managed, more sheepish than I liked. Okay. Like a stupid, whiny kid. Fuck!
“Only you,” she repeated. Again—pity. A mercy that felt like a final verdict.
Stupid, I thought. Fucking stupid.
On the drive to Hoboken, the rain fell in a slab, and the city reduced itself to smeared, faint lights. My hands locked on the wheel. The weird little exchange about touch twisted into something uglier in my head. If a child or a dog or an old woman darted into the street, I pictured myself plowing through them—one dull thump—and then keeping on, because stopping would ruin everything I had. The thought made my stomach turn.
The rain was a curtain; the lane lines dissolved. Driving blind, I tried to steady my breath and whisper the three-second rule like a prayer: one—one-thousand, two—one-thousand, three—one-thousand.
“I’m uncomfortable,” I said. “We should pull over. Now.”
That’s when it happened again: a car slicing toward us, and in the driver’s seat a face I knew—my face—only wrong: hair long and ragged, eyes like crimson coals. The world narrowed to that approaching grin.
I swerved and pulled over, gasping. We sat in silence for half an hour. I breathed hard as the rain came down, ostensibly to wait for the rain to stop, but it was obvious I was paralyzed by panic. I couldn’t tell her what I’d seen. She would think I was insane. And my silence was worse—it became its own confession. I could feel her pull back, as if some part of her already decided: this was it. This was the red flag.
When the rain eased, I drove her home and dropped her off.
It was a long journey back to Queens. And my goodnight message from Issy was short and formal. Fuck!
Later that night, I checked my email. A new message waited:
How was the show?
III. Doxing Match
It was another long night of trading emails with Michael. The messages had gotten nastier, more unhinged, and I finally collapsed around 3 a.m.
When I woke, my phone was flashing. For a moment, I hoped it was Issy.
Instead, the screen lit up with: You’re so fucked.
It was from Michael. Impossible. I had blocked him. I had changed the settings again and again. I opened my inbox—five new emails from him overnight.
No message from Issy. My stomach dropped. I typed anyway:
Mike: I had a good time last night. Thank you for a wonderful weekend.
Her reply came fast:
Issy: I know you texted me plenty of times last night. I told you I need a break.
Mike: What are you talking about?
Issy: I just don’t feel it’s appropriate for you to send those kinds of pictures. I didn’t think you were that type of guy. I’m no prude, but I don’t like the way you talked to me. I’m disappointed. I need to think.
Mike: What are you talking about??
Issy: Maybe you were drunk, but I won’t be spoken to like that. And those pics are disgusting. It’s not my thing.
Mike: It wasn’t me!
Issy: Mike, I know what your penis looks like. It was you. Don’t be an asshole.
I sat frozen, my thumb hovering over the screen. Then I swiped up to see the thread.
3 a.m. messages:
Photos I had never taken.
Slurs I had never written.
Filthy whore.
My chest tightened. The room tilted.
What the fuck?
___________________________________________________________________
I sat for an hour with the phone turned off, trying to think. I did nothing but stare at the blank ceiling and let the questions spin:
Should I go to the police?
Should I call my therapist?
What could I possibly say to Issy to make her understand?
I decided—finally—to go to the police. If nothing else, an official report would be a record. I switched the phone back on, and the world erupted.
Sam: Mike, I’m coming over, bro. This is not okay. I know those aren’t your words.
My inbox: five new emails from Michael.
My work email: Due to your recent social media activity, our prior offer of a contract for Prop 77 polling is rescinded.
Issy: You are blocked. Never contact me. You are disgusting and racist. Steve (from Prop 77): Buddy, what’s happening? You need help. I can get you crisis communications people. Disappear for a year. Rehab. It’s the only way.
I flicked on the television. The chyron screamed: “Political Operative Michael Edgemont in manic tweetstorm — racist rant aimed at California governor.”
The talking heads repeated variations on the same line: beyond the bounds of civil discourse, universally condemned; disqualifying behavior. My phone vibrated and chirped every two seconds.
More notifications, every one a hammer:
President Cantonari: I condemn this racist. The campaign pushing the rigged ballot access scheme is corrupt. Vote NO on Prop 77.
House Majority Leader Frank Amber: Governor Robinson is a patriot. This should not reflect on Prop 77, which expands access. Don’t let extremists make the choice for you.
Steve: My crisis person is sending you an email. Stop tweeting — TEN in the last hour.
My therapist: Call me. I don’t believe this is you. Come in. We need to talk.
Sam: I’m ten minutes away. Sit tight, buddy.
I didn’t sit tight. I got up, threw my clothes on. In the driveway, Sam met me with his phone out, horror on his face. “Mike,” he said, “you need to—”
My foot slammed the Subaru’s gas. Tires burned. Sam lunged for the door; I nearly took him off his feet. He cursed, then watched me peel away in my rearview like a man watching a car swallow itself whole.
It was midafternoon, February —not shore traffic. I was not thinking clearly. There was no rain on the road; the sky was clean and bright. I felt a single, terrible resolve coil inside me: I was going to find the man who’d stolen my life and end it. I said the words aloud once and meant it.
IV — Hellscape
I passed towns with their familiar names, each one a marker of ordinary life: Belmar, Point Pleasant, Seaside Heights, Toms River, Long Beach Island. The Parkway unspooled beneath me; the speedometer climbed and my breath went behind my teeth. Every exit looked smaller, as if the map itself were folding in on me. The highway hummed with that cheap, indifferent music of travel: radio static, tires. The towns were all shuttered and cold in the February light, their boardwalks skeletal and their carousel horses frozen with laughter.
By the time I hit Exit 6 — Rio Grande / North Wildwood — my hands were numb from gripping the wheel. The sign ahead read, in the usual bland font: Exit 0 — Cape Joy — 5 miles. The paint seemed new; the air smelled like wet iron and something rot-sweet beneath it. The sky tilted toward evening, though it was still afternoon; the light went thin and raw. Wind rose as if testing the silence.
I could see the exit before I reached it: the turnoff into the slow descent, the chain of crabgrass and billboards that led into the terminal spit of land. As I approached the overhead, something on the sign snapped my eyes: someone had crossed out Joy. The stroke of the black marker was uneven, angry. Above the word “Cape,” someone had scrawled in sloppy capital letters:
HELL’S
CAPE
The letters looked wet, like they’d been written with a thumb bloody from a new wound. For a second, I laughed without meaning to — a sound that had no humor in it — then the laugh cut off and something colder took over. The Parkway emptied the closer I got; a few cars drifted ahead like flotsam. The air tasted metallic, the sun a distant coin.
I pulled off at the exit because I had to. Fear guided decisions now as much as rage: a compass with two broken needles. The ramp funneled down through the dunes; the salt wind stabbed the open windows. The town below was not the postcard Cape Joy I half-remembered from childhood summers. It was a place with the edges filed away, as though someone had taken a dulling stone to it. Boardwalk planks were cracked like old bones. The bright painted benches were ghost-pale.
I knew where to go. I knew the house to find, the porch light that never changed. The name on the mailbox might be a stranger’s, but I had a scent for it now: malice, small and precise, like a letter folded into a pocket.
I killed the engine at the curb and listened to my own heartbeat, which sounded suddenly obscene in its steadiness. The sign loomed behind me, the crossed-out Joy like a wound on the map. Above it, the scrawl — HELL’S CAPE — seemed to pulse, to breathe.
The house was larger than I remembered. A brass placard by the walk read Michael Edgemont, Esq. Piles of bills sagged in the mailbox; no postcards, no small bright things that make a place look lived in.
The front door was unlatched. I put my hand on the knob and it creaked under my palm. For a second, I froze; then the porch light winked on inside and the sound of someone moving—soft, domestic—pulled me back. I stepped away from the house and turned toward the beach.
The sand was flat and grey under a cold sky. Ten feet out from the dune line a small patch of darker sand held my attention, and at its center sat a shell like a stopped heart. It was black, scored with red spirals; a green crust ran along one edge where the shell had chipped. The scent around it was not salt but something sweet and sick, like metal left in the sun. I picked it up and slid it into my pocket. The place where I stood felt warm, strangely holy; when I turned back toward the house the air had chilled.
I opened the door.
The living room was one empty rectangle. A single wooden chair faced the middle of the floor. In it sat Michael Edgemont. He rose slowly, as if from a dream.
“Welcome to Exit Zero,” he said.
“Zero Exit!”
He moved across the room with the odd, lurching grace of someone who has practiced menace. Greasy hair fell in black mounds around his face. When he pushed it back, his eyes pulsed a wet, terrible red. His teeth showed in a grin of rot.
He held a long machete. It glinted cold under the light.
He came at me in fits—slow, then sudden—closing the distance with the unsteady rhythm of a thing unhinged. His breath reeked of vomit; he swung, and the blade caught my shoulder. Pain flared white-hot. The cut bled, but it did not kill.
“You can’t kill me,” I said, because the words came out before I had time to think.
“There is—” he spat, clawing at his jaw until foam flecked his lips. “Zero Exit.”
He lunged, scratching my back and shoulder, the machete whispering past my throat. I grabbed at him, at his shirt, and for a moment we were a tangle of sweat and dark hair. He dropped the blade. He shuddered. He began to shake like a man seized by cold.
“Don’t touch me!” he screamed and flung himself to the floor, crawling back to the chair as if it were a refuge.
“I don’t like… to be touched,” he panted, and the sentence came out small and childish.
He climbed back into the chair and heaved for breath until the color came back into his face. The machete lay on the floor between us, an invitation. Michael pointed at the machete angrily.
I looked at him for a long time. His eyes were the same as mine and not mine at all. I said, quietly, “No. I won’t.”
He repeated it like a dare. “I… hate you.”
“You hate yourself,” I said.
“Kill me. Kill you,” he demanded.
“No,” I said. “I will not. I love you.”
He only shook his head.
There is
Zero Exit
from yourself.
I held him until the shaking stopped. He muttered. It sounded as if he weeping and then became increasing angry as I held him tighter.
“Don’t touch me!” He pushed at me, clawing and pleading in the same motion. Then, as if exhausted, he walked slowly, backwards, across to the other end of the room. He sank back into the chair and folded his hands on his lap. The machete lay gleaming at his feet.
I walked to the door. The phrase—Zero Exit from yourself—followed me like a chant. I heard him scream in a combination of terror, anger, and relief. I opened the door, stepped into the bright light, and shut it behind me.
V — Shadow and Sun
The air on the beach was warm and placid, as if the world beyond the dunes had decided to forgive itself. I dialed Sam’s number. A woman answered.
“This is Sam’s wife. He’s in the garage. Is this Michael? Do you need him?”
“No, not now. Thanks, Janet.”
“Who’s Janet?” Then laughter. “You’re silly, Mike. You’re working too hard.”
I hung up and stared at the phone. The names didn’t line up. The voices didn’t line up.
The mail I’d taken from the Edgemont house was the same: full of courtesy bills for campaigns I’d never heard of, handwritten thank-yous from strangers. Kind words from people who didn’t exist.
I checked the newsfeed to see if the controversy was still burning. Names I didn’t recognize scrolled past, confident as headlines. Governor Holchul. Secretary of State Mark Rubio. Gulf of America.
The whole world had tilted sideways.
I called Issy.
I’m at our spot. The sun is coming down. Hurry up.
And then she was there—bright as a postcard, a colorful blanket spread on the sand where the tide whispered low. She waved like everything had been ordinary and would be ordinary again.
“Hey, handsome. Look what I found.” She held up a shell; sunlight made the spiral glow a rusty, honest red. “Isn’t this a beauty?”
My hand went to the pocket where the black shell sat warm against my thigh. I drew it out and turned it in the light: black and sharp, a green ooze clinging to one spiral, a thin red line pulsing along its curve.
“Oh,” she said. “That one’s broken. It’s ugly. Throw it in.” She laughed and reached for my hand. The sun sizzled toward the horizon, and the ocean melted gold.
“I don’t think I’m going to do that,” I said, and for a moment, my voice surprised me with how steady it was. I held the shell in my hand, guarding it. I looked back at the house, my house, and thought about the shadows that lived there. And the ones that remain inside of me.
She produced two Cape May IPAs and set one beside me. “Your favorite,” she said.
“Cape May? My favorite?” I murmured, tasting the phrase.
She sat close. “Yes, Cape May. Where we live. Are you dizzy? Sit. Have a drink.”
I cracked the can and took a sip. Issy nuzzled my shoulder and took a gulp of hers. Van Morrison played on the portable speaker:
We were born before the wind
Also, younger than the sun
’Ere the bonnie boat was won
As we sailed into the mystic
“I missed you, Mike. We’ve both been so busy.”
I sat and watched the sea. Hands in my lap, fingers curled around the shell’s rough curve, I felt its small, sharp weight—ugly and precious both. The last of a lost civilization. A remnant of a world. My world.
She slipped her hand into mine as the sun dropped. The sky folded slowly and red. The shell thudded against my palm like a heartbeat, and I kept it there as the light went out.
“Throw it away, Michael,” Issy whispered.
“I don’t think I will,” I said.
“I’m going to hold on to it.”