TBT
K-Box: “Some people are just not worth using.” She’s sad.
“Cheer up kid,” I say as K-Box hovers over the coyote-eaten body of her lover, “it is not as if you will be blind your entire life.”
“Big eyes are winnin’ these days,” Faith chimes. Faith is here too, and she is not sympathetic. Hoo hoo.
K-Box sees the weimaraner puppy that is with us sniffing the body and shouts (while lunging): “Get away from that body you mutt!” The dog darts away.
Faith and I know what need not be said. We don’t say it. K-Box doesn’t notice.
The sun is out. We’re in the desert. We are assembled, K-Box, the weimaraner, Faith, and I. Someone other than I should have brought water. I’m just saying.
The dog is circling the body looking for an opening in K-Box’s defense. K-Box loses focus and turns back to us. “But, how was I supposed to know?”
Faith offers, “TBT.”
“What is that?” K-Box asks.
“If I told you, then everyone would know.” Faith barks.
I’m really upset by this. If secrets are to be deduced, then what point is there in making a secret of the method? Locking the combo in the safe. Just saying.
I’m obviously annoyed: “WELL, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH THE DEAD BODY? WE CANNOT LEAVE IT LYING THERE. WE ARE IN REAL TROUBLE. THE DEAD BODY IS LYING THERE AND WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING WITH IT!”
K-Box seems bored. Faith is on the phone. The dog is asleep on the body’s stomach. K-Box wanders over to me.
“Seriously, Robert, what is TBT?”
I think if no one is going to do it, I’ll do it, so I maneuver the body north towards the north pole. I have a gruff and muscled voice now that I’m working. I respond to K-Box:
“TBT is a film that you watch when you listen. The film is what is underneath every consonant in a person’s voice, every flicker of a facial tick, every word left out, every breath not taken, every subtle little human utterance in body, mind, and soul. You need only notice how a new player was mentioned just a little too hurriedly or a detail left out a little too long–”
Faith chimes in. “But it is much more subtle than you think. It is often your subconscious that sees the film. It is your primal self. You know and see immediately what your conscious mind does not want to admit.”
I finish, smartly, “It is why we say, ‘I should have known.’”
K-Box stares at me. The dog is ahead of us trotting jauntily. The sun does not seem impressed. Nor the body. The theory is a sham. All theories are, in a way.
“You should have known,” Faith says.
K-Box: “I did. When I asked him for it, he said something weird. Like he was hiding something.”
I drop the legs of the body I am pulling for a moment to catch my breath. Faith takes up the legs again, and drags the body. I’d prefer if both the body and I got some rest. You know. Just saying.
“And now he’s dead, and he’s not hiding anything,” I say.
One: dogs don’t drag dead bodies unless they’re nuts. Two: connections drop all the time, but only every so often. Three: everyone hides things, so you don’t need to worry about that. What you have to worry about is the nature of the secret. Like the three of us. We’ll always have this secret of dragging a dead body across the desert. Or four, if you count the dog.
K-Box says, “So, that’s TBT.”
Faith: “No. It’s not. TBT is the method whereby you find out the nature of a person’s secrets through persistent silence and properly placed utterances. It is the way you can see the color of things a person is hiding. It could have prevented this.” Faith points to the puppy eating the foot of the dead boyfriend. That does not happen in real life. Puppies are sensitive to the feelings of human beings. Just ask one.
K-Box does not yell at the dog this time. The dog, therefore, moves away. K-Box wants to know the TBT method. She says so: “What is it? How do you do it?”
I say: “You say something really…”