TBT #59: Go, Levitate

Joel Blanco is shirtless as to better show off his tight jeans. He’s slouched against a brickwall on a busy urban street, watching people walk by. In his hands, he clutches a torn page — glossy, like from a magazine. He squeezes it in his hand, crumpling it slightly, all the while rocking back and forth from his spot on the concrete, letting the back of his head knock against the brick behind him. He’s crying through it all. Great big sobs that attract only fleeting glances from pedestrians.

“I’m a doctor,” he groans, his head cracking backwards with a thud. “I’m a PHYSICIAN!”

A woman on the street giggles, hearing this, and Joel Blanco’s face turns to a sneer, his eyes locked on her. He pulls the magazine page in his hand to his face, putting it in the field of vision between him and the woman. “Joel Blanco,” he reads loudly, staring at an image of himself on the page. “Age 32. Occupation: Physician.”

He tears the page away from himself, looking for the woman, but she’s gone. No one is listening as he groans and sobs. “I’m a PHYSICIAN!” he keeps yelling at the people, who streak past like an express train. “I can heal you!”

There’s a certain soft drink currently on the market that causes amnesia.

No, I can’t tell you which one. I wish I could, but I’m not allowed to. There’s an “ongoing investigation” and, apparently, notifying the public would only slow the process. Don’t ask me to explain that one: I just don’t want to get sued. In any case, we’re not sure yet if it’s permanent memory less, or just a temporary thing. We do know that the soft drink was only in the test-market phase, available only in select cities. Every indication was that this new soft drink would be a remarkable success, promising the drinker not only increased energy but also a smooth, robust flavour that was sure to quench even the most powerful thirst. All that and zero calories. That was the hype, anyway. It may have in fact done that, but in the end that didn’t matter. Thanks to just the right combination of chemicals, the consumer wouldn’t even remember buying the drink, much less drinking the drink or — if they had — enjoying the drink. Instead, their memories were wiped out, leaving them an empty shell of a human being, unaware of their past, their families, and themselves.

Susie Farris is the first to find herself. She’s lost everything all at once and stumbles through the streets like a steam-powered robot, jerking her arms and legs as if they are not her own. She spends minutes staring dumbfounded into store windows, looking at a gaunt ghostly image of somebody she’s not entirely sure of. There’s something inherently familiar about one’s self — something that goes beyond memory — but still, Susie stands agape because, aside from knowing that this is, in fact, her, she has no recollection of how she came to be this way.

The answer’s in a drug store window, funnily enough. Staring at her from a large posterized advertisement, hanging next to another ad for facial cleanser, she sees herself. Shirtless, her back to the camera, standing under a tropical waterfall, all the better to show off her tight jeans. “Susie Farris,” read the sign — and at last she knew her name — and then, “Age: 24. Occupation: Flight Attendant.”

And Susie Farris knows who she is.

Working with the company and the Food & Drug Administration, we were able to pin down “source” cities. That is, cities where the product was on the market long enough to see a significant number of users afflicted by the amnesia side-effect. Only three cities were labeled as “source”. The first two were unremarkable, with a significant but hardly world-alterting number of victims. The last city on our list, however, had been the very first test market, and the drink had caught on in a big way, particularly with the city’s vibrant fashion and acting industries, where it was seen as an excellent way to maintain energy and also to lose weight.

Sarah Holden and Craig Linden meet through a personal ad Craig has placed. Running only once in the city’s third-biggest newspaper, the ad read: “CONFUSED? Think you’re something you’re not. Wearing a wrong-sized label? SWM seems you. Or self.” The ad made little sense to both Craig and Sarah, but still they find themselves standing together in the city square, in front of a fountain, both wearing tight jeans. Craig found himself on a city billboard by the highway. He’s 27 and in the Marines. Sarah turned up in a 20-second television spot, writhing on the floor, hands covering her breasts, showing off her tight jeans. She’s 24. And an artist.

Sarah tried to draw a picture of herself the other day, but couldn’t make her lines go straight. Craig thought about calling the military, but then realized he’s afraid of fighting. Now they both stand, listening to a gurgling fountain, its bottom covered with coins. Staring at one another, they both look remarkably good in jeans.

Earlier this year, a major clothing company launched a series of advertisements for their new lines of jeans. Seeking to advertise to young urban professionals (the so-called ‘yuppie’), the company’s ads featured dozens of attractive young models, in most cases wearing only the jeans, and a short description detailing their name, age and occupation. In almost every case, none of this information was real. The models were mostly recent transplants to the city, living in tiny apartments with very few friends and usually no family around. Despite what their ads said, very few of them were older than 22. Seeking to make it big, they auditioned constantly, taking any work they could get.

A slim majority of them were able to reconnect with family in other cities and are working to rebuild their shattered minds. But many others are still on the street, having forged their new identity based solely on the first information they had discovered — a glossy photo of themselves, surrounded by lies. Joel Blanco refuses to come in for treatment, fully believing himself capable of working as a doctor and forever in frustration of the fact that no one believes him. Susie Farris, on the other hand, did come in for psychological treatment, but left on her volition, deciding that, yes, flying was what she really wanted to do. Craig Linden and Sarah Holden were the only two victims to meet one another outside the treatment facility. They immediately decided to fall in love. They are lost together.

I’m currently treating Nick Driscoll. His family tells me that he was a 21-year-old university dropout who studied for two years to be an architect before deciding to make a go of it as a model in the city. The jeans campaign was his first big break. Now, he’s lost all recollection, like the others, and stands in front of me entirely wrapped up in the belief that he’s an illusionist.

Nick found himself on the side of a bus. He stood transfixed, teetering on the curb of a busy downtown street, as he watched himself go by. He wasn’t able to read all of his ad’s text before the bus sped by, so he spent an hour chasing it through downtown traffic, hoping to catch a final glimpse of what it said about him.

“I’m a master illusionist,” he tells me, again and again, standing in the middle of my office, shirtless as to show off his tight jeans.

“You’re not, Nick,” I tell him, again and again. “You were going to be an architect, and then you became a model.”

He eyes me cautiously, his eyebrow cocked. He stands on his toes, as if to cock his eyebrow higher.

“And,” I always add, “your family loves you very much.”

He sinks to the floor and holds his knees to his chest. “I don’t know about that,” he says somberly.

I watch the gears spin behind his eyes.

“I’m an illusionist,” he says once more.

And it goes around and around, as he seems entirely unwilling to believe anything that isn’t printed on the side of a bus, or in the back of a magazine, or plastered beside the highway. Finally I say, like I say every day with this patient, “Okay, Nick, do an illusion for me.”

He looks up from his place on the floor. “Which one –,” he starts, then pauses. “Which one do you want to see?”

“The levitation. You know that one, right?” He nods. “Do that one, then. It’s my favourite, Nick. The best illusion. So go, levitate.”

It ends like this every day. Nick stands in the middle of the room, and I watch him from behind my desk. He steps up on the tips of his toes, spreads his arms wide. His eyes close and his forehead wrinkles with concentration. He makes a low, deep growling sound that seems to rumble forth from the pit of his stomach. Sweat drips down his face, and he bares his teeth, grinding them together, as he wills himself into the sky.

And he looks so good in those jeans.