Chapter 4

Isaac stared at the handsome portrait of the cat from his dreams. Captain Flapjacks was missing. The poster announcing the cat’s disappearance listed his last known location, the telephone number of the concerned owner, and a tantalizing prospect of a reward for the recovery and delivery of Captain Flapjacks the cat. Unfortunately, it did not state the amount.

It didn’t matter that Isaac had never actually seen Captain Flapjacks before. It didn’t matter that his dream remained firmly behind the black curtain of his subconscious. Whenever he went through his script, and his mind performed the alchemy of reading — the magical transformation of crooked symbols into vivid images — this was the exact cat he had conjured up in his imagination. This was the one. There was no doubt. It had the same coffee cream fur around the face, the same white fluff everywhere else, and the same golden eyes that were the color of the late summer sun in Solvang.

“Save the cat,” Isaac whispered to himself in awe. His tongue fumbled around his mouth, his verbal skills not yet fully returned from his trip. This was it! He had to save this lost cat.

“What’s that?” Seth wondered, his eyes scanning the horizon for any signs of the red minivan referenced in the Amber Alert.

“We have to save this cat.” The words and their formulation were becoming easier for Isaac as he warmed up his mouth muscles.

“Cat?” Seth looked over and saw the flier gripped tight in Isaac’s hands. “Never mind a missing cat. We can save a human, much more important and much higher on the food chain.”

“I have a dream.” Isaac’s mind was reeling with the implications of this imaginary cat made real. Did its existence predate his dream? Had he simply seen one of these posters before and his subconscious had internalized the image to only bubble up later as a dream? Or did he manifest this cat with his mind and pop it into existence? That was Isaac’s best guess. And if he could do that, what other superpowers did he possess? He had to know.

Seth scoffed, but Isaac ignored him. Dr. Rousseau instructed him to save a cat. This wasn’t a mistake. This wasn’t a coincidence. This was this universe converging, aligning, and reshaping itself for Isaac. He tried to explain to Seth how this was fated.

“Are you sure? It looks like a dumb dollar-store cat to me, nothing special. Nothing unique. How do you know it’s the one you wrote the script about?” Seth retorted.

“I’m sure. What did you imagine when you read my script? It wasn’t this exact cat?”

Seth snorted. “I don’t even read the scripts my friends send me. Rousseau just gave me the spark notes version of yours. There’s a cat. There’s Super Jesus. There are vampires, maybe. Seems, uh, what’s the popular euphemism in the industry these days? Interesting. It sounded interesting.”

“Well, then you’ll have to take my word for it. Captain Flapjacks is the cat from my dream and my script.”

“Fair enough. Listen: the cat will keep, okay? After we rescue the Amber Alert girl, we'll find it and split that reward. How’s that for a plan of attack?”

“I can’t.”

Seth was getting impatient. “You know, some could say the lack of respect for the sanctity of human life is very Slytherin of you….”

“...”

“Do you see where I’m going here? Are you going to make me get explicit with my threat?”

“I have to do this,” Isaac pleaded, fingers wrapped around the door handle, making a threat of his own. “Don’t you see it? Isn’t it obvious? If I save the cat, then I save myself. It’s what Dr. Rousseau would want.”

Seth sighed. “You’re not jumping out of this car twice in one day. Fine. I give up.” He recognized something in Isaac that had been lacking thus far: desperation. A spark of madness hid behind Isaac’s eyes. It couldn’t be ignored. Seth was a proud papa. The drug he administered to Isaac had already had its intended effect. Until this point, Isaac had been solely motivated by external factors such as avoiding internment at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility. This was different. Isaac was doing this for himself. “If you don’t help me find this missing girl, then you can kiss my fucking character reference goodbye. Without it, the only job you’ll get in this city is a handy from Spacey when he’s had one too many and starts feeling generous,” Seth bluffed to test Isaac’s testicular fortitude.

“That’s fine,” Isaac said flatly.

Seth smiled. “Okay. Go. You have my blessing, my son.” He pulled the car into one of Los Angeles’s omnipresent strip malls. This one was comprised of a Thai massage place, a Rubios, and a business that promised to get you out of your unpaid parking tickets.

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Isaac hesitated, dubious of his good fortune.

“Let this be a lesson to you. Forget everything the good Doc taught you.”

“...”

“You’re on the right track. If you want to save a cat, then save a cat, but don’t do it because you think someone else wants you to save a cat. No one likes a try-hard. There’s no audience for that sort of thing, Isaac. It’s cringe. People aren’t charmed by good deeds.”

“They’re not?”

“Fuck no. We live in the era of the anti-hero, remember? God is dead. Mr. Rogers is dead. Charlie Brown? Deader than dead. Long live Walter White.”

“And Super Jesus?” Isaac countered.

“But even Super Jesus doesn’t break the show biz golden rule: you must be entertaining, first and foremost. That’s what audiences want. To be interesting is to be heroic. Many things can make an interesting man, of course: wit, charisma, skill, but those traits are in short supply for a man such as yourself,” Seth watched Isaac’s face fall, “Don’t worry about it though, because nothing is more interesting than a person with a passion. No one with passion is boring. People love passion. You know that, right? Oh, wait. That’s right. You’ve never been laid before.”

“...”

“Well, trust me. Now go and save that cat you dreamt up — that’s interesting! Even if it’s stupid. Don’t let anyone stop you, me least of all.”

Isaac grinned. “Will you help?”

“Absolutely not.” Seth laughed. “You’re on your own. I’m going to save the day for real and save the Amber Alert girl. Because she’s a human. And I’m also allergic to cats.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Isaac responded. “Even still. Shouldn’t you be coming with me as my case manager?”

“There’s a girl in danger, Isaac. She needs me more than you. And don’t forget to take these.” Isaac looked around and saw Seth holding his shoes. He took them gratefully.

Shoes tied tight, Isaac hit the pavement. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number listed on the flier. It rang and rang and rang and rang before going to voicemail.

Greetings, fellow child of the stars. You have reached Palms, Not Psalms Psychic Readings. Caution: Mercury is in retrograde. Act accordingly. If you are experiencing an acute cosmic disturbance, please hang up and call 867-5309 immediately. I will require your name, number, and Zodiac sign for those seeking appointments. I’m no longer accepting any Scorpio clients at this time. Thank you for your understanding. Goodbye until we meet in this life or the next.

Isaac’s toes tingled when he realized that the voice on the phone belonged to a female. If the cat from the script was real, why wouldn’t the girl from his script be real? He tried to remember what Margot Robbie’s voice sounded like, but he could only hear static from the waiting line.

Isaac responded, “My name is Isaac Abrahamson. Gemini. I’ve seen your cat, Captain Flapjacks. You can call or text me at this number with a time and place to meet. Any further discussion I prefer to have in person. As far as the reward goes, I have some follow-up questions. One: What is the reward? Two: How does the nature of the reward vary if Captain Flapjacks is returned alive, dead, or taxidermied?” He hung up, satisfied.

Looking around, Isaac regained his bearings. If the Pride-themed Medmen billboard across the boulevard was any indication, he was stuck somewhere in West Hollywood. Isaac wiped his brow with the back of his hand. He was too far from the beach. At this point, Isaac knew that his plan was progressing poorly. He bailed on Seth too early. There was nothing to do but await a response from the cat’s owner. What a wasted opportunity to kill two birds and save the girl too. He looked to the sky to calm himself, unconsciously asking for mercy. But all there was to meet his vision was another plane. Its blue belly revealed that it belonged to Southwest.

Isaac closed his eyes so hard that shapes and colors popped into view. They coalesced into the form of a memory. It was from his last flight into Los Angeles. On the plane’s approach to LAX, the city’s neon signs, streetlights, and spotlights burned brightly as far as the eye could see. Only the earth's contours could contain them. At night, the city fell away into abstraction. Isaac’s brain could only comprehend the image as a metaphor, the city as a circuit board. The buildings weren’t buildings at all but diodes, resistors, and transistors. And the streets were the traces that tied them all together, and the red and white bands of highways became a bundle of CAT 6 cables. The vision shimmered with energy. Even though he was 20,000 feet up in the air, Isaac could feel the electric buzz from the city. The hum from the 5G network calmed him. The vibes were good. He let it wash over him, knowing that he could get addicted to this.

Buzz! Isaac could feel that same sensation now in West Hollywood. Buzz! Buzz! It felt real. He opened his eyes, startled, until he realized that the buzzing was his phone, pregnant with a series of text messages from Captain Flapjacks' owner. They told Isaac to swing by and listed an address.

Isaac watched the world grow dim from his Uber as the June Gloom enveloped the car as soon as they passed to the other side of the 405. He was on his way to Venice, home to the homeless, west-side hipsters, and a Medmen billboard that featured muscle beach instead of a Pride rainbow. The city was a seedier Santa Monica. Venice swapped outdoor ice rinks for skate parks and Sweetgreen for Mrs. Winston’s salad bar. Even the palm trees were different. The lush, full bloom of those trees dotting the bluffs of Palisades Park in Santa Monica stood in stark contrast to the scrub palms that squatted along the Venice boardwalk like common vagrants. The fog was thicker in Venice, too, due to all the weed smoke hanging in the air. Isaac inhaled it, trying to recall his drug trip from earlier in the day, but there was nothing to remember other than the sublime feeling that overtook him before he blacked out. He missed it.

Isaac’s Uber stopped in front of a low-slung bungalow hidden behind a large hedge. He got out of the car and stood on a crowded residential street on the good side of Lincoln Boulevard. He was about equidistant between Abbot Kinney, the beach, and the canals. Prime real estate. He guessed that the Walk Score for this property was off the charts, possibly better than his apartment, which made him a little bitter. Behind the hedge, a wrap-around front porch beckoned him up a stone walkway that led to a red front door. A dream catcher framed the peephole. Before Isaac could finger the ringer, the door to Palms Not Psalms Psychic Readings opened for him, but no one stood in the frame to greet him. There was only darkness.