Error

by Ásgrímur Hartmannsson

Chapter 5

'Error' synopsis

One day, Jonas, who has recently migrated to the city, discovers that all his records — including his assets — have been erased somehow. No longer able to get work, buy anything on credit or sell his now legally non-existent car, his life becomes a unique adventure.

An hour before midnight, Jonas began considering movement. In just under fifteen minutes, he successfully shut down the TV. He got his plate and his glass and eating utensils and brought them all to the kitchen. He poured the remaining cola into the glass, and took a sip before he started cleaning the dish.

Jonas only had three dishes but seldom used more than one a day or even one a week. He always made sure to clean the dish after use. Otherwise, he would have to do it every three days, when he did not want to.

Jonas sat down and savoured his glass of cola. Good stuff, this cola, greater than sliced bread. To think that some people will actually prefer red wine over this, this nectar of the gods that cola surely is. After finishing it, he washed the glass. Now he had about half an hour to midnight. That should bring him in on time. Jonas put his shoes on and got his jacket. He shut off the lights and again exited the apartment, locking the door as he went.

The nights always seemed calmer to Jonas than the day. No matter how stormy it had been during the day, it almost always seemed to calm down before night. A few raindrops were falling, but nothing noticeable. One could hardly call it rain.

Jonas got into his car, and turned on the engine. He had shut off the radio when he parked, so he had to turn it on to hear music. Deep Purple was playing. The car’s engine, although in working condition, was not Jonas’ favourite sound. Not by a long shot. Deep Purple, however, Jonas considered one of the best-sounding entities in the world. He revved the engine a few times to heat it up and get the oil flowing before he reversed out of the parking space.

It was Monday, therefore Jonas met next to no traffic at this late hour and was at his friend’s house several minutes before midnight. The light was still on; Jonas figured his friend was up. He parked his car near by and walked over to the house. He knocked on the door and in just a minute his friend answered, all ready to go.

“Ready?” Mac asked as he opened and saw Jonas standing there.

“Ready,” Jonas concurred.

“Let’s take my car,” said Mac, and pointed Jonas toward his car, a recent-model grey Toyota Corolla.

Mac unlocked all the doors simultaneously with his remote doodad on the key, and the Corolla’s lights flashed in coordination with the less than silent click of the electric door-unlocking mechanism.

Jonas got in and took a deep breath. There was still a hint of new car smell in there. Ah, recently moulded plastic! Jonas wondered if the smell perhaps contained cancer-causing fumes. Had anyone ever thought of that? He had never heard it mentioned. Why not? It was a conspiracy, maybe.

Mac came in a second later and immediately turned on the engine. Not much could be heard from it, but just enough to know it was running, the rev counter helped, and a little later the radio began spewing out the popular culture.

Mac’s radio was set on the romantic ambience station, with the likes of Celine Dion crooning about hearts going on and whatnot. Mac adjusted the dial.

“My wife drives the car more than I do,” Mac said apologetically as he tweaked the radio. Jonas raised an eyebrow and wondered why he did not just set the channels in memory. All recent car radios had that feature. He remembered seeing radios in antique cars with that feature in them. Or perhaps that worked differently. But it must be available. Perhaps Mac was not so technically thinking, or perhaps his wife continually messed up the radio to suit her own twisted ends.

Finally Mac found his very own favourite station. Luckily, it played music of sorts. Nineties pop. You all know that. 4 Non Blondes, The Spin doctors, Radiohead...

Mac, now happy with his radio setting, reversed out of his space, and they were off to see the man who could fix Jonas up with a paying job.

Mac drove down town and parked not far away from a little bar that Jonas was unfamiliar with. In fact, Jonas was unfamiliar with most bars, but he knew the location of about half of them, even if the names often escaped him. Which was not so strange, as the names changed as often as owners.

Turning off the engine, Mac said, “We are here.” He looked at Jonas and exited the car. Jonas followed, and Mac locked the doors with his little remote thingy. The car went: “ka-click” and blinked behind them as they walked casually toward the bar.

“Are bars open on Mondays?” asked Jonas.

“Some are. This one isn’t, officially at least,” Mac answered.

The bar had one door and a large window beside it. The window was covered on the inside by stickers, some paint, and thick and heavy curtains.

When Mac opened the door, smoke bellowed out in great quantity like from a volcanic eruption, or from a fire. The smell that came with it was similarly awful: a strong and heavy cigarette smell, with a hint of hay and burning tyres. Or perhaps it was expensive Cuban cigars. Jonas could not tell the difference.

The only type of flaming tobacco product he could identify was menthol. Menthol actually smelled quite agreeable, which made him wonder why smokers rarely smoked it. Jonas figured it would be like inhaling a breath mint. He would have to ask about that some day.

Inside there were four men. A bartender, situated by the bar, cleaning a glass, and in one corner, three guys, chatting over glasses full of something. All of them held suspicious-looking cigarettes in between their fingers — the source of all the smoke. One of them appeared to be drinking a boilermaker. In all the mist it was hard to tell, but some of it cleared as Mac and Jonas opened the door and let out some of the smoke.

There was music playing, but it was tuned low, thus allowing for easy conversation. A TV flickered on the wall behind the bar, the sound turned off. It was probably for the barman on slow days, thought Jonas.

The men inside the bar all took notice of the new arrivals, but soon ignored them again. Mac walked past the barman and had a seat beside one of the guys in the corner. They shook hands and exchanged words.

The men looked towards Jonas. Mac pointed him to come over and have a seat. Which he did, and quickly began shaking hands with the guys as they introduced themselves.

“Jonas, this is Frank, the man I was talking to you about,” said Mac, pointing toward Frank, who sat in the corner with a glass full of some clear liquid in ice.

Frank nodded, and took a sip.

“This is water,” he told Jonas, indicating his beverage, and he continued: “Do you want something?”

“No, but thanks,” said Jonas, shaking his head.

“I hear you need a job,” said Frank.

Jonas nodded.

“I can give you a job,” said Frank.

“Thanks,” said Jonas.

“I also hear you don’t have any identity,” said Frank, tilting his head.

“That is kinda the reason I don’t have a job,” explained Jonas.

Frank smiled, and took a sip from his glass. The other two guys sat by, inhaling fumes. Jonas wondered if they really needed to smoke the stuff, if it was not enough to just be in the room. He was beginning to feel abnormal himself, and a little sick.

“So, Frank, can I leave him here with you then?” asked Mac after a brief talk.

“Sure. Go back home and sleep. You need it. I’ll take care of your friend,” Frank answered.

Mac stood up and walked out the door, a small amount of smoke went out with him. Jonas half expected Indians to show up, with all those smoke signals being produced.

Frank turned to Jonas and asked him, “How come you don’t have an identity?”

“I think I accidentally got deleted, or forgotten when they switched to that new system,” Jonas theorized for Frank.

“And now you got nothing?” asked Frank.

“Well, I got my car — and my apartment. But I think my car no longer exists in the registry. I’m not sure about the apartment,” said Jonas.

“Interesting,” said Frank.

“It is like foretold in the bible,” Jonas said.

“The bible — how so?” asked Frank.

“Mac was explaining this to me earlier: my social security number is eighteen letters, and eighteen divided by three is six, so we have six plus six plus six, which makes the number of the beast, used to control all trade, and through that, all the people.”

Rick spoke after counting something on his fingers: “But your social security number is ten letters...”

“That’s just the number we need for our own things, everybody else in the country has the same eight-letter prefix, so we never use it,” said Jonas.

“Actually, that’s all bullshit,” said Frank, calmly. “It’s Kabbala. The number 666 has some meaning in Kabbala. It is the number of perfect creation or something.”

“What is Kabbala?” asked Eddy.

“I don’t know completely. There are only like four guys in the whole world who know what it is. They are all Jewish,” said Frank.

“How come the number is called the number of the beast then?” asked Eddy.

“It is all a misunderstanding. I was told once by someone who knows this stuff that the number six in Hebrew stands for “God”. So 666 is just a tautology that means nothing but “God God God”. Way back in the day that may have been some sort of magic spell or something, the number being the number of perfect creation and all, but anyway, the punk that wrote the book of Revelation was even more high than we are now, and he misunderstood it all and... We get the devil’s number. The rest is just a coincidence.”

After Frank had spoken, there was a second of silence; then Eddy asked, “What is the book of Revelation, and what has it got to do with anything?”

“It’s in the bible. The number is in it,” said Frank.

“Mac told me this,” said Jonas.

“Mac says a lot of things.” replied Frank.

“But anyway, that guy needs a job,” said Frank. “We can use him, can’t we?” He turned to the other guys after a brief breather. Actually he mainly breathed smoke, and perhaps it was the nature of the leaves burnt or perhaps he was just suffering the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning, but at any rate it seemed to have relaxed him greatly.

The other guys nodded.

“Let’s go,” said Frank, and stood up. The other guys stood up with him, and they all walked out of the bar, Jonas trailing after them.

They walked into a near by parking lot, toward a big black Mercedes Benz. It had a little emblem on the roof pillar: V-12. Jonas knew what that meant. Mercedes Benz 600. Looked like an SEL too. Frank pressed a button on his car key, and not only did the car’s door come unlocked, but the engine roared into action too. Apparently this car was a notch or so more sophisticated than Mac’s Corolla.

They all entered the big Mercedes Benz, Frank behind the wheel, Eddy by his side, and Rick and Jonas in the back. Frank did not bother with the radio, but put in drive, and let the car slide gracefully out of the lot.

The big Mercedes Benz was almost uncomparable to Jonas’ Hyundai. Almost, because both were motor vehicles on four wheels running on petrol. The differences were less subtle; soundproofing, leather seats, automatic transmission, some real power... all things which the Hyundai did not have, but the Mercedes Benz did.

Not that the Hyundai did not have a transmission or seats: just not automatic, or leather; all that makes a difference.

Not to mention the power windows. Everything in the car seemed to be controllable through use of buttons. Jonas played with his seat for five minutes. It moved. He had never sat in such a seat. He wondered what such a car would cost. The seat alone would most likely cost more than his car.

Jonas asked them where they were going, and Frank told him they were going to do a little job.

“Nobody knows you,” said Eddy, “so it should be uneventful.”

Jonas got more butterflies in the stomach than he had had ever before. With those dubious looking guys, the phrase “It should be uneventful” just did not sound too comforting. What was their idea of relative uneventfulness? Being beaten up only a little?

But it was the only way to get money — well, it was either this or robbing a bank. To rob a bank, the only thing you really need is a ski mask. And Jonas did not own a ski mask. He sat quietly and tried to enjoy the ride. A man has to work to eat. Well, Jonas had to work to eat. Any normal citizen could just go on the unemployment list and receive a small amount of cash every month. Jonas couldn’t register on any list. As far as lists were concerned, he did not exist and was like all other non-existent entities: unlistable.

Jonas only hoped his job did not involve violence. He did not have the heart in him to club anyone in the head without good reason. Wait... was being paid to do it good reason?

The other reason was that Jonas did not desire being hurt, that is, having bones broken or anything. He was definitely against bleeding. It was bad enough when he cut himself while shaving.

Proceed to Chapter 6...