More Praise for The Paper Man
“Michael, the Paper Man, is a highly unconventional and persuasive hero, and David Doppelmann among the strangest—archnemeses? father figures? manifestations of the self?—I’ve ever seen in a novel. Gallagher Lawson is a weird and wonderful writer.”
—J. Robert Lennon, author of Familiar and See You in Paradise
“The Wizard of Oz on laudanum, a Björk musical in letters, this devastatingly powerful debut challenges us to imagine what it would be like to be made of nothing more than paper, to live in a world where mermaids are murdered and art is the only path to actualization, a world, in many ways, not unlike our fragile own.”
—Samuel Sattin, author of League of Somebodies and The Silent End
“Only in the purity of paper, in its essence of nothingness, is it possible to create a truly literary character.”
—Mario Bellatin, author of Jacob the Mutant
The Unnamed Press
1551 Colorado Blvd., Suite #201
Los Angeles, CA 90041
Published in North America by The Unnamed Press.
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Copyright 2015 © Gallagher Lawson
ISBN: 978-1-939419-34-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014948160
This book is distributed by Publishers Group West
Designed by Scott Arany
Cover art by Tracy Kerdman
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are wholly fictional or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Permissions inquiries may be directed to [email protected].
CONTENTS
Part Two: MISCHA
Part Three: DOPPELMANN
Part Four: ADAM
Part Five: MICHAEL
Acknowledgements
1
AT MIDNIGHT THE LAST MOTORBUS PULLED INTO THE STATION. While the driver busied himself in the rearview mirror with an inspection of his teeth, a single passenger boarded. He was a young man wearing a gray suit with a butterscotch tie and felt hat; his jacket sleeves hid his hands that carried a cardboard valise and an accounting ledger. Had the driver paid more attention, he would have noticed something peculiar about the passenger. But it was dark, and the driver, who suffered from unevenly spaced teeth and had just finished a packet of sunflower seeds, was preoccupied with checking his smile. In the mirror’s reflection he only saw the back of the young man, who chose a window seat halfway down the aisle and immediately pulled the curtains shut.
As the bus’s engine roared and they departed along the single-lane highway, the young man’s apprehensions grew. The dry inland wind blew through a cracked window near the front and flung his hat to the floor. He closed his eyes. It should have been a relief to be on his way, but his mouth was parched and the shredded-paper soup he had eaten earlier churned inside him.
The young man, named Michael, had lived his entire life inland, the dry center of a large peninsula. He had never been on the bus and had never passed the mountain range that cut off the inland from the rest of the peninsula. If it had been daytime, he would have watched the change in geography, yet it was crucial he left at night—he needed the darkness to keep himself from standing out.
For two hours, the motorbus continued along the highway. At the next station, two women boarded, reeking of lemons and laurel. They sat behind Michael, and as they settled, their citrus odor made him feel worse. He pressed his jacket sleeve to his painted lips until a wave of nausea passed. The other passengers whispered while the wind whistled through the cracked window. From his valise, he removed a knitted scarf and left his accounting ledger in its place. The scarf he bunched up and tried to use as a cushion, leaning his head against the window. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but he was extremely tired and the rhythm of the road eventually rocked him to sleep.
The bus stopped five times throughout the night, where other passengers boarded. In a half-dream state, Michael observed liquid shadows that quickly spread in empty seats like sprouting fungi. At one stop, the shadow of a man chose the seat next to him, but within a few minutes he was snoring and his shaggy head was propped on Michael’s shoulder. Michael didn’t want to bring any attention to himself, and so he stuffed the knitted scarf between his shoulder and the man’s head and accepted his new role as a pillow.
At dawn, the motorbus stopped at an inspection point sitting at the base of the mountain range. During the night, they had crossed over it, and now they were about to join a highway that cut through a region of rolling hills. From the small impromptu shack that was the inspection point emerged three men wearing uniforms. They had short, thick necks with shaved heads like stumps that they lowered as they boarded the bus. In the dim morning light, their oiled boots gleamed, and with each heavy step they took down the center aisle, the bus tilted to the left and then to the right. Flashlights held aloft, they illuminated the faces of the sleepy passengers, their own shadows sliding across the roof.
“What do they want?” Michael whispered to the stranger beside him. After the night’s sleeping arrangements, it felt odd, almost improper, to finally speak.
“Never been searched like this before,” the man said. He had large hands that gripped the armrests between the seats. “Maybe they’re looking for someone.”
“Who?” Michael asked. He tried to get a better view of what was happening at the front.
The man shrugged. He yawned and clouded their small space with his sour breath. The inspectors continued walking in synchronized steps down the main aisle, to the left and to the right, painting each row of passengers with beams of light.
