We Ate Mac DeMarco.

“Can you tell us what happened?” 

The detective’s question wasn’t so much the problem, as was the fragments of reality in low orbit along the edges of my eyes. The bulb hums loudly overhead, its light beating against the inner membrane of its lampshade like a panicked bird. The walls seem fibrous. Or, perhaps they always were, and only now I can see the truth. Was that the case for all things? As this cosmic question explodes behind within my mind and its fluorescent mushroom spreads across my internal horizon, my eyes latch onto the detective’s bristling moustache. At first, the hairs follow the rhythm of his pencil-thin lips, but then, one by one, they begin to wriggle and squirm. Just like the fibrous walls, once I’ve noticed it, I cannot un-see it.

The moustache is no longer a ridge of hair. Instead, it’s a curtain of tentacles, each limb exercising its own autonomous existence. I watch the tentacles twist and curl above the detective’s upper lip. Perhaps this is the truth about facial hair. Perhaps it is, and always has been, flash outbreaks of tentacles. My mind rushes through constellations until I find myself standing in my bathroom, face lathered, razor in hand. Suddenly, the mundane task of shaving is something more terrifying. I watch myself through the mirror as I raise the razor to my cheek. The cold blades - triple-action for extra comfort - touch my skin. In one motion, I pull the razor across the field of tentacles protruding from my chin. A chorus of soft screams emanate from the basin as the pile of severed limbs mounts. What if this is the truth? 

“Mr. Keason, can you tell us what happened?” 

The detective’s voice pulls me back. My bathroom falls away like melted ice-cream, and through the liquid dissolution the interrogation room emerges. The trapped lightbulb. The walls with fingernail texture. “Mr. Keason?” 

“Yes,” I manage. My voice sounds strange. Distant. “Yes,” I say again, testing the sound of it. Yes, it is strange. It’s detached. An anchor of reality which I have failed to exercise for sometime. Its tenor offers a notion of sobriety. And I welcome it. 

The detective looks at me, waiting expectantly on my double-yes. 

“Well,” I say, making the most of my slow start to fill up on reality. “Where do I begin?” 

The detective takes a seat across from me. “Why don’t you start where you and your friends met Mr. DeMarco?” The man runs his hand over his tie, straightening it against his shirt. 

For a moment, reality stalls. Two beady eyes emerge from the tie. Its paisley pattern unfurls into a fan of red and black feathers. The peacock-tie hangs triumphantly from the detective’s neck and stares at me. 

“Mr. DeMarco,” I manage. I struggle to recall the name. Mr. DeMarco. I only know a Mac DeMarco. I’m then enlightened. Detective. Interrogation room. Mr. DeMarco. Not, Mac DeMarco. Mr. DeMarco. Only bad things happen to Mr. DeMarco. 

I swallow the moth wings in my mouth and try again. “Mr. DeMarco,” I say. “We met him down at the river boat.” 

“And what were you doing down at the river boat,” the detective asks. 

The peacock-tie stares at me. Its paisley plumage sneers at me.

“Well, we work on the river boat,” I answer. I try to ignore the peacock-tie but its beady eyes bore into me.

“You and Mr. Quish,” the detective suggests.

Mr. Quish. Jack. 

“Yeah, Jack and I work on the river boat,” I answer. 

“And why was Mr. DeMarco there?” 

My mind struggles. Between the chitinous walls, the flapping lightbulb, the crawling facial hair and the unblinking peacock-tie, I can’t find the right memory. “He wanted a ride on the river boat,” I try.

The detective glances at the reflective glass set in the far wall of the room. He leans forward and put his hand on the table. “And what happened before you got on the river boat,” he asks.

I don’t look at his hands. I don’t even want to get started with the little faces trapped beneath his fingernails. I try to find the answer to the detective’s question instead. What did we do before we got on the river boat? 

The answer doesn’t come to me in linear fashion. It’s splintered. It’s fractured like a broken window. Jack had something. Something he’d brought back from Marrakesh. A root. The black root. He ate some of it. And then I ate some of it. After that, it was like God opened all the windows and doors to the universe and let the fresh cosmic breeze in. A spring clean of the mind. Angel dust and star spritz for the soul. 

I don’t tell the detective any of this. He, and those people behind the reflective glass, probably know I’m surfing the inter-dimensional waves right now. They can probably see it all over my face. But I don’t tell the detective about the black root from Marrakesh. “Mac,” I pause. “Mr. DeMarco arrived.”

The detective’s brow creases. “What do you mean?” 

“Before we got on the river boat, Mr. DeMarco arrived.”

The detective run his fingers through the forest of worms on his upper lip. “We’ve already determined that, Mr. Keason. What happened between Mr. DeMarco’s arrival and you and Mr. Quish boarding the boat?” 

There’s a piece of space and time missing. Mac DeMarco arrived, and Jack and I briefed him on the safety protocols of the river boat. Jack and I ran him through the route we’d take on the river, and we told him about some of the things he’d see. He - Mac DeMarco, that is - and then told us about his show this evening, and invited us to join as part of his crew. I tell the the detective this. Not about the missing chunk of space and time, but about the river boat, the route and his - Mr. DeMarco’s, that is - show and invitation. 

“And then what happened?” 

I ignore the alarm bells in mind. I ignore the missing space and time. I try to ignore the way the black root from Marrakesh stole a part of my memory. I try to ignore the fact that we’re talking about Mr. DeMarco, and not Mac DeMarco.  “We got on the boat. And we did the tour.” 

The detective leans forward, his hands sliding towards me. I don’t look at the little faces at the ends of his fingers, even though I can feel their eyes on me. The peacock-tie flushed red. His words creep out from behind the curtain of tentacles. “Mr. Keason, let’s cut the shit. You and Mr. Quish never boarded the river boat this afternoon. Neither did Mr. DeMarco. 

“We’re not here to determine whether you did it or not,” he continues. “Between Mr. DeMarco’s arrival and you and Mr. Quish boarding the river boat, the two of you killed and ate Mr. DeMarco.”

As the words creep into my ears I sink through my seat like melted cheese. 

“What we want to know, is what happened.”