The Containment Store

The fluorescent aisle smells like someone’s idea of tranquility: an orgy of vanilla, lavender, and freshly dried linen. I don’t feel calm, but I want an oatmeal cookie and would probably eat one off the floor the way it shines. All of The Containment Stores are like this. Once inside, we could be anywhere in the world.

“Mr. Copely, Ms. Hardiman, so nice to see you. My name is Andy and I understand you’re here for a consultation.”

It was bad enough when people used to ask if you needed help. Now, by the time you’re through the door they’ve loaded your profile and seen demographic information, purchase history, and likely sales.

Andy’s hair belongs on a Ken doll.

“Yes, Scott and I are here to discuss his first Compartmentalization,” says Anne.

“Wonderful. May I wager a guess that this has something to do with Thanksgiving?”

Andy’s smile is obnoxious, but he’s right. Anne and I are going to spend our first holiday with my family. She’s excited, but thinks I could use some help. She’s not wrong. I can feel myself retreating just thinking about it. But there’s got to be a less invasive way.

“That’s remarkable!” Anne says. But there’s nothing remarkable about it. It’s a wager to build confidence in both the Consultant’s ability and the product. They don’t always get it right, but the benefit from when they do outweighs the cost of when they don’t. It’s business.

As a Pro-Fit Analyst, I should be thankful. Containment Stores are laid out using our patented Pro-Fit system based on efficiency, equanimity, and exposure. Employees will tell you that the Enhancers are upfront to make it easier for people to return items and express complaints, but that’s spin. Stores with more than two percent customer dissatisfaction or a three percent return rate place their Enhancers off-path. The Containment Store is letting us know people are happy, which is kind of their thing.

“It’s our first Thanksgiving with Scott’s family and I want it to be perfect. Only, Scott has had some difficulty with them in the past,” says Anne.

My right hand begins to reach for my shoulder before I notice and slide it back into my pocket.

“Well, Scott—may I call you Scott?” Andy grins without waiting for a response. “How familiar are you with the Compartmentalization process?”

“Not very. From what I gather, it’s a way of divorcing a person from his feelings.”

“We prefer the term liberating, or to think of it as taking an emotional vacation. After all, the feelings are stored safely away and can be returned at any time.” I sense the “for-a-small- additional-charge” hanging in the air.

“Compartmentalization is the process of separating emotional responses from memories. Once separated, we’re able to store the responses in the event you require their future use. And, just as your storage needs at home vary, the process can use the equivalent of a shoe box for small irritations, all the way up to a class 4, nano-tight bunker for those hard-to-shake, life- defining nuisances. If you can feel it, we can store it!”

I begin tracking my eyes left and right to test Andy’s concentration, but he maintains the pitch without skipping a beat.

“In fact, we’ve even made strides in storing and wiping the actual memories. For now, you will still remember everything; it just won’t alter your mood in the same way. And, in honor of the holiday season, we are offering 25% off of your first emotional re-Pairing!”

“But how does it work?” I ask.

“Well, Scott, I won’t bore you with the nuts and bolts, but the concept is simple. We set up a scan of your brain and have you think about a few control situations. Once we’ve established a baseline for our readings, all you have to do is summon the memories that elicit the emotions you’d prefer to pack away for a more convenient day.”

I wonder when that might be.

“When the software reaches a 97% accuracy rating, we create a copy of the synaptic signature, store it, and create a series of electrical impulses to act as a counterpoint to the original reaction. Simply put, the charges cancel out those old, inconvenient feelings. It’s that easy!”

“97% doesn’t seem that great when we’re considering altering my brain with an electrical charge.”

“Charges, multiple. And Scott, I understand your concern, but they are just feelings. Even if things aren’t perfect, you can always create new ones.”

“You know how I feel about this. How it has helped me,” says Anne. I notice a slackening of Andy’s face as if to say “thank you” before his sales’ training kicks back in.

“Yes.” Of course I know.

“And you know how frustrated I used to get when you’d hide in the office after talking to your family?” I do know. I also know she isn’t finished.

“I tried to run off the frustration at the gym, but it wasn’t enough.” I could continue for her. “And I was really angry at you for the way you allowed them to affect our life. So, I took matters into my own hands.”

“Scott, I think you’ll agree that I’ve gotten a lot better. I realized that I couldn’t do anything about how you were feeling, but I could do something about how your feelings made me feel. The process gave you back your supportive girlfriend.”

The way Anne is talking feels like part of the performance, but what she’s saying is true enough. She is supportive in her way.

See, the things about Anne is this, Anne gets stuff done. And Anne gets stuff done for us. She has a good job. The house is always clean, the food is the best I’ve ever known, and she keeps things fair by giving me lists. I’m good with lists. And the stability is great.

It’s nice to feel wanted instead of needed. Only, every now and then, and this is hard to explain, I don’t quite recognize it as my life.

“I’m sorry, Anne. I really am. But don’t you think this is overkill? I don’t have much contact with my family, and I bounce back.”

“Scott,” says Andy, and I realize they’re saying my name a lot, keeping the focus on me, “I don’t mean to barge in here, but why waste time being frustrated or cross when you could be enjoying each other’s company?”

“It just—it doesn’t feel right.”

But Anne is ready.

“Exactly. It doesn’t feel right, babe. You don’t see the look on your face when you hang up. And you don’t know what it’s like to let the pain go.”

Maybe I don’t. Not in the way she means.

Anne continues. “Remember the night Karl was in town and the two of you stumbled back from the bars at five in the morning?” We both know that I do and I don’t. It was only last month. “Do I need to remind you of the fallout?”

“No.” She knows it’s a big part of why I’m here.

Karl and I grew up together and he was in town for business. Anne suggested we hit the town without her, which can be seen as a good thing. She’s not jealous in that way.

My recollection is a little off, but Anne has filled in the holes. Karl and I head out. And Karl and I make it back. Only, I’m a little confused by then and decide to use our bedroom door as a urinal. Well, there I am, spraying the door with a mix of nitrogen, water, and whiskey when Anne wakes up, which I agree is shitty, and starts yelling at me to stop. But it’s hard to stop a release like that, and I don’t really want to, so I keep spraying away. Anne jumps out of bed, runs over to me, and lays into my arm with a surprising right jab. She’s got my attention, so I turn toward her, but I’m still pissing. I can tell she’s angry, but I’m not making the connections. She yells at me to stop and gives me a push to drive the point home. It’s still not registering, but I know I don’t like being pushed. So, when I finally finish, I lift Anne into the air and heave her back into bed, before settling next to her and passing out.

In the morning, she’s gone. And in her place is a note suggesting a few sights Karl may want to check out in the afternoon. She’ll be by to pack some of her things.

I spend most of the day terrified, but when she returns she seems fine. We talk about what happened. I feel awful. I apologize. And, with a slight smile, she reassures me that we can work it out.

We’d been building to the talk for a while, and I was worried by how easily she let me off the hook. Maybe even a little disappointed. I mean, I’d be lying if I claimed that was the first door I’ve marked, if I pretended not to know my limit and sometimes push on anyway, but this isn’t part of Anne’s world. Not part of the world we’re building together.

“Well, let’s not bore Andy with the details,” she says. “I know you’re sorry. And I love you, and know that you’re a good man. That’s why I had my feelings stored and re-Paired. I did it for us. Maybe you should too, babe.”

Some might confuse Anne’s decision with weakness. Why would she go out and get fixed when I’m the one who fucked up? But I don’t think that’s it. Anne is driven. She has a plan. And she’s not one to sit around and hope things are going to work out. It’s not like she let me off the hook completely. I mean, we are heading north for Thanksgiving and I’m here today. But I guess I admire how she just barrels through the shit and keeps going.

I’m working on it. But I’m not ready to let go of the guilt.

“Okay. Let’s talk about my family,” I say.

I’m usually good at reading Anne, but I can’t this time. I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m feeling a little low and wondering if it’s part of a plan, but that’s not fair. Anne loves me. Well, sometimes I think she loves an idea that is not quite me. Not quite us. But maybe that’s the price of stability.

Andy sees the opportunity and steps in. “Scott, how about we give it a try? If it doesn’t feel right, we’ll let you have your feelings back free of charge.”

“Okay.”

Andy pulls what appears to be a sweatband from a small case in his jacket’s inside pocket. It looks like elasticized silk with the occasional glint signifying clusters of nano- conductors.

“Please put on the EmoPorter,” Andy says. I do what he asks, but the name is misleading. The thing isn’t going to move my emotions.

He flicks his fingers in practiced gestures between our bodies and an image of a brain appears under a large red zero followed by a percentage sign. Lights seem to appear at random on the brain, jump, and disappear, like a time-lapse traffic video, shot at night.

“Scott, I am going to ask you to recall a few memories to establish the control. If you prefer, you don’t need to verbalize your responses. Your brain will answer for you.”

He continues, “First, I would like you to think of a particularly nice memory. Perhaps something you shared with Anne.”

We’re on a road trip early in our relationship. I’m not sure of the exact place but she’s belting out some old pop song, and before I know it, I’m singing with her. It’s the first time I notice how wide her mouth is. It’s perfect. I’ve never known anyone this passionate. This capable. I take her camping and we stop at old diners, and it’s as if a new and powerful force is amplifying all these things I already love.

The lights within the hologram surge and swell and dance.

“Now I want you to think about Anne being abducted from your memory and raped in the back of a windowless van.”

Jesus. What kind of segue is that? The memory of the road trip is shattered. I won’t replace it with what he asked. Not more than I have. I can’t. But I’m angry. Andy has reminded me that I don’t want to be here.

“Very good, Scott. This time, I would like you to think of a place you find soothing.”

The answer doesn’t come to me immediately, but I know it’s right when it does. I’m in my car again, only this time I’m driving home after a day at the office. I haven’t turned my phone off, but the music is so loud I won’t be able to hear it if there’s a call. For twenty minutes no one will ask anything of me.

“And now imagine molten lava rushing in on you from all sides, the heat building on your skin as you realize there’s no escape, and the smell of your flesh burning like the skin of a charred hot dog, the instant before you begin to choke on the lava flooding your cavities as it incinerates you from both inside and out.”

Anne never mentioned how fucked this process is. A small part of me finds it amusing, which makes me wonder if it’s working. But Andy looks pleased with the reading.

“Perfect. I shouldn’t admit this, but I went off script with that bit about the hot dog.” Even Anne looks a little troubled by his admission.

“Anyway, Scott is obviously a feeler, so it should take no time at all to zero in on the
right sequence and check that emotional baggage.” Anne is smiling again. Encouraging. “Why don’t we start by concentrating on the family members who’ll be attending Thanksgiving dinner, paying particular attention to moments in your past that have generated anxiety?”

The thing is, I don’t have it bad. I didn’t have it bad. My family means well, and plenty of people have it a hell of a lot worse. It’s not like I grew up in a war zone. Families are just tough, and I’m not one for living in the past. Not much for thinking about it either. I may get a little down from time to time, but that’s life.

Well, my mother will definitely be at dinner. It’s at her apartment, which means my sister will be there too. They live together. And my father said he’d try to stop by.
The earliest memory I have of my sister takes place in the living room of our first house. It’s a small place my parents rented on a mushroom farm. Dana is two and I’m four, and I have just built a home out of LEGOs. This is before the gimmicks. The blocks don’t change color. They don’t transmute. The structure is simple, but it has taken me all day and I’m proud of it.

I’m on the floor, finishing my creation with a rudimentary, white fence when Dana rounds the corner. I know what’s about to happen, but I don’t know what to do, so I watch as she puts her left sneaker through the roof.

“Nice start,” Andy says more to Anne than me. Above the image of the brain—my brain—it now reads 4%.

I think about my mom sleeping. She slept a lot back then. I’m still young, so maybe this is just what moms do. But I’m starting to worry. 9%.

A few years pass and the quiet is gone. When Dad’s around, they fight. I try to remember details, but there’s only sound and the soft echo of feeling. Years later, Mom will comment that this is when she first noticed a change in me. She said it was like watching a light turn off, but in a kid. 17%

I’m older this time; 18. After a teacher pulls some strings, I’m accepted at a local college. Dad has offered to take me in for the year. He’s not around much, and I bring it up when he passes through one night.

Now I’m writing a paper and I can hear him banging someone in the next room. It sounds like he’s choking a llama. It’s not my best paper. Later I tell him it’s all right with me if he goes back to staying at her place. 31%.

The lights are really flickering.

But I’m somewhere else. Not long after my parents split, Mom takes us on a vacation. Only, it doesn’t feel like a vacation. We are sitting on a bench and she reaches over and starts eating a stranger’s popcorn. She’s drunk. The man looks pissed but he just gets up and leaves. He has that option. 47%.

“How is he doing?” Anne asks.

“Honestly, I’ve never seen the numbers climb like this. We couldn’t ask for a better candidate.”

I can hear them, but only part of me is in the store.

Dad’s marrying the llama. He tells me that he’s moving into her place, but I can crash on the couch and help him finish the basement. I have one year left of college and my other plans fall through, so I give it a shot. Maybe it’ll be a chance for us to get to know each other.

Turns out the llama’s pregnant. I’m not ready for this, and I now look at finishing the basement differently. It feels like he’s getting to hit the reset button. At least school is only two months away. I don’t have a right to feel this way. It’s not a big deal. But I’m angry. 61%.

I want a break. Need it. So I push my thoughts back and focus on the display of Opthimizers across from the floating brain. They’re deSigner eyewear that rely on research, preferences, and owner-driven visual histories to manipulate what the wearer sees. The writing above the display reads, “Reality is the Appearance We Create.”

The distraction doesn’t really work. I’m back in high school. Mom is gone more than she’s home and Dana’s living with Dad. I head home one Friday expecting an empty house, but it’s raging. Dana is throwing a party and I can’t find her anywhere. Instead, there’s a guy trying to force beer down my dog’s throat. I’m outnumbered and outsized, so he suggests I leave. But he doesn’t realize what that dog means to me. And he doesn’t know how hard I’ve been hanging onto the idea that this place is still my home. So, when he gets in my face, I grab his head, bounce it off the kitchen counter, and run it through a section of drywall.

For once, I feel in control. But I’m scared, and sick, and amped, and confused. The adrenaline pushes a mixture of pain and pride through my pores and I imagine it dripping onto the scuffed linoleum and mixing with the drywall dust and blood. It’s a good thing the concoction isn’t real, because I’m not sure whether I want to force it down every human throat in the kitchen or chug it myself. 78%.

“Babe, why are you stroking your shoulder? Are you okay?” Anne asks.

I don’t answer her. I can’t.

“Andy, is he okay?”

“Absolutely. All readings appear normal and he’ll be better than ever in no time.”

I’ve transferred to a college six states away, but I’m home for Christmas. Mom and Dana are arguing as I inspect an old box of Lego Mom’s saving for when I start a family. I rub my finger over the circles on a small, white piece, but Dana decides she needs an ally. I understand, but I’m not built for this. I clutch the piece harder, trying not to be pulled into the fight. But then Dana’s in my face.

“How would you feel if Mom fucked two of your friends?”

They can still surprise me. And I get it. The words alone make me want to… and Mom… Christ. Even if it’s true, what the hell does Dana want me to do about it? A voice somewhere inside me screams to answer… but then it’s mute. 86%.

Andy breaks the silence. “The scan appears to be slowing down, but we only need the reading to increase another 11% to initiate Compartmentalization. It won’t be a problem with this champ.”

But I’m initiating a process of my own. The lights are less active.

Mom has been accepted into an early trial of Realignment therapy. It’s the grandfather of Compartmentalization, but there is no 97% accuracy requirement and no return. They say her alternatives have been exhausted. I don’t agree. At seventeen, it’s past time I move out. It’s for the best, because when she returns, she’s not the same. The doctors and technicians call it a success, but we have different metrics. 89%.

The next memory is really two memories. I’ve graduated from college and Dana gives me a call. I think she is going to congratulate me, but she asks if I remember a particular night from our childhood. I don’t. She tells me her therapist suggested the call, and she fills in a few more details. She accuses me of not standing up for her when she was molested by our babysitter. It was fifteen years ago. I was six, she was four, but now I’m starting to remember.

Dana’s yelling at me about how it must be nice to be able to forget. She’s telling me that I ruined her life and I owe her an apology. I don’t take it personally, she’s struggling and doing the best she can. But details of the night are filling in. I’m playing a video game in the basement with the same sitter. The game is hard, and he offers to help. He tells me to keep the controller in my lap. I feel his hands, and his breath, and I don’t understand how what he’s doing is helping. When my character dies, I no longer want to play.

When Dana realizes the conversation isn’t going to give her what she needs, she hangs up. Most of my stuff is carefully packed away for the move, but I find the jigger I lifted from a bar. It looks like a mallet with two hollowed ends. One side equals a shot, the other, half a shot. But I’m past alcohol. I remove my shirt and hold a lighter to the larger end of the bar tool, pressing until the metal glows and my thumb feels like it could ignite. I release my feelings and press the hot circle of the jigger to my shoulder and hold it in place. The feelings crave the heat.

It’s hard at first, then easier. Then nothing. The jigger hugs the skin. My skin. But as I pull it away the metal sticks and the flesh tears and it’s still okay because I no longer feel anything at all. 89%.

Anne and Andy are staring at me.

“This is strange. The scan doesn’t seem to be increasing anymore,” says Andy.

“Scott, are you okay?” says Anne.

“I’m fine.”

I am fine.

Anne touches my elbow and I’m on the phone with my sister. She’s excited that we’re driving up for Thanksgiving. She has something she wants to tell me, but it can wait. My fingers find the raised circle through the fabric of my shirt and trace the outline. I tell Dana that I love her, and I’m excited to see her too. 89%.

Andy looks concerned. “Something may be wrong. The machine appears stuck at 89%. How about we reschedule for tomorrow and I flick 20% off coupons to each of you?”

Anne knows something isn’t right. Later, she’ll convince herself it was the machine. Or maybe Andy. But at the moment, she’s not so sure.

“Thank you, Andy. That’d be great,” I say, resisting the urge to clap him on the back. After all, it’s not his fault. And in a way, it worked. I may have used a different moving company, but the feelings are boxed.

The thing is, I am angry. I’m angry Dad gets a do-over. That he gets to pretend he didn’t know where he left me. I’m angry Mom needed more than she was able to give and I never had enough. And I’m angry Dana can explode without burning. That she can live with the certainty that her hurt and anger and cost is always more. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Everyone hurts. Comparisons don’t mean shit, and dwelling is an anchor with a too-short chain. Besides, anger packs better when it’s flat.

I remove the EmoPorter and hold out the band, but I can tell it’s not enough for Anne or Andy. They want closure. Without the 97%, they want sirens and explosions, not vanilla, and lavender, and fresh laundry, and a limp elastic band. At the very least, I could have given them a few tears. But life doesn’t guarantee resolution, or pyrotechnics, or even growth.

We’re all doing the best we can. I’m not happy all of the time, but I’m happy enough. And who knows, maybe Anne’s my llama. Maybe she’s something even better.

Thanksgiving is going to be shitty. It just is. But then it’ll be over. I can handle it. Anne will be happy we made the effort, and probably come to her own conclusion that we should never do it again. And then she’ll hop on a plane back to work and our home.

I’ve got a few more vacation days stored up, so I’ll take my time driving the car back. If anyone needs me, they can call. But I can guarantee right now that the music will be cranked so loud every car on the highway will feel the beat as I pass.