John Doe No. 2 and the Dreamland Motel

12 The Hypnotized Never Lie

12 The Hypnotized Never Lie You are no longer speaking to Timothy McVeigh. You are sitting on a swivel stool in a Baskin-Robbins ice-cream parlor in Kingman, Arizona, trapped in a one-sided conversation with Evangelina Labio, whose shift ended nearly two hours ago. Her friends call her Angel for short. She lets you call her Angel, too, although you’re pretty certain that it’s out of a teenager’s overdeveloped sense of pity rather than a sincere gesture of friendship. She is a short, frumpy, buxom girl who wears braces and sports a tattoo of a windswept Confederate flag on her upper arm. She loves working at Baskin-Robbins, but, ironically, she cannot stand the feeling of ice cream in her mouth. On account of the braces, that is. AsJuniorAssistantManagerofBaskin-Robbins,Angelisyourboss. Angel is thinking seriously of quitting high school next fall, when sheturnsseventeen.She’ssicktodeath,shetellsyou,ofbeingknown aroundthecampusas“Labia”Labio,and,besides,shedoesn’tplanto go to college anyway. Kids can really be cruel, you think to yourself. You spend most evenings listening to Angel deride her parents’ insensitivity to her needs. She would like to add a few modest body piercings—lip and nose rings, to be exact—to supplement her tattoo, but her mom and dad won’t budge. “Which is hypocritical,” 94 J o h n D o e N o . 2 a n d t h e D r e a m l a n d M o t e l she maintains, “’cause everyone knows they’re, like, the world’s biggest swingers.” She is especially put out with her boyfriend, Cam—which must be short for Cameron, you think. Or Camaro. Or Camshaft— although that doesn’t sound right. “Cam only wants to get in my pants,” Angel tells you as you cringe in embarrassment. You are suddenly struck by an image of hairy, disheveled Cam taking a crowbar to Angel’s blue jeans in order to pry open the goods. To get at the treasure. In truth, you’re fairly put out with Cam yourself. He recently dropped out of Mohave Community College and landed a job— surprise, surprise, surprise—as the night janitor at Baskin-Robbins. Apparently, Angel and Cam are not the college-bound types. Being a recent college dropout yourself, you’re in no position to judge Cam’s educational choices. Or Angel’s, for that matter. What really bothers you about Cam—what really puts you out—is that he’s never actually performed his duties as the night janitor. Never. Not once. Nada. And the reason he never performs his duties as the night janitor is because he spends every evening, without fail, having relations with Angel in the storeroom. Which is ironic, you suppose, because she’s always complaining that Cam only wants to get into her pants. Which he does, quite successfully. And with enviable frequency at that. YouthinkthatAngel’slogicisrathercircular.Thatitmakesnosense. But you keep it to yourself, not wanting to hurt your boss’s feelings. At the moment, she’s your only friend. And besides, it’s none of your business that Angel and Cam are having unprotected sex on the sly at Baskin-Robbins. Apparently, they’re too embarrassed to buy condoms , although Angel isn’t worried because she’s pretty certain that Cam is the one. You know—Mr. Right. Mr. Hairy Disheveled Right. And while Cam is getting into Angel’s pants in the storeroom, you go about the business of being the surrogate night janitor and sanitizing the ice-cream parlor. The Hypnotized Never Lie 95 Of cleaning up the god-awful, indescribable things that happen in the Baskin-Robbins public toilet on a daily basis. Of mopping the dirt, grime, and chewing gum off of the parlor’s vintage black-andwhite tiled floor. Of thawing and throwing out the freezer-burned ice cream. Usually Rum Raisin, which nobody really likes. And you do these things—night after night, like clockwork, like the fallen Quaker zombie that you have become—because you are no longer speaking to Timothy McVeigh. S t r a n g e ly e n o u g h , it all started at the lumberyard. “You guys should stick around for a while,” suggests Mike. “What better place to hide out than Kingman—a desert land populated by transients, drug addicts, and derelicts? You can lay low here,” Mike continues. “You can...