Free Man in the Empty Suit by Sean Ferrell

bedspread’s black-and-red floral print and waited for something to appear on-screen. Just as I was beginning to fear that the video would prove to be a long study of the rose-printed bedspread, a figure crossed in front of the camera. It was me, older, growing a beard, still in the same suit. He was harrowed by exhaustion, more done in than the Body. He sat on the bed and faced the camera, and so I found myself staring into my own face. Looking at another me was like looking into a mirror that didn’t cast a reflection in reverse, as it ought to. It occurred to me that I was more used to seeing myself like that than in an actual mirror, that the collection of me that filled the hotel was a series of broken mirrors moving among themselves, hoping to find the one that worked properly, that produced a vision of what was true. I rubbed elbows with my own vanity.
    Video me pulled a brown paper bag toward him and rummaged through it, removed a bottle of whiskey. The bag dropped to the floor, and he kicked it under the bed. Corpse-still, bottle on his lap, he stared at me from inside the set.
    I glanced down at my own foot. The edge of a brown paper bag was just visible by my heel. I reached beneath the bed and pulled the worn bag toward me. A half-full liter bottle of whiskey fell into my hand.
Gifts arrive in many shades of amber
, I thought. Beneath the whiskey was a small videotape, still in its wrapper. The right size for the video camera. I held it in my palm and looked back at the screen. Video’s bottle, now open, perched on his knee. He jerked his head toward the door. I took his signal and looked at the door.
    Yellow watched me from the hall. If he could see, or had seen, the video, he made no move to reveal it. His face was screwed up with curiosity. Despite the questions I could see rattling in his head, he said nothing.
    Video was waiting for me. I marveled at dark circles beneath his eyes. He gestured, urgent, waved a hand in the direction of the door as if saying,
Go on, go ahead
.
    I turned back to Yellow. “Did you watch this?”
    “Are you crazy? This place reeks of paradoxes. I never saw it before, so I shouldn’t have seen it now. Seventy didn’t even remember seeing any of this shit.”
    “He didn’t?”
    “Did I fucking slur my words? No. You probably shouldn’t have seen it either.”
    “We’re not tethered. Don’t worry about it.”
    “You still shouldn’t be watching.” He shifted away fromthe door. The rug, which looked dry, made a squishing sound beneath his feet.
    “Why bring me here?”
    Yellow’s hands fluttered. “Because Seventy said I should. I don’t know why.” His distress was somehow comforting.
    On the screen Video raised his bottle to me, offered a silent toast. I opened mine in return and took a drink. I choked a little, and so did Video. I wondered if he might not be between me and the Drunk. His perspective was hard to place.
    After Video drank, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the still-wrapped videotape, the one I held. He placed a finger to his lips and then pocketed it. I took another swig from the bottle and put the hard plastic cassette into my pocket. It clicked against the gun. At the door Yellow watched me.
    I held the bottle out toward him. “Drink?”
    He shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re watching that.”
    “Some good stuff on here.” I hoped my bravado was thicker than it felt. “It’s a bit racy.”
    “You would know.”
    I gulped whiskey through a smile. “Yes I would.” I’d pissed him off.
    On the closet television, Video toasted me once more. I was near the bottom of the bottle when he reached the halfway mark and recapped. He wrapped the bottle in the brown bag, took a pen from his pocket and wrote across the front of the bag, tightened the wrap, then shoved it under the bed, where I had found it moments earlier. I turned the bag over. I hadn’t noticed the writing the first time; the script was so small and the pen so