Oubliette

To my spouse, a native Houstonian, who tells the best stories about the way things used to be.

INTRODUCTION

In the beginning was the swampland with muddy bayous meandering to the gulf and open sea. No gracious vistas or obvious inflection point for commerce, but the clumsy hovels were built anyway and the result christened with the lofty name of the drunkard who had won the war. Storms blew through and a channel was dredged but only the blessing of Freon could turn town to city and break the curse of mosquitoes and miasmatic summers that lingered almost to Christmas and began again a few short months after.

Refrigerated, modern and charmless, the city metastasized, swallowing up land, devouring migrants, a place of opportunity but not of history. One’s past meant nothing here; the future was all. And it was in this muggy hotbed where meadows were paved and the old torn down to make way for the new that the plague began.

At first it went unnoticed. With storied homes and celebrated hotels so easily forgotten, what was an overlooked family birthday or a misplaced memory? By the time the truth became known, the contagion had flown around the country in commercial jets and crisscrossed the world in FedEx boxes. With neither a cure on a shelf nor a viable hope in a laboratory petri dish, the city did what it did best, finding ways to turn a profit out of a pastless now.

The time for remembrance was short and shot through with urgency. Amnesia was in the air and Houston was ground zero.

Chapter One

Antoine leaned on the balcony railing in the silent pre-dawn hour of a Monday morning, the dark skin of his body glistening with sweat in the oppressive steam that masqueraded as summer air. Too high to hear the locusts or to have any need to slap at mosquitos, he gazed out over the treetops of Hermann Park at the twin hypodermic spires of the O’Quinn Medical Towers, blinking antiseptically against the sky. It was a mesmerizing view and quintessentially Houston: lush green spaces punctuated by sleekly clinical monstrosities. Someday the towers would come down, as would the glass and steel high-rise he stood in now, to be replaced by something even more modern. Then the cycle would begin again, renewal everlasting and to hell with the past.

Unless the plague put a stop to it, of course.

The amnesia sickness had started three years ago as an anomaly, just a handful of cases, all centered on the Texas Gulf Coast. Its virulence unrecognized at first, the malady had spread across the globe before anyone thought of taking measures to contain it. By now quarantine was a useless fantasy, although some cities still tried. But Houston was nub and nexus. Should the plague continue without cure, its citizens might lose everything. Perhaps they would even forget that they had never had any use for yesterday.

Far below, Antoine heard a screech of tires and a slam of metal on metal. There wasn’t enough traffic at this hour for an accident due to the old-fashioned reasons of drinking or texting. Most likely it was an amnesiac fumbling with a reminder app or swerving in the darkness at the promptings of a sudden recollection. Such things were becoming so common that city officials had considered adding more bus routes and train stops to keep people off the streets, but something had gone amiss. Some said plans had been scrapped out of a bona fide concern that amnesiacs would miss their buses or ride the trains in perpetuity, endlessly shunting back and forth across the city. Others suggested city planners had simply forgotten to implement their plan, since public transportation had never been a high priority even before the plague.

Not that it was of any concern to Antoine in the moment. He was just trying to survive with his mind intact, make his fortune and then go someplace safe, if anywhere was truly safe from amnesia. Maybe he would strike out on his own for an obscure locale uncontaminated by humanity. Or perhaps he would obey his family’s wishes and go home to Charleston, where generations had lived and died, and where the act of recollection was a sacrament.

He went back inside, where the cool of the ever-humming air conditioner dried the moisture from his skin as he walked to his bedroom. On the nightstand, a phone app with a soothing female voice was reciting the essential facts of his life. Although he was not yet symptomatic, he liked to check his Whoami app each day just to be sure. Should any detail surprise him – he was born in Charleston, earned a degree in history at UVA, his sister taught at Charleston County School of the Arts – it would be a sign that his lucrative days as a memory prompter were numbered.

As he went through his morning routine of showering, shaving, and brushing his teeth, he ran down a mental list of his appointments. An app on his phone kept track of his day: client bookings, workouts, meetups with friends and even his shopping list and car maintenance schedule. He had no need to use his own brain to remember it all, but somehow he did, with no real effort or intention. That was one of the reasons he had been recruited and flown halfway across the country to work for Everett Blair Recollections.

Although the day-to-day tasks of guiding the wealthy through the details of their lives was not particularly interesting, the perks were fantastic. Back home in Charleston he had worked for a historical association and could barely afford a flat in a run-down fourplex. As a prompter at ground zero of the amnesia plague, he lived like a rock star: a condo in a pricey high rise with a valet and concierge, a Lexus at his disposal, and a Brooks Brothers wardrobe guaranteed to pass muster should he be called on to assist a client at even the most high-level Fortune 500 board meeting. All of this was paid for by Everett Blair, in addition to the generous salary deposited to his bank account each month.

Like all prompters, he had been specially screened for his powers of recollection, as well as for his ethics, tolerance, patience and honesty. A prompter with a prejudice could sow chaos in a company or a family, and Everett Blair Recollections went to great lengths to guarantee the quality of their services. Antoine was strong; unusually so. Amnesia wasn’t likely to dent his prodigious memory for a long time to come, and by then a remedy would hopefully have been found. All the more reason to be in Houston, where researchers at the world’s most renowned medical center were working on a solution.

Antoine’s friend Rafael was a prompter for many of the medical center’s elite and was privy to regular updates about the progress of the amnesia cure. Over evening billiards and memory-enhancing gingko biloba drinks they speculated as to when the cure would come. It would save their minds but cost them their livelihood and lifestyle. Timing was everything and just like that perfect shot to the corner pocket, they hoped to hit the sweet spot.

This morning, Antoine’s first appointment was with an oil executive, which called for a full suit and tie, in spite of the summer heat. At least he wouldn’t suffer the seasonal temperatures for long. Every place in Houston was aggressively chilled. The hum of air conditioners was a much a part of summer’s song as the rattle of the cicadas.

There was no need for Antoine to call downstairs and have his car brought around. He made sure each evening that his automotive needs for the next day were in the valet’s computer, so that all he had to do was grab his wallet, phone, and messenger bag of case files, memory tests and puzzles. And so, with the only glow in the east coming from the city lights, Antoine headed out to begin his day.

CHAPTER TWO

Jeb Hendrickson’s mahogany study exuded an air of solid authority except for the yellow post-it notes stuck on seemingly every surface. Sticky-note reminders had become so ubiquitous since the plague’s inception that investors in 3M had seen significant dividends hit their accounts. The portly man behind the desk was still early enough in his memory loss that he hadn’t lost his aura of authority but this morning he was doing a poor job of masking his uncertainty. Qatar, He finally said, pronouncing it cutter. It was technically a statement, but came out sounding like a question.

Antoine nodded. That’s correct. This morning you’re going to a meeting where you’ll be discussing Third Coast’s oil field leases in Qatar. Can you describe where they are?

Hendrickson huffed. Qatar is a very small country, son.

Of course it is. Patience was every bit as important as a good memory in this line of work. We should be able to identify them very quickly on this map.

While they were reviewing a map of Qatar on Jeb’s computer, a maid came in with coffee, melon slices and banana bread. Antoine made a plate for himself, but was disappointed to find that the banana bread contained no sugar. Amnesia was ruining many a fine cook. He speared a bite of cantaloupe instead.

Look, Hendrickson said, I know the CEO sent you here to help, but I’ve been around oil fields since…

1985, Antoine prompted.

Yes. And I don’t need to know the latitude and longitude of every oil well on the planet to be a...to do my job.

VP of Overseas Operations.

Right. I could do this job without even needing to know my own name, that’s how long I’ve been in this business.

Antoine gave a convincingly conciliatory smile. I’m glad to hear it, sir. You make my job much easier. How about we just go over the agenda, then, so you’ll feel fully prepared? He bent over his laptop and made a show of clicking and scrolling. The organizers sent a new version this morning, so you probably haven’t seen it yet. He opened the document he had received the day before, and that Hendrickson had no doubt forgotten, and sent it to the printer.

Hendrickson grabbed it before Antoine had a chance. Ah… His eyebrows drew together. This is definitely not what I remember. Not the first part, at least. Who is Andrea Weintraub?

Antoine paused before answering, pretending great interest in his coffee. Executive VP of Operations. Your boss.

Oh. Hendrickson slowly sat down. She’s new.

She had been in that role for over three years. For someone of your many years of experience, I’m sure it feels like she was hired yesterday.

Yes. He frowned again at the agenda, then looked up and met Antoine’s steady gaze. You said we’d go over this together.

Antoine knew how to reassure. That’s why I’m here, sir.

* * * *

By the time he left Hendrickson’s Piney Point mansion, the mottled clouds glowed peach and gold through the branches of the loblollies, and the humidity felt more appropriate for creatures with gills than lungs. Antoine turned the radio to a jazz station, both to drown out the relentless whine of the cicadas and to soothe his nerves for what lay ahead. Turning onto Memorial Drive revealed nothing more unusual than a BMW run up on a curb while the driver gazed out the window in beatific bemusement, but as he neared the loop and hit the inbound rush hour traffic, the crush of oblivious drivers closed in.

In theory, persons whose memories were failing were supposed to use public transportation and memory-certified cabs, but Houston had never been a city where one could easily get someplace without either a private car or ample amounts of time and patience. The sprawl was simply too vast, not easily tamed by rails and buses due to the hodgepodge of business districts scattered across the coastal prairie.

The early stages of the plague didn’t affect a person’s memory of how to perform basic tasks, so even the best-intentioned amnesiac often bowed to necessity and got behind the wheel of a car rather than attempt to navigate the complexities of Metro bus routes and transfers. The result was a commute from hell for everyone else, with drivers making left turns from the far right lane, stopping in the road for no obvious reason, or dreaming at green lights, foot on the brake and a line of angry drivers behind them. Even deep in memory-fog, many Houstonians retained their good manners, rarely honking at the holdups, and the police who might have noticed and ticketed the impaired were always one block over.

Getting to his employer’s office without mishap took all of Antoine’s concentration once he reached downtown, where meandering pedestrians joined the threat of haphazard drivers. He avoided the area around City Hall, which was always thick with protesters, some of whom were such advanced amnesiacs that they no longer even knew what they were protesting, except that they didn’t like it. Buskers who used to merely play the saxophone on a street corner now sold cut-rate post-it pads or handed out coupons for shady local memory shops that offered herbs, charms, and sometimes fortune-telling services that were oriented toward reading one’s past instead of the future.

Antoine arrived at his parking garage with a sense of relief, pulled into his reserved spot and went into the building. He recognized no one in the lobby or on the express elevator to his