Kathe Koja
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Marfa’s mutter as her screen flares alarming green, dulls, lights, flares again as the power sputters, the usual Sugar Shack fail on a Tuesday midnight. Sucking the dregs of a grapefruit Boostie, stretching her shoulders against the plywood bedframe, the screen’s light steadies, she resumes reading.
Your Own Suite? Experience Vendor Promises Upscale Renovation
The empty building with its unlit façade sits marooned on the street it used to anchor. But a team headed by industry veteran Darin Skellman of Your Own Eyes is working to transform what was once the Dark Factory nightclub into an upscale interactive entertainment venue, including a glitzy ground floor restaurant.
Last night she tried again to talk with Darin Skellman—no answer, no surprise, he was a slippery get the first time around, refusing to discuss that Leland video—but she will try again, ask about this new commercial venture, ask if he has talked with Jonas Siegler at all. Ask everything she can.
The site was purchased by powerhouse developers Hechman Properties, whose earlier launch of Your Own Eyes was stalled by a creative shake-up and family tragedy. Now, Skellman says, “It’s time to party.” Architectural mainstays Wasser & Wassermann will work in tandem with Comforture Design on the extensive remodel, with members-only suites on every floor designed to offer, Skellman says, “an unparalleled experience” of themed entertainment. Skellman is coy about the nature of that entertainment, though he says “We’re in talks with top creatives in both Y and static visuals, and we’ve had incredibly exciting responses.”
Exciting responses, she has them too, to her interviews, the ones she got and the ones she intends to get, tracking the skittish—the lawyer trauma-suing the DOD for the Maven soldiers, and the intake specialist at the rehab hospital where Genevieve Hechman cashed in her chips, and Derek Ferris still head-down in the hinterlands—and the openly hostile, those private security goons who drove the squatters from the Factory site; and even the impossible, especially the impossible, hello, Ari, want to explain what the fuck went down at Dark Park? with Meghan Sorin speaking in tongues with the sculptor girlfriend, and the concentric rings of streamers who all claim to have seen god or heard god or turned into god, Bergeron is one of them, Bergeron is throwing money at B of P with both hands, Bergeron is ecstatic. And Felix’s “Balcony” is huge, the studio beat boys pumping out Mister Minos product, today on Daily Dealmakers some production duo claims to be buying the experience rights . . . Look at the hoops she has to jump through just to talk to Max! Max bunkered like a ghost in his room, Max still on that beach, a faraway human cartoon, becoming a kind of oracle; though he still comes out to eat, sometimes, and to see her, to be real. But Max will never, ever be the same.
And her own life—That offer from Casey Sidney, Casey Sidney hinting how cool it would be to have “inside” documentation about Dark Factory, once she would have jumped for Casey Sidney the way she jumped for Leland. But she barely took the time to say no thanks to Casey Sidney all her time now is working to get the interviews, to get this, assemble it, write it down, the definitive Dark Factory timeline, storyline, history, whatever it is and wherever it goes. Somebody else can figure out how much is actually true, how much is wishful thinking or hive mind ideation or straight-up craziness or—how does Max explain it—a universe so intricately connected that kaleidoscope vision is the only possible way to see it all straight. Vision, gods, eternal stories, none of that is her business; but this story, Making It Real, this is hers. Maybe this is why she got involved in the first place, beyond her feelings for Max. What did that philosophy prof say? How do you experience reality, Marfa?
Maybe this is why she writes at all.
She takes up a fresh can of Boostie, takes a swallow, stretches her shoulders, turns back to the screen.
When asked about Dark Factory’s history and abrupt closure, Skellman insists that “The past is over. Just watch what happens next.” The new property is still officially unnamed, but internal sources from Your Own Eyes suggest that it may be called the Dream Hotel.
