I've never been one for existentialism (except the kind on prom night), but when I stumbled across myself in a 2013 thriller novel, a lot of hard questions popped into my head.
Am I a real person? Is this real life? Am I just a figment of author John Gilstrap's imagination? I'm not really sure anymore. (Can you guess I just finished binge-watching Westworld?)
It all began when I was writing an email to a company whose products I was hoping to review. I wanted to get a free sample of some of their goods (since that's the one truly great perk of writing for a living). To do that, of course, it's best to prove to the company that you do, in fact, write for a living. So I was googling some of my past, wonderful reviews when I came across something strange: me.
Not, like, normal ol' strange me, though.
As I scanned through the results for my name on Google's book search function, there I was in the caption of a picture with two guys named Peter Crenshaw and Albert Banks at the Bombay Bicycle Club in Alexandria, Virginia. I was pretty confused. I thought, "What picture am I in and how did it end up in this book?"
Clicking through and reading the excerpt on page 100 of High Treason didn't help matters much. There was no picture, just a description of one: I'm hanging out with the first lady of the United States and the aforementioned guys I've never heard of. We were all laughing and having a wonderful time.
As I read on, I was described as being old friends with the first lady but "inconsequential to the case that was being built against her." Wait, what? What is happening here?
"Maybe it's meant to be a different Stephen Gutowski?" I thought. There's a surprising number of us out there, actually. Most of the others have lived better lives than me—probably more worth writing about.
There's Dr. Stephen Gutowski, who was among the first biochemists in the world to use DNA to help catch a serial rapist. Most of the references in books are to him, for good reason. Then there's Army Specialist Steven Edward Gutowski (my full name is Stephen Edward Gutowski, and we were both born in 1987, by the way), who deployed to Iraq as a combat engineer tasked with clearing IEDs and saving the lives of his fellow American soldiers. He made it through two IED explosions while doing his job. His heroism earned him a Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and numerous other medals after the third IED ended his life in September of 2011.
I, on the other hand, mostly pet dogs, shoot guns, and make fun of Sonny Bunch on Twitter—noble pursuits to be sure but nothing approaching what some of the other Stephen Gutowskis have accomplished. But, the thing is, Dr. Gutowski is Australian. Army Specialist Gutowski spells his name Steven. I am the only Stephen Gutowski who lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
Obviously, I had to purchase my own paperback copy to see what in the world was going on. As I went through 550 pages searching for some answers, my own little part of the story unfolded rather quickly.
The book starts with the first lady being attacked and possibly kidnapped (which happens at a club but is kept secret somehow despite it happening in 2013). Jonathan Grave, the hero in John Gilstrap's series, is then contracted to find her because there's a concern that parts of the government have been compromised and are in on the attack.
We find out the first lady was a Soviet sleeper agent who gave up her co-conspirators and went into witness protection decades before the attack. Turns out that's when I was friends with her—so, maybe, I'm also a commie spy? That's the working theory at least as Grave launches his investigation.
Grave starts his fact gathering at the home of Albert Banks, one of the other guys in the picture with me and the first lady. Banks pulls a gun, Grave shoots him, and then finds blueprints related to key American infrastructure that's clearly at the center of some ex-Soviet plot to attack the United States. With Banks dead, Grave decides I'm next on the list for interrogation except ...
"Don't bother," the FBI director tells Grave. "He's already dead."
Oh... oh, no.
"His body was found this morning in his house." The FBI director spoke as if she were describing a household event. "His fingers and toes were broken. A needle had been inserted into his right eye."
I'VE BEEN TORTURED TO DEATH?!
Man. I didn't even make it past page 140, and I was tortured and killed for possibly being a commie sleeper agent. This seems like the worst possible outcome.
Thankfully, over the next 410 pages, it turns out I was a "computer genius" who saved the first lady during the kidnapping attempt and was trying to help her thwart the ex-Soviet terror attack orchestrated by her former allies. I wasn't in on it. I was tortured to death for resisting the commie sleeper agents, not being one, which is ... better, I suppose.
Once I got to the acknowledgments I figured all would be explained. Surely, John Gilstrap will reveal how he saw my name on a news story somewhere and decided it was goofy enough to put in his book. But nope. Nothing like that.
Normally having no memories of the events depicted in High Treason or of being brutally tortured to death would be enough to convince me I'm not some sort of physical manifestation of a character in a paperback serial thriller. But, as I mentioned, I just binge-watched Westworld and I just don't know. If Bernard Lowe can't figure out he's a robo-tech support/robo-assassin, what chance do I have in this postmodern world of ours? I mean, what are the rules?
Even WikiHow's "How to Deal with an Existential Crisis (with Pictures)" wasn't all that helpful. For now I'm relying on Descartes to cling to my sense of self. It's sort of working.
Maybe someday I'll meet John Gilstrap and ask him a few questions. When that day comes hopefully I'll be a bit more composed than Kilgore Trout and think of something more elegant to say than just "make me young, make me young, make me young!" We'll see.
Until then ... Cogito ergo sum?