Edward Bryant’s second contribution to this volume is nothing at all like his first, Jade Blue. If you have a little trouble figuring out in advance whether the title is meant to be humorous or grim … well, you may have the same trouble after you’ve read the story. Not that there’s anything equivocal about it; Bryant makes his point, all right. Oh yes.

THE HUMAN SIDE OF THE VILLAGE MONSTER

Edward Bryant

Across the street in Tompkins Square Park, the animals were tearing one another apart.

In the apartment the fan had burned out again. “I’ll fix it tomorrow,” David said petulantly. His skin felt grainy. “It’s too hot now.”

“Come to bed,” Terri said.

He kicked the useless fan with the side of his foot. “Born in Philadelphia,” he mumbled. “Raised in Passaic. I’ll die in New York. What a hell of an epitaph.”

“Come to bed.”

They lay naked on the double mattress and listened for the telltale sounds of prowlers on the fire escape, the roof, or the stairs. Eventually they slept. She dreamed of making love and it was all the roses and cool wine and rushing falls she had ever wanted.

Wakening came first from someone’s clock radio three flights down; WABC echoing between brick walls. Then they heard the toll of bells from the Russian Orthodox Church a block away.

“I’m so sleepy,” she whispered, features soft and slack in the gray light. They made love. When she climaxed, it was a nadir of feeling.

Breakfast also was minimal. The powdered eggs were chewed silently, the ersatz coffee sipped as soon as it cooled. David didn’t seem inclined to talk this morning. Terri kept his cup full. She watched him stare at the chipped plastic plate. He seemed so much taller then, she thought. On a rainy morning a year before, she had found him sleeping under the rusting cube sculpture in Cooper Square. A silent chiding: don’t carp.

“So what did I do wrong?” David said.

Terri pretended preoccupation with her broken nails. “Not a thing. Why?”

“You aren’t talking this morning.”

We’re so young, thought Terri. Med Program will keep us alive for such a long time. The thought was horrifying.

“You should be used to that by now.” She smiled ruefully. “I’m planning out my day,” she lied.

“So what’s today?”

“Yesterday was Friday the thirteenth. Mrs. Constantine mentioned it in the hall. That makes today the fourteenth. My day to pick up the pills.”

“Your goddamned pills,” said David.

She hesitated, wondering how to make it a joke. “They keep the babies away.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes!”

“Mrs. Constantine cornered me for an hour yesterday. All the gossip about everyone in the building. You know.”

David scowled silently.

“Except for one weird thing. Someone scared her, I think.”

“Mrs. Constantine?” He forced a smile. “Nothing upsets her. Remember when she took on the guy with the knife near the mail boxes?”

“Something happened this time. It was Mr. Jaindl.”

“Old freaky Gregor on the second floor? What did he do, proposition her to do something disgusting?”

“That’s the word she used. Disgusting. Only it wasn’t some sex thing. For once Mrs. Constantine wouldn’t talk about it. Just said it was the most disgusting thing she’d ever heard.”

“That’s weird. Usually she’d blow anything into attempted rape and sodomy.”

“She trailed off into some old-country words I couldn’t understand and then walked away.”

“So we’ve all got our problems.” They sat in uncomfortable silence for a few moments and he said, “Listen, I’ll walk uptown with you. Okay?”

“You’re not working today?”

“Not today.” Usually he left in the mornings with sack and shovel, a knife sheathed at his belt. David was a river rat. He dug the crust over the East River for aluminum cans. With what Terri earned tailoring, the salvage money paid the apartment’s rent.

“Okay. I’m getting afraid to go out alone any more, even in daylight.”

“I’ll get the respirators,” he said. “Just in case.” He coughed; the lung-ache that never left him began to gnaw.

There was a ritual to leaving the apartment: Despite the heat, close and lock all windows. Leave the kitchen light on. Conceal the toaster on a pantry shelf, behind a large welfare bag of cornmeal. Turn the radio on and tune to a rock station. Close the door and key the two police latches snug. Keep an eye on the stairwell up to the roof—watch for shadows that move. Now start down the steps.

They met Gregor Jaindl on the second-floor landing. One arm cradled a grease-spotted paper bag full of garbage. With his other hand he was fumbling in a pocket for his key.

“Good morning—Miss Bruckner, isn’t it? The young lady who makes the bright clothes?”

“Yes,” said Terri. “Good morning, Mr. Jaindl.”

“Please,” said the old man. “I am Gregor.” He took his hand from the pocket. Loose keys jangled to the floor.

“Then I’m Terri.” The girl dropped to her knees and began to pick up the keys. She looked up. “This is David.” She stood and put the keys into Jaindl’s palm.

“Young lady,” he said, “you’re very kind.” The words were barely accented, spoken with a stiff Continental courtesy. Jaindl bowed slightly. David looked startled.

“I think we’d better get started,” he said, steering Terri by one elbow toward the stairs.

The old man cleared his throat peremptorily. The couple paused, two steps down. “I would be honored,” said Jaindl, “if you both could join me in my apartment tonight for supper.”

David started to answer automatically: “Thanks, but I don’t-”

“There will be meat,” said the old man.

“We’d be delighted,” said Terri.

“Seven, then. Promptly.” Jaindl turned and disappeared into the darkness of the hall.

David took her arm angrily. “Are you crazy?”

She looked at him obliquely. “We should spend one more evening in that apartment than we have to? Fighting over the powdered eggs?”

“Better that than eating with a twisto.”

“He isn’t.”

Two flights in silence. Then she said, “He reminds me a lot of my father.” Her beloved father, who had vanished in the food riots eight years before.

David laughed. “He’s got to be weird. I mean, carrying garbage up to his apartment instead of out.”

Terri smiled impishly. “Maybe it’s supper.”

The rain had started by the time Terri collected her pills and they walked out of the East Side Aid Clinic. Usually Terri liked to splash in the rainwater like a duck, carefully stepping in the center of every puddle. Today she scuffed through the water, her head down.

The butcher spotted them before they had walked a block. The butcher wore a checkered motley coat that barely brushed the grime of the street. She bounced up to them with the eager clumsy tactics of a puppy.

“Hey, loves,” she called out. “Wait a minute.” She fell into step beside them. Her hair swayed as she walked. “Hey, I got maybe something you want.”

“I doubt it,” said David. They walked faster. Terri looked straight ahead.

“You just come out of the Clinic, right?” The butcher’s pitch was practiced. “Got another couple dozen pills to keep you out of W.D.” Her eyes looked tired. “Bet you’d like a kid.”

“Beat it,” said David.

“Listen, I got something prime. Six months, male, wet-nursed, you’d really dig him. A steal, loves.”

David stopped short and grabbed the butchers arm. He shoved her toward the curb. “Get the hell away from us.”

She was back in front of them at the next corner as they waited for the light. “Listen, only five hundred. Come on, loves, he needs you. You need him.”

David felt Terri shake against him. She was crying. Without thinking, he hefted the canvas respirator-pack by its strap and swung. The pack caught the butcher under the chin and slapped her back against a mailbox. Dazed, she wobbled, and blood began to drip from her nose. “You bastards,” she said. She began to curse them in a steady monotone.

“Please,” said Terri. “Let’s get out of here.”

He walked with his arm around her shoulders to console her. It was instead of words; he couldn’t think of any as they followed First Avenue home.

Gregor Jaindl’s apartment might have been the lair of a medieval alchemist. It was dark, the windows tightly shuttered. Hardwood bookcases lined the walls; the contents were bound in leather. The air was redolent with strong incense. The candle holder on the dinner table had been fashioned from a human skull.

“I have a flair for drama,” said the old man in explanation. “I rejoice in being one of the last great romantics.”

“It’s very impressive,” said Terri.

Jaindl led them to the table. “Would you care for some wine before the meal? I’ve a single bottle of liebfraumilch, 1967. Not entirely appropriate, I suppose, but then wine is so scarce these days.”

Terri said, “We certainly don’t want to deplete your wine cellar.”

“Wine’s to be enjoyed with guests.” The old man laughed. “Besides, tonight is my celebration.”

David had been restlessly scanning the ranked rows of books. “Of what?” he asked.

Jaindl’s grin improbably grew wider. “I am the savior of our decaying, starving cities.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Later, later. I will explain. But for now please wait and bear an old man’s satisfied gloating.” Jaindl filled three delicate glasses and handed them around. “Now, a toast. To all of us, to re-birth and birth.” The glasses clinked together.

Terri’s glass dropped from her hand, shattered against the table’s edge, sprayed amber in the candlelight. She swayed for a moment and David steadied her with his free hand. David, she thought, sorry, I’m so sorry.

“My dear,” said Jaindl anxiously, “something is the matter.”

“I’m sorry,” said Terri. “Really I am. I—”

“She’s upset,” said David. “We went to the Clinic for her pills. A butcher followed us, trying to push a boy-baby.”

“Jaindl frowned. “The pills. Narco-steroids. I was getting my first degree at Columbia when they were developed.”

“You were there?”

“It surprises you?” He smiled faintly. “B.S. in genetics, 1970. Master’s in bio-engineering three years later. You thought I was a retired immigrant tailor?”

“Something like that,” said Terri. “May I have another glass? I promise I’ll be careful.”

“Certainly.” Jaindl poured the wine. “Then it is only your nerves? You are not”—he hesitated—”skirting withdrawal?”

Terri took a long sip. “No, I’m on schedule. My period started today.”

“Forgive me, my friends.” Jaindl again raised his glass. “I shall propose a more appropriate toast. To a world in which we may choose freely.” They drank and there was a long silence. “I was one who signed the petitions against so-called population engineering,” said the old man. “The social legislation, the manipulation of the poor and the minorities, the narcotic contraceptives. We tried, but there was not enough outcry until far too late.”

“It was wrong,” said David. “And now there’s no choice for any of us.”

Terri was getting high on very little wine. “It was enough they demoted us to animals. We didn’t have to justify it.”

“At the time the alternatives seemed worse,” said Jaindl. “Food, especially for the cities, was one of the problems. And that, for these years, has been what I’ve worked on. It’s why tonight we celebrate. Now please sit down.”

They sat. Jaindl bent over the oven in the kitchenette and returned with a platter heaped with steaming steaks.

“It’s been so long since we’ve had real meat,” said Terri.

The meat was white and tender, moist and slightly flaky. It tasted somewhat of chicken or tuna, but had a flavor distinctly its own. They all gorged themselves.

“So good,” Terri marveled, every few bites.

When they paused for a respite, David said, “Is it some sort of synthetic?”

“Not exactly.” Jaindl paused thoughtfully. “One might call it the maximized use of existing resources.”

“Meaning?”

“I will show you. Come here a moment.” The old man led them from the table. “Long ago I converted my bedroom into a laboratory. You’ve seen the results. I will show you the source.” Dirty towels were stuffed under the bedroom door. When Jaindl removed them, Terri wrinkled her nose at the smell. Jaindl opened the door and snapped on the light, a bare bulb. One wall was lined with cardboard boxes full of garbage. The opposite wall held cages. The old man gestured and they bent closely over a three-foot mesh enclosure.

“What is it?” asked Terri, involuntarily shuddering. She saw an obese segmented body, black and glossy, about eighteen inches long, perhaps six in diameter. The creature wiggled forward, propelled by six stubby armored legs.

“Many generations have gone into him,” said Jaindl. There was an edge of pride in his voice. “Forced genetic acceleration, here in my room. My own techniques. He is the result, a triumph.”

“It looks almost like—” David began.

“The most prolific life-form inhabiting the cities,” said Jaindl, “other than the rat or man himself. He will save us all from hunger.”

David bent closer. “It’s a cockroach.”

“Oh my God,” Terri said.

Naked, they lay side by side in the darkness. The heavy heat settled about them.

“I told you he was a twisto,” said David.

Terri rolled onto her side. “I still feel sick.”

“And he looked like your father.”

“He does,” said the girl. “Jaindl’s a nice old man. I know he means well.”

“Twisto.”

“It wasn’t so bad. People could get used to it. It’s just the idea… .”

“Yeah, the idea,” David said. “Can you see our neighbors breeding those things in the courtyard? God, each day we’d all throw our garbage down there. Then at dinner we’d go down and kill a nice fat one. Jaindl’s a crazy. Absolutely. Forget him.”

Terri lay back with her face upward. “At least he tries. He’s done something.” (Give me a baby)

“What’s that supposed to mean?” (You know I can’t)

“Nothing, nothing at all.” (I know, but I don’t want to understand. I don’t want to be fair)

Stop it, she thought. It’s such a cruel, wasteful game.

The frustration and anger began to sidle through the grilled window like live things.

“…you meant…”

“…one moment of hope…”

“… I meant…”

“… it you can’t…”

“… you can’t…”

“…bitch …”

“… baby …”

“Damn it,” she said. “Damn you to hell. For a moment I almost felt like it.” She turned away from him and touched the frayed body of the teddybear which slumped on the bed-table.

“What”

“Loving you.”

In the small apartment above Avenue A, the animals began to tear each other apart.

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