==========================================
InterText Vol. 9, No. 4 / July-August 1999
==========================================
Contents
Baby Girl.....................................William Routhier
The Worlds of My Desire............................Stephen Doe
The Camel Story..................................Melanie Dixon
The Posticheur....................................David Appell
....................................................................
Editor Assistant Editor
Jason Snell Geoff Duncan
jsnell@intertext.com geoff@intertext.com
....................................................................
Submissions Panelists:
John Coon, Pat D'Amico, Darby M. Dixon, Joe Dudley,
Diane Filkorn, Morten Lauritsen, Bruce Ligget, Rachel Mathis,
Heather Timer, Lee Anne Smith, Jason Snell, Jake Swearingen
....................................................................
Send correspondence to editors@intertext.com or
intertext@intertext.com
....................................................................
InterText Vol. 9, No. 4. InterText (ISSN 1071-7676) is published
electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this
magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold
(either by itself or as part of a collection) and the entire
text of the issue remains unchanged. Copyright 1999 Jason Snell.
All stories Copyright 1999 by their respective authors. For more
information about InterText, send a message to
info@intertext.com. For submission guidelines, send a message to
guidelines@intertext.com.
....................................................................
Baby Girl by William Routhier
=================================
....................................................................
How can you even begin to describe the ways a parent affects a
child's life?
....................................................................
So there I am driving down the highway, she's beside me in the
front seat making little baby noises, strapped into the
kid-driving-seat thing I bought special for the occasion, and I
see the sign and I think, all right, _this_ is still New
Hampshire... here comes Massachusetts... state line, automatic
federal case. You're in it all the way now. I mean, it's not
like I didn't know what I was doing, but I'm thinking, well,
here I am, deep shit again.
All I wanted was to be with my baby girl, that's all. There was
no sense in mulling over consequences at that point. When a
thing's done, it's done, and you deal with it strictly on those
terms. Any other way of looking at life just makes you crazy.
For custody the court was gonna side with Donna, naturally. All
it would take was one look at my sheet. Done time twice,
numerous arrests. Assault with a deadly weapon. Repeat offender,
career type. Yep.
He said I have a low boredom threshold, one of the prison
shrinks. Hyperactive, starting when I was a kid. Too smart to be
content with a normal life, basically insecure, and needing to
prove myself on a large scale, like, with society in general.
Problem with authority, stemming from a bad relationship with my
old man. Yeah, you might say that.
So his advice was, when I got out after my eight months or
whatever, if I wanted to change, I'd have to find a proper
outlet for my excessive brainwave activity. Higher aspirations,
loftier goals, maybe think about returning to college, take up
philosophy, dentistry, archeology. Become a lawyer. Then, after
I finish, pay off all the loans, by the time I'm fifty, I can
start earning a decent living. This is advice he gives to a guy
they know has a low boredom threshold. This is an expert.
Hey, everybody carves their own niche in life, you know? You
make it however you can, put together what works. I don't say
I'm a prize, but I'd never do anything to hurt my little girl. I
want the best for her. But you think any judge is going to see
things that way?
Yeah, sure, I'm dangerous. Christ, I know it, I've been around
myself longer than anyone else, right? Yeah, get in the way,
wrong day, wrong place, and I'm dangerous. But does that mean
I'd hurt my daughter? Fuck no.
So I'm driving, feeling good enough, Jennie sitting there
looking out the window at things going by. I turn on the radio,
a slow country heartbreaker comes on, weepy steel guitar, and
she just beams at the sound of it. My heart leaps and I think,
well, she's got her old man's good taste in music, anyhow.
See, people paint you all one color. Oh, he's a criminal, pushes
drugs, shot a guy in a 7-11. It sure was lucky for Bobby the guy
didn't die, or he'd still be up the river and not out on the
street.
Well, yeah, okay, I did it. I got reasons. Maybe I came into
this world a little bit bent out of shape from the start. Try
living through what my old man did to me, when you're a kid and
don't know shit, get smacked on the back with a two-by-four, ten
years old, 'cause you didn't clean up the garage good enough.
Get locked in the cellar for a weekend for talking back.
Watching him do worse shit to your Mom. Then tell me how you
feel about the world in general.
So when you're someone like me who never had, what you'd call a
fair shot, you find out something else. People can smell it on
you like dog shit on shoes. They can see it in your eyes, the
fear you have just saying hello to an adult. They just say
you're an unbalanced individual, but you're more like a scared
animal. And people make judgements, say things behind your back
about you, and this is when you might still have some
vulnerability left, full of pain, hurt and hatred, maybe, but
still got them tender young feelings, right?
So what do you get? Understanding? Nah. Judgement.
Do you know what judgement is? Judgement's a stone wall. You can
hit it with a rock, you can bash it with a baseball bat, you can
run up against it with your head until your brains are on the
floor and that wall will stay there just like it was, not busted
up even a tiny bit. That's when you start getting the idea the
only thing that will knock Judgement down is something big
enough to get everybody's attention. Something like dynamite.
You meet a new neighbor kid's mother who shuts her door in your
face after saying go home and don't ever come back because
you're one of them Gilkins and she heard about you and she don't
want you playin' with Jimmy and you run away crying but secretly
in your heart agree with her that you're no good. Or there's
some chick, when you're a little older, and she flirts you along
until you're half crazy and when you finally get to her front
door for a date and her old man who tells you screw, he's heard
things about you from the cops and there's no way in hell he'll
ever let you alone with his daughter. _Slam._
See, it makes you feel testy, makes you sort of surly. Anything
good that ever happened to me happened because I pried the lid
off the sucker with a crowbar and stole the goods. So. Now that
I got a bit more leverage in this world, I'm supposed to let my
baby girl be taken away, just like that?
Who would've known how much Donna would change after having
Jennie? I mean, it used to be I'd come home with five grand and
a quarter key of coke, she'd be as happy as me. Well, first few
times, she'd be acting nervous, talking scared and sensible,
whine about the risk, stomping around, but in the corner of her
mouth there was a little curl-up, you know? She was itchy and
into the danger, I could tell, the thrill, the money, Jesus, of
course the money, and the "dangerous-but-smart man doing
dangerous-but-serious money-making things" turn on, and before
you could say boo we'd be knocking the chairs aside and doing it
right there on the kitchen floor, she'd be so wet and open I'd
be sliding in and out like a schoolboy and I'd grab her cheeks
and go slapping her on the linoleum until we both screamed like
someone was cutting our throats. That's when it was good, me and
Donna, that was our honeymoon time.
Then, for some reason -- "Because of Jennie," she said -- it all
had to stop. Okay, Bobby, you have to get a real job and cut
this shit. Huh? Am I hearing you right? I have to get another
job? Since when are you in charge of me? Oh, for the sake of the
baby. Okay, well, let's look at this. I have a prison record, so
that leaves out politics. And just about everything else. Okay,
how's about me working as a bouncer someplace, breaking my
knuckles for chump money, never have enough to be able to really
save anything, like for college for our girl, probably not even
enough to afford health insurance, for Christ's sake.
This is Donna being sensible.
I know! I can ask down at the McDonald's if they have any local
outreach programs and maybe give me a whirl at burger flipping.
A couple of years, and it's straight on up to manager, then
maybe ten more and I buy the place and they make us into a
rehabilitation story on 60 Minutes. Jesus.
It's like, we have a kid and reality suddenly goes flying out
the window. Can't have this stuff going on around the baby.
Okay, Donna, relax, I agree, hey, no problem. Honest. I keep
everything away from home, won't even talk about it, when she
gets old enough I'll tell her I have a number of different
businesses. We'll make something up. I'm in construction. How's
about that? I can see no trouble there. And maybe sometime in
the future I will be able to go straight, but not just yet. I
got to keep working out these various angles I'm into. The
timing's wrong.
She won't settle for that. She says something's changed. She
says she sees things differently now. She says I got to get
straight. Real soon. For the sake of the baby.
Then one day she's gone. And Jennie's gone. I go out, come home,
they're gone. My wife. My kid.
My kid. See, the important word here is my kid. Donna, she's
like everybody, she's got me all one color. She thinks I'm gonna
corrupt Jennie, like I'm gonna make her into a monster, as if
anything could sour that sweet baby, least of all me who loves
her. Hell, I want to spoil her awful. But Donna thinks I got to
drain all the color out of me that she don't like, all the old
James, that's what I need to do to fix things. Like after I do
that I'm still gonna be me. Fuck that. I'm what I am. One piece.
Good or bad, like it or don't. I won't be cut open, gutted like
a fish, stuffed and sewed up and told I'm better now. That's a
dead man. That's nothing. That's what all the good people would
like me to be.
So I stole my baby back. One good turn. I'm driving and thinking
and Jennie's looking around, flexing her little hands the way
kids do, smiling, happy. Thirteen months old and I haven't even
seen her for ten. Man, it's still like she just jetted in from
some place where they go on Star Trek, you know? Her eyes, those
eyes, right from some deep sleep, fresh out of the universe,
man, it's like they were washed in a magic pool that gives them
a shine nothing on this earth could ever take away. Yeah, sure.
But, like, this here is my kid, man, that's the difference this
time. She's gonna keep that shine in her eyes if I have any
fucking thing to do with it. Damned if I'm not going to make
sure she's treated right and gets everything a little girl
should have and doesn't ever want for a thing, never ends up
holding the short end like yours truly.
Donna's not always too bright. I wouldn't trust what kind of guy
she might end up with. I didn't care about her leaving me, I
mean, I was already getting sick of her. So that I didn't really
mind, though it pissed me off she was the one breaking it off.
After she took off with Jennie, she calls, finally, a couple of
days later. Okay, you want to split up, fine, I say. Oh, you say
you've got a restraining order and you're going to court for
custody and are going to keep me from having any contact with my
baby? Ahhh. Not so fine.
So we wait and wait and then we go to court and they say I can't
see her, can't see my baby girl. I'm deemed an unfit parent. Not
that I had any arrests or violations lately. The past was
enough. She talked about cocaine in the house and some other
deals I was involved with recently. Allegedly.
So the judge judged me guilty. What else is new?
And at first I let it go, said fuck it, even though I'm burning
inside, I let it go, for months and then one day I say no, I
can't let it go no more.
Jennie's not crying, even after an hour on the road. I figured
she would be, but she's not, seems happy as hell, cooing and
looking around out the window interested at things, guess she
still remembers and likes her Daddy, fuck you, Donna.
All I'd figured out at this point was I'd sneak her with me into
a motel someplace and then think about what to do next. What I
didn't think of was her shitting her drawers so quick. Then she
started crying. Okay, I find a CVS. Get the Pampers, pull into a
Burger King on the highway, check the lot out for State cops,
bring her with me into the men's room with the box of the
things, everybody smiling at me, nice daddy. Change her in the
stall, she's bawling and it's not real easy and it stinks, but
we do it, dump it, clean her up, put a new one on and she's
happy now, I get her a soft ice-cream cup, and we drive out
safe.
I'm in a rental. I'm not worried about being spotted because I
took it out on the primo credit card I'd been saving for just
such an occasion. It's a card copy, valid magnetic tape,
cross-checked social security number on the matching I.D.,
forged signatures, the whole bit. This inside guy at the credit
card company does them. I got turned on to the racket by a mafia
friend of mine. They do things right. Clean. With them it's
strictly business. My kind of people, except for the paisan
thing. They're a little bit... what I'd call exclusive.
Anyway, the card holder never has his card stolen, so he doesn't
think there's anything wrong, has no way of knowing I've got a
little vacuum hose attached to his account until the charges
show up at the end of the month. It's perfect. Plenty of lead
time. Just don't make any strange withdrawals. So I wasn't
worried about being tracked.
I'm pretty sure no one saw me going into the apartment Donna was
holed up at. That was a beauty too. This cop I'm friends with
found out about her case, got into the file and checked where
they relocated her. He owed me. I bailed his ass out of a touchy
matter once, eliminated a certain problem. He was sympathetic
besides, has kids and knows what cruel bitches women can be. I
cased her house from a hill half a mile away with binoculars. I
felt bad about tying up the old lady who was taking care of
Jennie while Donna was out, but it was just duct tape and
clothesline, and she wasn't all that old. I'm sure she was all
right. I wore a gas company hat and that fooled her. Jesus. Some
people are so dumb it's criminal.
Jennie sleeps, wakes up, cries a little, I give her this
pacifier I bought and she's happy again. I drive, and when it's
night I find a Red Roof Inn and rent a room. I got on glasses
and I'm wearing a Red Sox hat to cover my hair, I got my fake
I.D. and credit card, I'm not doing anything high profile, so
far so good, we're still okay, I'm feeling all right. I carry
her around to the room without anybody seeing us.
I put her on the bed -- she'd peed her diaper. I change it, and
she's real sleepy and not sure what's going on, so I put her
under the blanket and she seems happy about that and she's out
cold instantly, sleeping like a goddamned baby, you know, and so
I go out quick, just down the street to the liquor store for a
fifth of Jack Daniels. I'm gone only, like, less than five
minutes, and coming back I'm jumping out of my car running up to
the room, my hand shaking putting the key in, thinking she woke
up and is touching the electric outlet, smashing the little
glass in the bathroom cutting herself even though she couldn't
reach it. She's strangling herself choking under the covers.
I flip on the light and she's just like she was, little sleeping
face. I put out the light, turn on the bathroom light, take the
paper off the glass and pour a good long shot.
I sit there on the chair beside the bed looking at my baby girl.
She doesn't know what any of this means. She's innocent,
beautiful, a blank slate. I'm considering that I was probably
something like that before my old man got to me. I'm staring at
her and I know it's just me thinking but it's suddenly like
she's worrying in her sleep, and then I'm thinking tomorrow
sometime she'll look at me wondering what the hell's going on
here, and she's gonna wonder where her momma is and start
crying. And we'll be moving all the time, driving, I'll be
changing her diapers and trying to keep her quiet with
McDonald's and eventually she'll be crying all the time 'cause
her momma isn't there and I won't know what the fuck to do.
A streak of anger shoots up, from the liquor I guess, but I'm
suddenly feeling real mean about this whole thing. Something
flips over like a card you weren't expecting in a poker game, a
loser card. It seems no matter what, I can't ever get it to work
how I want, that's how it hits me. This anger rages red hot, and
I want to hurt her bad, hurt the baby, just for what I know it
would do to Donna. I hold myself in check then the room goes
dark, I don't know for how long. When it comes back into focus,
I'm afraid to look down, actually, for what I might see. But
she's there sleeping, peaceful, just like before.
That split second, I know something about my old man, about him
drawing the loser card, always, about the things he couldn't
ever beat or understand, and suddenly I get this weird rush of
sympathy, warmth for the bastard. At the same time I can feel
him inside my gut twisting it, telling me how good I'll feel,
trying to force me to do something I absolutely don't want to.
I'm shaking hands with the devil and I know it. He smiles.
Winks. My body's shaking. I suck in some air, sneer at him, say
"Fuck off, old man, I ain't you. Fuck off and die," and I drink
another one. Then I'm all right, I get back my control.
I stroke her head and pretty soon I fall asleep.
In the morning before dawn I call the cops from the phone booth
outside the motel, tell them where my baby girl is, tell them
she's fine, sleeping, then I beat it quick right out onto the
highway, drive west, try not to think. A thing's done, it's
done. Go. Just go. I love my baby girl. That's worth something.
I know it is.
William Routhier (wrouthier@aol.com)
--------------------------------------
William Routhier lives in Boston and has written for Stuff
Magazine, The Improper Bostonian, The Boston Book Review, and
Living Buddhism; his fiction has appeared in Happy and atelier.
He is currently working on a novel and a book of essays.
The Worlds of My Desire by Stephen Doe
==========================================
....................................................................
An active fantasy life isn't always such a healthy thing.
....................................................................
All Gaul was divided into three parts -- and I was about to lose
them all. Which was _not_ the way it was supposed to happen.
I was reliving the conquest of Gaul (the interesting parts,
anyway), and for a while things had gone my way. I had just
taken command, you might say, of the armies of Caesar, when the
Aedui -- treacherous brutes -- renounced their alliance, took my
base at Soissons, and prepared to drive me back to my -- I mean,
Caesar's -- province. All of which had my men mightily
disturbed, stoic Romans that they were.
The situation looked grim, but of course I knew what was to come
next -- the conquest of Gaul, and later, Rome. But I wasn't
interested in that part at the moment. As Caesar had once done,
I gave orders to march on Alesia, where word had it that an army
of Gauls was gathering.
And as I had wanted, I found myself caught up in the moment: the
desperate march of an embattled army, racing through country
filled with foes -- quite exhilarating, even though I always
knew, deep down, that I was never going to be in any physical
danger at all. When was the last time you were truly hurt by
your fantasy?
Things began to go wrong after we reached Alesia.
My army and that of the Gauls were of about the same size; that
made the Gauls reluctant to fight. Instead, they holed up in
their city, hoping that help would arrive. So far, I had
followed known history to the letter (even though that was not
really necessary). As my army laid siege to the town, I called
my lieutenants together, to prepare for the great battle to
come.
I had just had my headquarters set up -- a big, leather tent,
half my living quarters, the other half a workspace, mostly
taken up by a large table covered with maps of Gaul and recent
dispatches. A half-dozen of my aides and I were seated around
this table, discussing tactics, when a messenger rushed in,
still breathing heavily.
"There's an army of Gauls coming," he gasped. "And it's _big_."
I raised an eyebrow. I knew this army would come, but this was
sooner than I expected. "How many?" I asked.
"Almost two hundred thousand," he said, wincing.
One of the officers -- I didn't see which one -- gave a low
whistle at this figure. Mostly they remained calm, but I could
see by the flicker of their eyes that the messenger had
certainly gained their attention.
"General?" said the one seated to my immediate left.
"Yes, Marcus Antonius?" I don't remember if Mark Antony had
actually been there or not, in history, but it pleased my fancy
to think that he might have been.
"I hate to say this, but perhaps we ought to retreat. The men
will fight to their last breath, of course, but against so
many..." He left it there, clearly uncomfortable.
I frowned; it seemed out of character for Mark Antony to make
such a suggestion. (Though of course, he was a good general in
his own right, and was perfectly capable of counting.) At any
rate, it jarred my suspension of disbelief, and I didn't like
making mistakes like that.
So I sighed, and said, "That would indeed be prudent. However,
we have already been forced to retreat once. All of Gaul is now
in open revolt. If we retreat now, we have lost Gaul. And we
must not lose Gaul -- at the very least, Gaul must serve as a
buffer against the Germans. Not to mention that the Gauls have
shown themselves capable of attacking Rome on their own account.
Gaul must be pacified, and it must be pacified now." Then I
smiled at them. "Do not fear too much, men -- remember that
Caesar's fortune is with you."
The men filed out, unexpectedly cheerful at that pronouncement.
They really believed that stuff.
Now, what happened in real history was that Caesar's army
sandwiched themselves between two walls of earth, the inner wall
surrounding the city, which was still besieged, and the outer
defending against the Gauls coming to lay siege to the present
besiegers. After about a week of futile attacks, the Gauls
outside gave up and left, being relatively feckless and low on
supplies. The starving Gauls inside the siege then gave up their
chieftain, and Gaul was from then on territory of Rome.
Well, this time it didn't turn out like that at all.
My hackles went up immediately when I saw how quiet and
disciplined they were. In previous battles, I had seen them wild
and barbaric, reckless, quick to attack but also quick to run
away when outnumbered or outfought. These Gauls took their time
arraying themselves against our ramparts, waiting for the word
to attack.
Then all at once they charged us, silently. They usually
screamed bloody murder. Two hundred thousand screaming Gauls
would have been bad enough, but this was worse, somehow. The way
they charged, all in step together, and silent, like zombies --
truly creepy.
Then they opened up on us. With rifles.
Can you picture a barbaric Gaul, trousered, wearing torcs and
ornaments of gold, hair and beard streaming behind him as he
charges you -- with a fucking _rifle_ in his hands?
I despise anachronisms. Some people enjoy them, but God, I hate
them.
And now I have to admit that I am really no general. By the time
I caught my breath, half my army had been mowed down, with
hardly a Gaul injured. Even when a Gaul did go down, felled by
the occasional javelin or arrow, the others paid no mind, but
just kept firing. And just then those bastards _inside_ the city
charged out to join the battle. And yes, they had rifles too.
Up until now, I had done nothing really extraordinary, aside
from re-creating the battle in the first place. Now, I did what
I could to resist the Gauls, though the attack was so swift the
battle was already nearly lost.
I found that if I concentrated, hard, on a group of my soldiers,
the bullets would do them no harm, and they could attack the
Gauls. But there were still just too many barbarians attacking,
and I couldn't focus on all my soldiers at once. Here and there,
desperate bands of soldiers held out for a time; but there was
no victory to be had here, only a brave death.
Inside an hour, the battle was over, lost. I was the only Roman
left standing. All the others were dead.
The Gauls didn't celebrate, though. In fact, they made little
noise at all; they just slung their rifles over their shoulders
and began drifting away.
Except for two, who approached me, rifles trained on my
midsection. Not that weapons would do them any good against me
-- I had already been through the thick of the battle,
unscathed.
"Come with us," said one.
"Where?" I said.
"Our leader would meet with you."
"Your leader, eh?" I said, sardonically. I had a pretty good
idea who this might be.
After a moment, I said, "All right. I have a few things to say
to him myself." Outwardly calm, I had the desire to commit
serious mayhem on their busybody leader.
"Follow us," they said, and we left the field of carnage. It all
seemed to dissolve into mist behind us as we walked.
Gradually, we approached a cluster of tents -- one of the Gallic
camps, no doubt. It had been bright and sunny out, but as we
approached the camp the sky seemed to become more overcast and
gloomy. A perfect match to my mood.
We passed through the camp. I saw more silent Gauls about,
eating, drinking, some incongruously cleaning their weapons. As
sour as my mood was, I had to grin wryly at that.
The largest tent seemed to be the headquarters of their leader.
Two men, big even for Gauls, guarded the entrance. One of them
nodded to my escort as we passed within.
Two tent flaps had been pulled back to light the interior. There
were two more big Gauls, flanking a crude wooden chair. And
seated on this chair was a rather small man, clean-shaven
(unlike the Gauls), leaning back in rumpled tweed, eyes
twinkling at the sight of me, clearly pleased with himself.
I felt like decking him. Instead, I let my breath out in one
long, exasperated sigh, and said, "Dr. Friedman."
"Hello, Dan." Then he said, a bit melodramatically, "So, we meet
again!"
I couldn't help it; I had to wince at that awful old line. The
man just has no imagination at all.
The first time I met Dr. Friedman, I was building a city in
ancient Egypt.
I was being Pharaoh for a little while. I had begun at Cairo --
not actually an Egyptian city, but I wasn't being picky about
historical accuracy -- and passed through it to the road leading
to the Pyramids; I stood on the summit of the Great Pyramid of
Cheops for a long time, gazing out over the sand. I also saw the
Sphinx -- I didn't like that it didn't have its nose, so I put
the nose back on. Then I sailed down the Nile at my leisure,
down to Memphis, the most ancient capital of Egypt, then to
Luxor, and finally down to Karnak, sixty acres of the mightiest
temples ever dedicated to any gods. And everywhere I went, I
made Egypt look not as it does now, but as it must have in its
days of glory. I strained my imagination to the limit. And when
I returned to Upper Egypt, I decided to try building my own
city. Why not? It was my Egypt; it was my dream.
I assembled a typical complement of slaves and granite blocks
and architects, but I could see right away that building my city
would take about twenty years. Well, that wouldn't do; so I made
some of the slaves "super size," and made the others work much,
much more quickly than humanly possible. The city began to grow
before my very eyes.
By noon, I could see the outlines of my city. The giants were
stacking up great blocks of granite, and the other slaves were
blurs of motion, raising obelisks and covering every available
surface with hieroglyphics. There was going to be a great wall
around the city when it was done, with sphinxes guarding every
gate, temples and palaces faced with marble and filled with
gold, lush and intricate gardens crammed with statuary, and
beyond the city walls, to the west, solemn tombs suitable for
the greatest of long-dead kings. A fitting city in every way for
a Pharaoh, and one I would explore by evening, perhaps.
That's about when Dr. Friedman arrived.
He came dressed as an explorer -- khaki shirt and shorts, pith
helmet. Very similar to what I was wearing, really. I suppose we
both looked out of place, what with all the slaves running about
in their loincloths, and the overseers and architects in their
Egyptian gear, but I couldn't bear to put on the Pharaoh outfit
in this heat (I honestly didn't think of lowering the heat at
the time). This guy who just didn't belong was coming right
toward me. I supposed I would hear his story before long.
I frowned. When I bought the dream chip, I had been warned that
things like this might happen. "The Ultimate in Virtual
Reality," they had called it, and the implant almost lived up to
its hype. But, I had been warned, occasionally my subconscious
would spontaneously throw up images out of sync with my dreams.
Obviously, this man was such a character.
I watched all this from a seat upon a high dais I had made.
There were seats for maybe two or three people, and a low table
upon which rested a tray of suitably royal delicacies, and of
course my queen sat beside me, watching the city rise. _She_
didn't seem to mind the heat, royal outfit or no.
My new arrival walked right up and sat down next to me, without
even asking, which annoyed me to no end. "Hello, Dan," he said.
I drew myself up haughtily. "Who are you, to address Pharaoh as
a familiar?" I felt I had to stay in character, even with this
oddball.
He smiled at me, and spent a few minutes checking out my city.
Up close, I could see that he was actually a short, wiry guy,
with moist, brown eyes that seemed to bug out slightly.
Actually, he looked a little bit like me, even if you don't
consider the explorer outfit. "That's quite a city," he said,
finally.
"It will be."
"I'll bet the real Egyptians could have used a few of those
fellows," he said, pointing to one of my giants.
"They seemed to do all right on their own."
"I suppose they did at that."
"You know," I said, "you really don't belong here. So you may go
now." Brusque, I know, but it _was_ my dream. Besides, simply
dismissing out of place characters often worked.
But not this time. "Dan," he said, "do you know where you have
been for the past three weeks?" He said this in a very unctuous
tone -- like when a talk-show host tries to draw out a reticent
guest.
I was going to get tired of this guy real fast, I could see.
"I've done a lot of traveling. China. Paris. Mars. And now
Egypt, as you can see."
"No, Dan," he said, smiling sadly, "for the past three weeks
you've been in a coma at Massachusetts General Hospital. You're
suffering from dream-chip addiction. And it's way past time for
you to snap out of it."
"Says who?" I sneered. I hate being patronized by my own dream.
"I'm Dr. Friedman. I'm a psychiatrist. And I'm not part of your
dream, Dan. I'm interfacing with your implant, through my own.
Here, let me show you." Suddenly, the desert was gone, and we
found ourselves standing in a hospital room. Very dim, after the
desert, and hushed, save for the beeping of some medical gadget
or other. I turned and saw myself lying in bed, IV needle
dripping into my arm; a second Friedman sat in a nearby chair,
this one not in explorer khaki, eyes closed, head back in
slumber. Our dozing doppelgangers both had electrodes stuck on
their foreheads and temples. A very concerned looking nurse
stood nearby, monitoring a computer console.
I didn't like this scene, so I shut my eyes and began spinning.
After several seconds of this, I heard Friedman say, "What are
you doing?"
I stopped and opened my eyes, saw I was still in the hospital
room. "I was spinning. You know."
But I could see he didn't.
"Sometimes spinning is enough to trigger a change in the dream
scenery," I explained, suddenly feeling foolish.
"Oh. I didn't know that."
"You must not be much of a doctor, if you don't even know _that_
about using your dream chip."
"Well, to tell you the truth," he said, grinning sheepishly,
"you're my first case of dream-chip addiction."
"Wonderful. And I'm not any `case' of yours. You're probably
part of my dream too."
Friedman raised a finger, as though conceding the point. "But
even if I am just part of your dream, what harm is there in
listening?"
I thought it over. "All right," I said, finally, taking a seat.
"I'll listen -- for a while. I want to be back in Danopolis by
nightfall, though."
"Oh, of course." Friedman rested his chin in his hand for a few
moments, then: "Consider this, Dan. Ever since the invention of
the dream chip, people have been able to control their dreams,
almost absolutely. You can be anything you want -- a rock star,
a king, a private eye, anything -- and go wherever or whenever
you wish. And, you can do this for as long as you wish."
"What of it?"
"What do the ads say to you, Dan? You can have dreams more
vivid, more real than real life. `Dreams so real, you never want
to wake up.' " He paused for a beat, and then said, "And that is
just what we are finding, with people like you, Dan. You just
don't want to wake up."
"Well, it's great fun, of course," I said. "And I can see how it
can be addictive -- like TV, in my grandmother's time -- but
three weeks..."
"But just think of all the places you have been to already! When
is the last time you remember waking up, hmm? Tell me that, does
it feel like only one night, or longer? Maybe a lot longer?"
"Time can feel different here," I said. "And the implants aren't
supposed to allow more than eight hours of dreaming per day,
real time. Besides, I've never heard of such a thing happening."
"Some people can learn to override that restriction, sometimes
without even consciously wishing it. You have already shown you
are skilled in the use of your implant." He paused a moment,
then said, "Of course, they are trying to fix that in the latest
versions. That doesn't help you, I'm afraid."
"Then just shut it off, _Doctor_," I said, laying on the
sarcasm.
"That's too risky; the shock of it would be too great. They've
tried it before, you know. It could kill you. Certainly, you'd
be a real vegetable then -- worse off than you are now. No, all
I can do is talk to you, try to convince you to wake up on your
own."
"You have an answer for everything, don't you? But I'm not
convinced."
"Why do you resist the idea so, Dan? Maybe because deep down,
you sense it might be true after all?"
I smiled. "No, Dr. Friedman. It's because I am, as you said
yourself, skilled in the use of my dream implant." I stood up
suddenly, and clapped my hands together, and we were back in the
desert, outside my city.
Dr. Friedman looked dazed by the sudden transition; I had caught
him on the hop, as I intended. The queen gave a start at our
sudden appearance, but immediately covered it over with royal
hauteur. (As for the overseers clustered near the dais, they
said nothing, because obviously, Pharaoh can do as he likes.)
I continued, "I have seen my unconscious throw up some pretty
weird stuff while I've been here, you know. Frankly, you're
small potatoes, compared to some things I've seen." I called out
to a couple of nearby guards. "Take this man from my presence,
and don't let him come back." They leapt forward at once to
obey.
As they dragged him away, I heard Friedman shout, "Dan, stop
this -- you need help, listen to me -- "
I turned. "Doctor, listen to me. Even if, by some miracle, what
you say is true, I'm not ready to go back."
I ceased to listen as they took him away. I sat back down, next
to my queen, and watched my city rise in splendor as the sun
set.
Of course, I saw Dr. Friedman again.
On three other occasions, he appeared at totally inappropriate
times. (On one occasion, I happened to be in bed with an actress
whom I have often fantasized about. You can bet I was
particularly irate on _that_ occasion.)
And each time, he was more difficult to eliminate. I could never
again have a dream underling get rid of him -- he learned that
same invulnerability trick I learned long ago. So I had to get
rid of him myself, which frankly, meant killing him -- or at
least, his dream image.
To be honest, I've killed many times in my dreams, but this was
a lot more disturbing -- it's usually some monster I've dreamed
up, not a person. And he did plant the idea in my head, that he
was a real person, outside of the dreaming... just supposing it
_was_ true, did it hurt? But he never talked about it -- he just
became more difficult to vanquish.
He was learning, you see. That's something that also should have
disturbed me. I don't know why it didn't.
And now for the fifth time we met, in a Gallic camp after
battle, and this well-meaning putz had just cut down thirty
thousand of Rome's finest.
"Dr. Friedman," I said, "you are a real shit! I put a lot of
work into setting up that battle you just ruined."
"I'm sorry, Dan," he replied. "Though I have to say, it
interests me that you often re-create these detailed historical
scenes. Not everyone does that. To be blunt, a lot of people
just go for constant fantasy sex. You seem to have more
imagination."
"Hey, I go for the sex plenty -- you know that quite well," I
said heatedly.
"I know, I know. I just find your other fantasies interesting. I
suppose if I were here as long as you've been, I would construct
ever more elaborate fantasies as well."
I refused to respond to this.
He sighed. "Look, Dan. It's been almost six weeks now. Aren't
you getting tired of this?"
"No."
"Don't you miss your friends? Your family?"
I let out a sharp breath. "Even if I believed you... Those
aren't really good enough reasons."
"Oh, come on. I know you have a sister; she's been here to
visit."
"Yeah, maybe... but I'm not close with the rest of my family,
and my friends... well, I think they can manage without me --
Wait a minute! What am I doing, talking to some dream shrink in
the middle of ancient Gaul? Jesus!"
"Stranger things have happened. Now, what about your health?
Aren't you concerned about your body? After all, whatever is
going on here, you're a vegetable Outside. Would you like me to
explain, in full medical detail, what will happen to your body
if you spend months or even years in a coma?"
"Oh, please, not on my account. I was never a health nut
anyway."
"You're whistling in the dark, Dan."
"No, I've been thinking about what you have been saying. If you
really are just a part of my dreams, I will eventually wake,
after a normal eight hours of sleep. But if you're for real...
in a weird way, I'm free. I don't ever have to go back to that
life -- I can have adventure, excitement here, for a long time."
I shrugged, and asked, "Why give that up?"
"Dan..."
"See, I'm hopeless, Dr. Friedman. Might as well give up and move
on to some other, more promising patient."
Dr. Friedman was shaking his head slowly. "Oh no, Dan. We aren't
finished yet. Not nearly finished. You need even more help than
I thought." He sighed, and slowly rose. "You people just don't
listen to reason. You always have to go to an extreme."
It was time to end this. The Gauls hadn't bothered to disarm me;
I drew my short sword and prepared for combat.
But he didn't bother to arm himself. Instead, he looked to the
Gauls. "Seize him," he ordered.
Each Gaul beside me grabbed one of my arms. I twisted about, but
astonishingly, their grip held. I struggled some more. "Unhand
me!" I cried, as they forced me to drop the sword.
The Gauls ignored my orders. I struggled uselessly in their
grip. Slowly, it was beginning to dawn on me -- that I was
unable to either order or overcome these dream characters.
I gave up struggling; I could feel the blood draining from my
face, as I stared at the doctor in wonder.
He shrugged. "I've been learning too, Dan. And, of course, the
chip manufacturers have managed to augment my dream chip. The
world -- the _real_ world -- does not stop, simply because you
shut yourself off, Dan. I think I am as adept as you are, now. I
think I can make you leave this place."
"You said it was up to me -- you couldn't pull the plug, or
force me to leave -- "
"You'll leave of your own free will. It's just that now, I have
the power to help you more effectively. Now, if I can't bring
you to the hospital, I can bring the hospital to you." Now he
looked at the Gauls, who had changed into hospital orderlies
while my attention was on the doctor.
"Bring him," said Dr. Friedman.
He drew back the tent flap and stepped outside, and the former
Gauls dragged me out as I cursed them. Instead of being outside,
I found myself being dragged down a hospital corridor. I looked
back where the tent had been, and saw instead a pair of swinging
doors.
I looked ahead, and saw Dr. Friedman standing next to a gurney.
I shouted and cursed now, trying futilely to grab at passing
doctors and nurses, to at least get their attention, as the two
orderlies lifted me up and strapped me down. The straps were
drawn tight by my useless struggles; I could already feel the
blood to my arms and legs being cut off. They even pulled a
strap over my forehead, so I was as immobile as possible.
Then they pushed the gurney down the hall, fast. I still tugged
at the straps as I watched the hall lights passing overhead.
Finally, they turned right, and I heard a door being opened. I
was in a small, white, bare room, as far as I could see. There
was a bright, white light directly overhead. And that was really
all.
I heard Dr. Friedman say, "Leave him here for a while. Sometimes
this is enough to send them back." He and the orderlies filed
out of the room.
It was when I heard the lock turn that I began screaming in
earnest.
So, that is how I come to be here, in this dream "hospital."
(Yes, I know it _seems_ real -- that's the whole point, isn't
it?)
Now, I'm no fool, and as soon as I was strapped to that gurney,
I tried to end the dream program. Dr. Friedman said it is up to
me, when I leave, right?
Except it's not working. I keep trying to wake up. I _know_ how
to do it; it's hard to describe just how it's done, but I know
how. It feels like surfacing when you've been underwater. Except
I can't do it, now.
Something has really gone wrong.
Dr. Friedman says some part of me is still resisting the idea of
going back and is still stronger than my conscious wish to
return. I keep urging him to check my implant for a defect, but
he says that has already been done, and that they can find
nothing wrong with the implant itself.
Maybe he is right. Or maybe they messed up the implant and are
being quiet about it. Who knows, maybe he is just a sadist.
Or a dream character who has gained control.
He figured out, at any rate, that solitary confinement wasn't
going to do the job. So I get to wander this "hospital" at
least, and I talk to Dr. Friedman a lot, and I tell other people
my story. I keep looking for patterns, something that will get
me out of here. And to keep my spirits up I tell the story in
different ways, or I talk about other dreams I have had. I try,
at least, to be entertaining when I tell these tales.
But now that I have reached the end of the tale, I have to tell
you: I dread the next "treatment" Friedman comes up with.
Because he thinks I have to be broken before I'll let myself out
of here.
He's wrong. I want out _now._
I really do.
Stephen Doe (pspc@sunspot.tiac.net)
-------------------------------------
Stephen Doe is a resident of the Boston area, where he works as
a software developer. Before that he lived in New Mexico, where
he pursued a degree in astronomy. He is now at work on his first
novel.
The Camel Story by Melanie Dixon
====================================
....................................................................
Didn't your mother ever tell you not to talk to strangers?
....................................................................
Mike waited patiently for the door to slide shut behind him,
then looked around the cell. To his pleasure, it was everything
he'd imagined from TV and the movies. Gray brick walls; a dirty,
seatless toilet in the corner; flat benches on either side of
the cell; even a liquored-up bum asleep on the floor.
"The handcuffs, Mr. Welke," the cop behind him said.
Mike obliged by sticking his hands back out through the opening
in the bars. He tried not to wince as the cop pulled them back
further than they wanted to go. Instead, he looked over and saw
that one of the cell benches was occupied by a man who, like
Mike, wore a rumpled suit and tie. He was sitting with his
elbows resting on his knees and his face planted in the palms of
his hands. Hell of a night out for him, too, Mike thought with a
smile. As the cop removed the cuffs, Mike watched his cellmate,
waiting to make eye contact if the opportunity arose.
Once the cuffs were off, Mike rubbed his wrists like he always
saw on TV and started toward the unoccupied bench. The cuffs
hadn't really hurt him, but he'd never been arrested before and
wanted to make the most of the experience. Ever since the cops
had come to get him, he'd been taking mental notes; it was going
to make a hell of a story for his buddies back home. Guess what
happened on my Vegas trip, guys? First they cuffed me, then they
read me my rights, put me in the back of their squad car, booked
and fingerprinted me, and then I had to wait in a holding cell
until my brother posted bail.
Mike sat down and sighed, hoping his cellmate would look up.
When he didn't, Mike decided to take a different approach.
"So will they bring me a drink of water if I ask them?" he said.
He watched as his cellmate slowly raised his head from his
hands. The man paused for a second as he studied Mike and then
he dropped his arms to his knees. Mike noticed how bloodshot his
eyes were and how he really needed a shave. He hoped he didn't
look quite that bad, but he knew it was wishful thinking.
"Doubt it," the man shrugged. He ran his hands through his short
hair, which made it stand up on end. "In fact, I doubt you'll
hear from them again until someone posts your bail. That's my
guess at any rate. I don't make it a habit of frequenting jail
cells."
"It's the first time I've been arrested, too," Mike confessed.
"First time in Vegas, first time arrested."
"First time for everything, I guess," the man said. "My name's
Louis, by the way." Louis offered his right hand to Mike.
"Mike Welke," he said. He had to get up off the bench and lean
forward to shake it.
Louis smiled and then pointed to the sleeping drunk. "I'd
introduce you to him, but he's been sleeping one off ever since
I've been here."
Mike grinned and felt himself loosen up a little. He reached up
to undo his tie and was slightly surprised that it was gone --
he'd forgotten that the police had taken it away from him before
putting him in the cell. The truth was, he'd had a lot to drink
earlier and some of the details weren't exactly clear. When he
looked up again, he saw Louis watching him. For the first time,
Mike noticed that Louis was wearing a particularly nice suit,
wrinkled though it was.
"I feel like an idiot asking this," Mike said, "but that isn't
Armani, is it?"
"Hugo Boss," Louis replied. He leaned back and examined his
lapel and sleeves. "Looks like it's salvageable, too. Nothing a
good dry cleaning can't fix."
"Me, too," Mike added, taking a quick look over himself. "So are
you like me and just had a little too much fun tonight?" Mike
saw a playful glint appear in Louis's eye and watched him shrug.
"What can I say? I've been bad."
Mike laughed out loud but had to stop as soon as he realized it
hurt his now-throbbing head. Still wincing, he looked back up at
Louis. "I'm out here for a bachelor party, my brother's bachelor
party, actually. A bunch of us drove in from L.A. for the
weekend. It's been pretty crazy."
"Older or younger brother?"
"Older, but we're pretty close. You have any brothers or
sisters?"
"I did," Louis said. He inched himself back on the bench and
with his hands locked behind his head, leaned against the brick
wall. "I had an older brother but he died a few years ago."
"Sorry to hear that," Mike said. "Were you close?"
"Well, we were always pretty competitive growing up," Louis
explained. "Actually, there were times when I hated his guts.
It's too bad, really. There's not much I can do about it now."
"I guess I'm lucky," Mike said. "My brother and I get along
really well now. We had some fights growing up but not anymore.
In fact, I'm going to be the best man at his wedding next
month."
"That's great," Louis remarked, not changing his facial
expression. "I guess my brother and I never grew out of our
fights. He was quite a guy, though. A real clown."
"Good sense of humor?"
Louis glanced back at Mike and frowned for a half a second. Then
he shook his head. "Well, actually, he _was_ a clown. It was his
hobby since high school. He did kids' birthday parties, events
at the zoo, local store openings, that kind of thing. I always
used to hear, `How come you can't be more like your brother the
clown?' "
Mike chuckled until he noticed that Louis was staring at him. He
wondered if Louis hadn't meant it as a joke.
"You get tired of hearing that kind of thing after a while, you
know?" Louis added. "Ah, well, nothing I can do about it now, I
guess."
"Do you mind if I ask what happened?" Mike said carefully. He
saw Louis's face grow darker and decided he probably shouldn't
have pressed him.
"The police ruled it was a suicide," Louis answered. "No note,
but his wrists were slit. I don't know, it's sort of too
perfectly ironic, isn't it? A clown who commits suicide."
Mike remained stoned-faced, not sure how to react.
"Anyway, his death was sort of a turning point in my life,"
Louis continued. "I knocked around for a while in various places
and I've been in Vegas for the past couple of years," he said.
For some reason, this made him stop. He turned back to Mike,
studying him hard. "You know, Vegas is a pretty easy place to
get along in without getting into too much trouble. Mind if I
ask what you did to make them arrest you?"
This time, Mike felt he would probably be okay when he responded
with a laugh. "Well, I asked you about your brother so I guess
it's only fair," he explained. "I told you things got a little
out of hand. It was because we'd been drinking and gambling
since early this afternoon. Doing shots, cruising the casinos.
Anyway, we started at the north end of the Strip, and were
making our way down. We were pretty hammered by the time we got
to New York, New York, but it was a bachelor party so we weren't
about to stop. You know how all the casinos are connected to
each other by moving walkways down there? You can walk through
five blocks and five hotels without touching the street. We
crossed over to the Excalibur on those walkways to keep drinking
and gambling. Then my brother decides he wants to check out the
Luxor, so we grab a few more drinks and hop on the next moving
walkway. Now, right at the point where you are entering the
Luxor, there are these two animatronic camels that welcome you
to the casino and wish you luck or whatever. You ever seen
them?"
Louis nodded. "Big things, right?"
"Well, they're camel-sized, like something you'd see at an
Arabian Disneyland. Anyway, they move their heads around in kind
of a jerky, animatronic way and say stuff like, `Welcome to
ancient Egypt, where the slots are as loose as Cleopatra's dress
and the crap tables as hot as a summer on the Nile,' " Mike
said, making his voice deeper for the camels' part. "So there we
are, coming down the moving walkway, and we spy those things. We
start shouting at them and making fun of them and suddenly my
brother says that he wishes someone would just put those camels
out of their misery. I'm drunk enough, it's his bachelor party,
and the bottom line is, I take it as an invitation. I leap over
the handrail and start pummeling those two camels. And I mean
pummeling them! Left! Right! Left! People all around us stop and
stare. At this point my brother and his friends are on the
ground laughing hysterically, which only makes me wail on them
some more. It doesn't take long for a couple of security guards
to come over and wrestle me to the ground, and before I know it,
I'm being handcuffed and put into the back of a cop car. So now
I'm here, waiting for my brother to post bail, I guess."
Louis let a smile develop on his lips and nodded at Mike slowly.
"Well, like I said, I've been here a few years and I don't think
I've ever heard of anyone pummeling the camels at the Luxor
before," he offered.
"First time for everything, right?" Mike said. He pushed himself
all the way back on the bench and leaned against the brick wall,
not unlike Louis was doing. "Hey, Louis, you make it out to L.A.
much?"
"Actually, I have been thinking about moving there, a few years
down the road maybe."
"Well, let me give you my card..." Mike said, leaning forward
again. As he reached for his back pocket he realized that he
didn't have his wallet. He frowned. "Uh... the cops have all my
stuff. Do you have a pen or anything? I could write it down."
Louis shook his head. "They have all my things, too. Look, don't
worry about it -- "
"No, I'd feel bad if you came out and couldn't look me up. I'm
in the book, I guess, if you can remember my name until then,"
he said.
"Well, no offense, but it's a long time to remember a name,"
Louis said.
Reluctantly, Mike nodded. As he thought about what else he might
do, he brushed his hand against his breast pocket and realized
he'd stuck a couple of cards in there before going out that
evening. "Look at that, I've got one after all," he said as he
fished a card out and leaned over to hand it to Louis. "I put
them in there just in case I met any contacts in the casinos
tonight. I'm in commercial real estate and always looking for
good leads. I never thought I'd be handing out my cards in
jail."
Louis continued to lean against the wall for a few seconds
longer, staring at Mike with an oddly self-pleasing expression.
Something about it made Mike want to retract the offer, but by
the time he fully considered it, Louis had snapped the card out
of his hand.
"Good," Mike said, forcing a smile and trying to usher those few
unsettling thoughts out of mind. "So I've been going on and on.
Why don't I shut up and you can talk for a change? Let's start
with what you're in for."
"Punching a clown at Circus Circus in the face."
"Really?" Mike said brightly. "Now that's irony, huh? Here I am
for punching the animatronic camels at the Luxor, and you
punched a clown at Circus Circus."
Louis stopped and considered this carefully. "Well, there was
that and the fact that I stabbed him repeatedly with a steak
knife."
Mike smiled as he waited to be let in on the joke. His smile
started to fade, however, when Louis's expression remained
unchanged.
"The unfortunate thing is that this one lived and also, I
suppose, that I got caught," Louis continued. Slowly, he turned
toward the ceiling with a faraway look in his eyes. "See, it's
not that I have a phobia of clowns. I just hate them. I hate all
of them. Must have started with my brother, I guess, although,
they weren't able to pin that one on me. I was smart about that
one, more in control. Then there was that clown in Kansas City,
but he deserved it. I whacked off his head with an axe. A few
more clowns here and there through the years, not that I make a
hobby of this, and trust me, they always deserve it. I just do
it when it needs to be done and so far no one has bothered me
about it. Oh, and Mike, I'd certainly like to keep it that way."
Mike slowly felt himself start to slump backward. All the color
had drained from his face and he had no doubt now about the
veracity of what Louis was telling him.
"I'm just not big on clowns, sort of like you're just not big on
camels," Louis said. "It's really is... how did you put it?
Ironic? I'm thinking you understand, though. I'm thinking
someday you'll find yourself at a zoo or somewhere and there'll
be a camel and all of a sudden you'll just start pummeling him,
Mike, just like you pummeled the camels in the Luxor. I see that
in you, Mike, and that's why I'm telling you all this."
Louis stopped and smiled, still holding Mike's complete
attention. Then he raised his right hand and Mike glanced at it,
suddenly realizing that Louis still held his business card
between his thumb and index finger. The business card, with his
home, work, and cell phone numbers on it, not to mention his
address. Without it, there was always the hope that Louis
wouldn't be able to remember his full name. He even admitted it
would be difficult. But the card, Mike thought, well, that
changed things. As the true realization of what he'd done came
over him, Mike sat up and struggled to remain calm. He began to
try to figure out how he might get the card back while Louis
gently waved it back and forth in front of him.
Then Louis paused as if reading his mind, and then let go of the
card. As it began to float harmlessly downward, they each
focused their eyes on its slow motion descent. When it came to a
rest on the ground, it lay almost halfway between them.
"Who knows, Mike?" Louis said, looking back up at him. He held
Mike's gaze as he leaned forward on his knees, making himself
just a few inches closer to the card than Mike. "Maybe you and I
have a fine future scheduled together. You pummeling camels and
me stabbing clowns."
Mike hesitated for a moment, then broke from Louis's gaze just
long enough to gauge exactly how far out of reach the card was
for him. Seeing this, Louis flashed a thin smile and sat back
upright. He placed his hands on his knees as if deliberately
indicating to Mike that he'd given him the edge, and daring him
to go for it.
"Mike Welke!"
At first Mike thought the call had come from Louis. But he'd
been staring at his face the whole time and he clearly hadn't
said anything. The voice had come from outside the cell. Out of
the corner of his eye, Mike saw there was a cop just outside the
bars.
"Mr. Welke, your brother just bailed you out," the cop said.
"He's waiting by the station desk. You are free to go." The cop
sifted through the ring of keys on his belt until he found the
one he was looking for. He unlocked the door open and slid it
open. "Lucky for you, Mr. Welke, the Luxor said there was no
damage to those camels and so they aren't pressing charges. Just
don't go back in there any time soon, understand?"
Mike dared to steal only a quick glance at the cop before
returning his full attention to Louis and the business card.
Louis remained completely motionless, his hands still on his
knees. The business card waited on the ground between them.
"Mr. Welke, did you hear me?" the cop said. "Mr. Welke, you're
free to go as long as you don't go back to the Luxor."
Mike's eyes were still fixed on Louis. Slowly, he watched as
Louis raised his right hand up by his side and flexed his
fingers like a gunslinger, smirking at Mike the whole time.
"Mr. Welke!" the cop said, his voice much louder now. "If you
don't look at me and tell me you understand, I'm going to come
in there and crack you over the goddamned skull until you do. Do
you get it? Do you get it, Mr. Welke?"
Mike whirled around toward the cop. "I get it!" he yelled. In a
split second, he turned back again, but it was too late. In the
moment it had taken to acknowledge the cop, Louis's hand had
shot out and snapped up the business card.
Once he had the card again, Louis took a few moments to read it
and then smiled and leaned back against the brick wall. "Thanks
for the card, Mike," he said, placing it into his inner breast
pocket. "It was good to meet you. Do me a favor and remember not
to say anything about what we discussed. When I get out,
probably two or three years I'm guessing, I'm planning on giving
you a call."
Slowly, Mike dropped his gaze to the ground and turned away from
Louis. Without lifting his eyes, he rose from the cell bench and
brushed past the cop into the hallway, then stared straight
ahead as the cop closed the cell door, not flinching even as
Louis's deep laugh began. Mike followed the cop out of the
lockup area, the laugh chasing him the whole way. Then again,
Mike feared that laugh would be chasing him for a long, long
time.
As soon as Mike was out of earshot, Louis became quiet. He took
out the business card and looked at it for a moment. Then he
tore it up into little pieces that he let fall out of his hand
onto the ground. That one was the best story so far, ten times
better than any of the ones he'd told to the guys in here before
Mike.
They were all idiots, believing every ridiculous lie he could
come up with. At least it was making the time pass, Louis
thought. And he had no shortage of time. With his wife out of
town until Monday, there was no telling how long it would be
until his bail was posted.
Louis heard the door to the lockup area open and his ears perked
up. As he listened, he could detect two sets of footsteps
starting down the hallway toward the holding cell. Right away,
he knew one belonged to a uniformed cop and the other was
undoubtedly a new victim. Smiling to himself, Louis immediately
started coming up with his next story.
Melanie Dixon (mel@meldixon.com)
----------------------------------
Melanie Dixon grew up in Hawaii, graduated from Yale, and just
recently completed her first novel, Jules' Housmates. Her Web
site (www.meldixon.com) contains excerpts and a synopsis of
the novel, other short fiction, and links to other
e-zines that publish her work.
The Posticheur by David Appell
==================================
....................................................................
The wisps that allow us to retain our humanity are sometimes no
wider than a single strand of hair.
....................................................................
1.
----
Racino oversleeps; he did not finish the Marguerite plait until
late, and now already it is time to go to work. Of all days to
be tired. He will be on his feet for ten hours, and probably
both ways on the Transit as well. By tonight he will be
exhausted when she arrives. It will not be the way he wants it,
he can tell already. Not that it ever is.
He skips hiding the tube -- too tired, and too much else on his
mind anyway. He doesn't realize it's raining until he steps out
the door of his apartment, and goes back inside to get his hat.
Standing in the drizzle at the Transit stop, Racino feels his
body wanting to sag back into sleep, back into bed, back into
the darkness. The brim on his hat begins to droop, and it does
not do much to keep his head dry, either. He should buy a new
one, he knows; someone might ask why he hasn't, and what can he
tell them. Sorry, but what little extra money I have is going
toward plastic and thread? Hardly. It's one of the smaller
chances he takes, and if he's caught a warped brim will be the
least of his problems.
Inside the Transit he moves as far down the aisle as he can,
reaches for the plastic bar above him and removes his hat. Small
drops of water cling to the short fuzz on the top of his head;
he'd like to run a hand over it, to dry it off and, while he's
at it, check its length, something else he forgot to do this
morning. It's been ten days since his last cut, and only four
remaining until he must go again, though length is more
important than the interval, they all know. Nothing longer than
a half centimeter; a cut every fourteen days, regardless. It
hardly seems frightening anymore.
Soon the Transit is stuffed full, and Racino is pushed further
back. It's hot and stuffy, and the mood is hushed, like the
weather. Looking down at his chest, he counts the stops. At four
he begins to get excited; at five, he begins to get aroused.
Suddenly at six he has a thought: what if she doesn't show up,
what if she's changed her mind, or, worse than anything, what if
she's been caught since yesterday? Racino's heart beats faster;
his face grows warm. At her stop, seven, he hears nothing, like
a vacuum -- but then, he sees the side of her face as she comes
aboard. By the time the Transit is moving again he's calming
down, and she is standing sideways in the aisle near the front
of the vehicle, wet people crowded around her, but in Racino's
line of sight. A minute later -- Racino wonders if she too
counts to herself -- she turns her head slightly and his brown
eyes meet her blue. Neither of them smile, and their faces
remain blank. How are you this morning, Peter, he imagines her
asking; fine, thank you, and you, he imagines asking her in
return. Then, to confirm yesterday's signal and tonight's
meeting, he brings his hand to his mouth and coughs into his
fist, watching her carefully. She reaches up to remove something
from the corner of her right eye, and he coughs again.
After clearing security he walks for five minutes, down long
concrete halls that the rain will never reach. It's only 8:15;
he's already weary, and has to force himself to walk fast. At
his closet he puts on his work smock; while tying it in back
Jones comes along and, as if Racino wouldn't notice him anyway,
taps him heavily on the shoulder.
"Big haul out in the desert last night," Jones says, grinning
widely. "Six of 'em, holed up in some commune or something. Came
in early this morning."
"Good morning to you too, Jonesie," Racino says, straightening
his outfit.
"Yeah, yeah," Jones says, his head jerking to look down the
hall.
"So where are they at now?" Racino asks, as if he doesn't care.
"Huh? Yeah. The women, four of 'em, they're done already, shaved
slick as a baboon's ass." Jones' head jerks to the right, to
look down the hall in the other direction. "The guys, two of
'em, big as bulls. They just strapped the last one down a few
minutes ago."
"That so?" Racino says, reaching inside for his broom.
"Yeah, huge mothers." Jones continues to look over his shoulder
while scratching at his ear. "Derelicts, probably."
"Probably," Racino says, bending over for his dustpan. "Or
worse."
"Were, anyway. Gettin' theirs now." Jones laughs quickly, and
his head wavers back to look at Racino.
"So where they cuttin' em?" he asks.
"Two-twelve," Jones says, and starts to walk away.
Racino is disappointed -- his area stops at Two-ten, and
Two-twelve might have already been swept by the time he can get
there. He calls out after Jones, moving away down the hall.
"Jonesie...."
Jones' head jerks back around, nervously.
"Jonesie, have a good day, huh?" Racino tells him.
"Worthless derelicts," Jones mumbles, turning back around.
Racino carries his broom and pan down the hall and looks into
each of his five rooms. None has been used yet this morning, and
probably won't be for another half-hour, before the regular
Cutters arrive at nine o'clock. He wants to linger in each room,
if only a minute, to grab a sort of mobile nap. What he wants
most is to crawl up onto one of the tables and let himself sink
away. It would be so easy. But the conversation with Jones is
pressing on his mind.
From 210 he can hear cursing in the next room, and the sound of
electric razors -- Jonesie was right. Racino leaves the room and
turns right instead of left, and goes slowly past the doorway of
212, carrying his broom on his side, trying to make it
conspicuous.
"You!" someone yells from inside the brightly lit room, just as
he had hoped. Racino stops quickly and steps in.
"You. Where the hell have you been?"
He vaguely recognizes the Cutter who is shouting at him --
Bursley, or Bursty, something like that. He has on a blue smock,
a surgical mask and cap, and thin white rubber gloves on his
hands. He's holding a pair of electric shears, the heavy ones,
Racino can tell, and standing in front of the strapping table --
all Racino can see are the man's boots, heavy and dirty, with a
buckle on the side. The rest of him -- "Patients," they're
called officially -- is obscured by Bursley's assistant, but
he's there in the room, on the table, like a stone.
Racino acts taken aback by the sharpness of the question, and
looks down. He begins to mumble an answer. He won't explain that
this isn't his room unless he's asked. "Sorry," he says.
"I'd hope so," Bursley spits out. "Get in here and clean this
filth up."
Racino quickly begins to sweep. It is as good as he suspected.
Long hair covers the floor beneath the table, curly blond locks
and some straight, long brown. He could use it, certainly -- for
another plait, or the pin curl he has been thinking about. If
only he had his tube. These days he can fill it in five seconds,
and be in and out of the toilet before anyone could possibly
suspect anything. The yellow curls, especially, would lay
beautifully in a small postiche. He has to find a way to keep
them from going to waste. If only he'd put the tube up inside
him this morning.
His fatigue has been pushed away, and Racino's eyes roam across
the floor. He is careful not to look too far up, careful to act
dumb. Then, twisting his neck slightly in order to look
underneath the second table, he sees long, black strands, lying
scattered on top of itself like coiled string, one cutting after
another. His heart jumps. Pure black is rare, jet black, and now
there it is, waiting for him. Exactly what he wants.
He works quickly, sweeping around the first table, underneath
where they are cutting. By being thorough and fastidious he
tries to ensure that they will finish before he does. The Head
Cutter curses continuously, and Racino is able to sneak a few
glances at the Patient, grounded like a captured whale.
"What a mangy bastard," the Cutter says, throwing down a clump
of brown hair. Racino sees that the Patient's beard has already
been shaved away, and is relieved. His face is cut and bloody,
and it must have been a long, difficult job. Usually they
anesthetized them first, but sometimes they lash them down,
thick straps across the head and neck that they tighten
pneumatically, and rough them up for fun. Then they knock them
out in order to shave the head. Racino has found teeth beneath
the tables, chipped and bloody, and once even a piece of an ear.
This one they should be finished with soon.
A few minutes later the Head Cutter turns off his shears. He
peels off his rubber gloves, snapping them from his fingers one
at a time, and says to his assistant, "Why don't you finish this
dog and then come down to 220 -- Roach said there's a whore
they're bringin' down from Booking."
"We'll make her up nice and pretty," the other one says.
As the Head Cutter walks away he adds, "Ought to be a good time
for everyone."
Ten minutes later, just as Racino is scooping a large pile of
the blond and brown hair into a numbered bag, the second Cutter
shuts off his shears and steps away from the table.
"Have someone take him down to Cleanup," he says without looking
at Racino.
"Yes sir," Racino says, standing up.
He leaves the room and Racino is alone with the drugged Patient.
His heart suddenly begins to pound so he can feel it in his
chest, harder than on the Transit this morning, and even before
he has done anything he feels guilty. He rushes to finish the
first table, reaching all the way under where the Cutters had
been standing, and quickly bags up what he has. He would like to
keep it too, smuggle it out one day at a time, but there is more
at stake. There is not enough to fill the bag -- he'll probably
get a reprimand for turning it in low, but separating the black
hair would be impossible if he put it in too. Taking out a new
bag, one number higher in sequence, he moves to the second table
and begins to scoop up the black hair. It is smooth and fine,
and longer than he's seen in months, undoubtedly from someone
young. He places it in the new bag, then sweeps up the scraps
and dust, scooping it into the other bag and tying it shut. He
tries not to think of what he is about to do.
With the room clean -- he glances back from the doorway to be
certain, and takes one last look at the table -- he carries his
broom, pan and the two bags back down the hall. This biker, the
hippy -- was he stupid, or just unlucky? Racino drops the filled
bag at the Disposal Station; Kurnicki, fat and oily, his own
shaved head shaped like a squashed cone, hands Racino a receipt
and asks about the other bag.
"I'll have it here before the end of the day," Racino says,
forcing himself to sound calm.
"Better," Kurnicki says. "No fuckin' around in this sector."
"I know," Racino says. He didn't notice the bag wasn't
completely full. "There's one in 212 ready to ship." Who turned
them in, Racino wonders, and what did they get for it?
Kurnicki pulls phlegm up his throat and spits. "How fuckin'
wonderful."
Kurnicki inspects the closets every other afternoon, so he can't
stash it there. The floors are all concrete, the ceilings like a
warehouse. Kurnicki's room? He doesn't know if they inspect
there or not -- probably they do. Everyone is inspected,
sometime, aren't they? No one hides anything anymore. Racino
wants this, has been looking for it for months, since he started
sweeping here, it seems, and now he has to find a place to hide
it, somewhere he can get at it once a day and steal it away, one
tube up his ass after the other. He has to find a place for this
bag in his hand. Has to. He can't carry around a
partially-filled bag forever.
Suddenly he thinks: or can he? Maybe it would work. He has to
hand the bags over to Kurnicki in sequence -- the bastard
checks, every time -- but what if every time he got a new one,
he transferred the black hair to the new bag, and filled up the
one he already had? He'd have to carry one bag around with him
at all times, keep it in his closet at night, but it might work.
It might, and he can't think of anything else that will. Maybe
he's too tired. Maybe when he's fresh he'll think of something.
But for now he tightens his grip on bag 1018 and walks back to
see if the regular Cutters have started yet, feeling, for a
moment, full of light and air.
2.
----
Back at his apartment it's nearly dark, never soon enough on
nights like this. It was raining still on the way home, and
Racino is past weariness and dripping into fatigue. He'd skip
dinner and go straight to bed if she weren't coming. A cough,
something in the eye, another cough. He doesn't know who chose
it, or who she works for. What if he's caught? All he knows is
what he wants.
Drops run down the plastic windows, as if to wash away the murky
view they offer of the world. When the light is gone he's aware
of the sound of rain, and nervousness begins to bore into his
mood. Probably another hour, at least. Will she come in the
rain? How will she keep the plait dry? He's hungry but can't
eat. What a day this has been. The black hair, and now she's
coming over. There's a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, a
table, a bed and a picture. The bed, nothing but a cot, really,
is about twice the size of the table, and, when he's home, the
picture hangs above it. That's all, except for a sink and a
toilet and what he keeps inside it. The picture is of his
parents, fading more every year, hanging on the gray wall -- his
mother's long hair is slowly turning the color of dirty water,
and his father's teeth are a chalky, yellow gap in the middle of
his face. He remembers the way her hair fell down around her
neck, how his father's was long and neat, swept across his
forehead from left to right. That, he's found, is the best way
to try and remember them.
Ten o'clock. She's right on time, but still the bumps on the
door make him jump. Two, then a pause, then three. Bumps, that's
all they are, like it's her shoulder. Still it makes him jump,
just like the other two times.
When he opens it she hurries in without waiting to be asked.
Racino steps back, out of her way. She's his height, in a long,
dark coat, dripping wet, and a hat that comes over her face. She
removes her gloves before she looks at him with the blue eyes.
"Some weather," he says.
"I suppose."
"Can I take your coat and hat?" he says, trying a small smile.
She looks right into him. "No." Nothing on her face.
"It's good to see you again."
"What do you have for me?" she asks, glancing quickly around his
apartment.
He watches her for just a few seconds, then turns into the
bathroom. "In here."
She stands at the door while he lifts the lid off the top of his
toilet and pulls a dark green plastic bag from inside.
"How the hell do you ever flush that thing?"
"I don't," he answers. "I try to only go at work."
She huffs, but he ignores her. He unwraps the plastic and pulls
out what's inside.
"That's it?"
"Yes, that's it," he says defensively. He hands the Margeurite
plait to her, one simple braid of brownish-blond hair, about
thirty centimeters long. There's a clip on top, and it tapers
off on the bottom, just like in his book, except it's only one
braid, not two. Racino is especially proud of the clip, which he
was able to form from a plastic fork. She holds it in front of
her like a dead animal and inspects it.
"Well," she says finally, "it's not what the Major had in mind,
but I suppose it will do." He waits for her to go on -- what
else can he do? "Actually," she says slowly, "actually it's not
that bad. It's not full, like I thought, but sexy, in a way."
When she says it, she looks at him, and his face lightens for a
moment.
"So how is a person supposed to wear it?" she asks.
"Here," he says, digging into his bag. "I made this band." He
pulls out a thin strip of cloth, brown. "It clips on here," he
takes the plait out of her hand, "and then you wear it around
your head, like this." He brings it around his own head so the
braid hangs down the back of his neck.
"Oh," she says, in a way he's dreamed about. Then she comes
back. "OK, give it to me." She takes it, and opens her top to
put it in her bra.
"Wait," he says, gently. She looks up at him.
"Could you wear it? Please?"
She huffs again, but then opens the cloth strap and quickly puts
it around her forehead. She ignores him reaching up to help her.
"Come on," she says, agitated. "Let's get this over with."
Slowly, sheepishly, he unfastens the belt around his waist, and
unzips his pants. They fall down around him, and he waits,
embarrassed and still aware of it. Finally she says, nodding to
his underwear, "And those?"
He places his thumbs inside the loose band and peels them off
his waist. He won't look at her now. When they fall to the floor
she gets down on her knees, and Racino leans back against the
wall, the bare bulb prying through his eyelids. When she gets
close the brim of her hat bumps up against him and falls to the
floor.
She puts her hands on his hips so he can't thrust as much as
he'd like. His hands come down onto her head, and he feels the
tiny hairs which cover it, like felt. As he tries to push her
nose bumps up against his bald, shaved groin.
When she stands up she says, "Next time, how about something
bigger. Fuller. OK?" He nods. At least she does not spit into
the sink, like last time. After she leaves he remains standing
against the wall, pants still down, exhausted, listening to the
rain on the roof.
He has to find a way to get more.
Racino is laying in bed early the next morning, thinking. The
tube is only eight centimeters long, and about three in diameter
-- bigger than the first one, but still it took two months to
get enough just for the plait, small scraps he was able to glean
each day. A full wig needs more, much more. And he wants
something to give her again, too, as soon as he can.
He has saved a few plastic pouches, rectangular, with a seal
across the top. He's been thinking about where he can hide it --
working up the nerve, really -- and now seems the time to try.
It seems impossible, but then the tube once did, too.
She doesn't look at him on the Transit, which is just as well,
because he has other things to think about this morning. He
knows how he's going to do it, where no one will walk in on him
or watch from under the stall. Like the bag he carries around
all day, he's learning that the best hiding places are right out
in the open. So just before the end of the day, when he's
returned from the toilet, he kneels down in front of his closet
and casually lets part of the partial bag, a new bag two numbers
higher into which he's shifted the black hair twice during the
day, fall out onto the hallway floor.
When he opens the door his hands are shaking; he leans his broom
against the wall and kneels forward and down on his left knee.
By kneeling and appearing to reach toward the back of the
closet, he can keep one foot and two hands inside long enough to
remove his shoe. Quickly, frantically, he unstraps his shoe and
digs out the wrinkled plastic bag. Reaching back and underneath
for some hair, he wants to look down the hall but can't -- it
would look suspicious to anyone who glanced his way. The tube
juts and pinches inside him. His hands are shaking as he fills
the pouch and stuffs it back into his shoe, thinking he'd better
stand up soon. He lines the bottom of his shoe with it, leveling
it as best he can, and steps in. Restrapping it, Racino is up
and out of the closet, breathing hard, sweat on his forehead.
It is strange walking, like it might be on water, and he tries
to compensate so nothing appears strange. He's done it -- at
least, it's hidden. Now to get out. Will it be a simple pat
down, or something more extensive?
It's been three months since they removed their clothing and
searched through every pocket and seam. They're getting
complacent. They're supposed to look in the mouth, too, but
rarely do. And never down below. The pouch in his shoe is the
equivalent of two weeks worth, or more. Three months since the
last search -- does that mean it's time for another one, or that
the odds are on his side?
Walking toward the exit, he forces himself to regain control.
Jones walks in front of him, twitching and mumbling, unaware of
anyone. The tube has found a niche in which to settle, and the
plastic pouch seems smaller, too, but he knows it's there. He
feels like he did the day he smuggled the first tube out -- his
tongue is dry and his ears ring. It would be too suspicious to
put his shaking hands in his pockets, so he squeezes his fingers
together, and rubs them against one another. He doesn't know if
it will do any good, but he doesn't know what else will. He
keeps as much weight as he can on his right foot.
But the Security search is a simple pat-down, and
unenthusiastic. Kurnicki seems not to even recognize him. Before
he knows it Racino is out the door, like air coming out of a
balloon, a smooth, bald balloon, like his head, like all of
their heads.
He's excited again, and this time it's fresh. At home he takes
the pouch out of his shoe and removes the hair; it's mashed and
dirty, but still long, black and magical. Before anything else
he sits in his chair, puts his head back and dangles the hair
over his face, letting it lightly touch his nose, his cheeks,
and finally his lips. For a moment it feels like electricity
running across his mouth, like sucking on metal. He's aroused;
confused; wants to cry; doesn't want to care.
Racino leans forward and begins to comb out the dust and dirt
with his fingers, then with a fork. He fills his bowl with hot
water and adds detergent, and works small sections of the hair
in the water, then rinses. He lays the hair out on a towel and
looks at it. It still shines. It will be dry tomorrow and he can
begin.
He wants more.
The next day he puts a pouch in both shoes. If he's going to get
caught two won't matter any more than one, and already he cares
less, and wants what he wants more. Today she looks at him,
briefly, but he looks away. He wonders how she looked when she
had hair -- blond, probably, but she's the type to have had
brown at the roots.
Every day he avoids her and clenches the bag of black hair with
a fist. His face is flush when he rushes to fill each pouch, but
soon for other reasons. Risk is beginning to elevate anger over
his fear. At the pat downs he plays dumb, and feels hatred. He
seethes at his twice-monthly cut; they shave it away, but now he
believes that he's letting them, that it's his idea. In the
Transit what he wants to do most of all is punch out a window,
or smack the driver across the side of his fat head, or punch a
hole in the sky and jump away into cold, black freedom of space.
It's only been a week.
Each day he stuffs away as much as he can, and each night he's
up late, blankets and towels over the windows, washing and
combing and drying, the picture brought out and placed on the
wall. Halfheartedly he also works on another plait; he wants
what it can get, but it's not enough. Racino has a mane of black
hair now, like the tail of a horse. Often he dangles it over his
face, lets it drag lightly over his skin, sometimes playing with
himself at the same time. Sometimes he opens his eyes for a
second and glances at the picture, a simple mat in a plastic
frame, and his hatred for them climbs another step.
He's reading, too, the book she gave him. History of Ladies'
Hairdressing, by Mallemont, translated 1904. He has no idea how
it's survived, or where she obtained it. She brought it over the
first night she knocked on his door, the first time he'd ever
met her, the first time she showed him what he could get for
what they wanted. It's old, its pages yellow -- they tear away
if he's not careful as he handles them. He's read it many times,
always at night, and now he reads it again, more intently than
ever. He's trying to weave scraps of string into a wig net,
experimenting. It will not cling to a head the way elastic
might, but it is the best he can do for now. He'll put a thin
tie on it, to go under the chin.
She signals him on the Transit with coughs and dramatic wipes at
her eye, and he ignores her. He ignores her! He wonders about
her breasts, and about her name. He wonders where she takes the
plaits, if she gets more for them than he does. Once the side
door of their Transit jammed, and he had to exit through the
front. She bumped into him when he tried to pass. "Not yet," he
whispered through clenched teeth, and dared to bump back.
Racino spends two nights trying to fashion a knotting hook from
a plastic fork, holding it over a candle, warming, bending
carefully, warming again. He has four tines to get it right, but
each breaks under the stress. Frustrated, he kicks at the table,
stubs his big toe, and has an idea. He cuts his biggest toenail
down to the quick, carves it into a hook with the clippers, and
melts the fork handle around it. It works, if he's careful, if
he's gentle.
Single knots are quicker. Double knots and point knots are more
secure, he learns, but difficult without a solid hook. He works
half the night, knotting the black hair to the net, until his
eyes feel like rocks. He glances up at the picture above him, at
his mother's dark hair, and tries to recapture the way it lays,
the way it fell from above. The coughs each morning are
beginning to sound menacing, but he looks right back at her
without blinking, not yet ready, enjoying the small defiance.
One day Kurnicki searches everyones' pockets on the way out, but
doesn't think to look in the shoes. One night there is a knock
on the door. Racino sits at his table, everything laid out
before him, his heart jumping up his collapsed throat. He waits,
thinking suddenly about the straps, the razors, about what they
can do if you're caught. But it goes away. When he's sure he
sets the black wig aside and resumes work to finish the plait.
The weave is loose and the end is ragged, but the next morning
when she glares at him he brings his fist to his mouth and
coughs.
3.
----
Racino is pretending to work on the black wig when she knocks.
Two, then three. He's managed to fill in most of the net; there
are gaps, but only in the back, nothing he can't imagine his way
around. When he lets her in she is livid, shouting at him in
whispers.
"What the hell has been going on?" Spit flies when she speaks.
"Nothing," he says. He is calm -- he's getting good at it, at
masking what's underneath. But it's there, even more now. "I
just wasn't ready, that's all."
"Well, I was," she says, glaring at him.
Racino refuses to respond. Finally, she asks, "So what do you
have for me?"
"Can I take your coat and hat?"
"No. What do you have?"
He stands as straight as he can and looks at her. After his jaw
tightens he says, "Not until I take your coat and hat."
Something narrows around her eyes, until she says, "Oh, all
right. Here."
"Thank you," he says, reaching for them.
She is slimmer than he thought. Her shoulders slope gracefully
away from her neck, and the brown button-down fits her
perfectly. Heavy pants and leather shoes with a strap. The same
thing everyone wears, but he sees them on her in a different
way, as a costume, as something she wore just for him.
"Now," she says, impatiently, "can I see it?"
He glances at the small, brown ridge across her chest. "Sure. In
here."
Racino steps back into the bathroom, watching her over his
shoulder. He waits before removing the ceramic lid and pulling
out what's inside, but as he steps back to the hallway she's
already moving away from the door, toward the table, toward the
wig. Just as he hoped.
"What's this?" she asks, like a window has suddenly opened, like
unused air is flushing through the room.
"Oh, that." He follows her, slowly. "Something new I've been
working on."
"It's beautiful," she says, drawing out the word.
He steps behind her, and looks over her shoulder. "It's not
quite finished yet, of course."
She picks it up. "But it's beautiful already," she says, holding
it like it's electricity. "It looks finished to me."
"Thank you," Racino says. "Tonight, though, I have this for
you." He holds out the plait for her to see, which she looks at
only for a second. She returns to the black wig, which she's
kneading softly, massaging in her hands. She rubs it against her
face.
"But I want this." She looks at him. "Please, Peter."
His face flushes. They've never used names before, let alone the
first. He didn't even know she knew it. He didn't know anyone
did.
"I'm sorry," he says after a pause. "I'm flattered, but I want
to keep that one for myself."
"Oh, Peter, please," she coos, and begins to kneel down before
him. No, he tries to say, but already she's digging into his
pants.
"No," he says again. "For this," and again tries to show her the
small, brown plait.
"I've had those," she says, glancing up at him with big eyes. "I
want the wig." By now his pants are open and he's already hard,
unable to control it.
"No!" he says, throwing her hands off his legs.
She looks back up at him, hurt. "No," he says, quietly.
"What then?" she whispers. "What?"
He's looking down at her but doesn't know how to say it. His
pants have fallen down around his ankles, and he suddenly feels
guilty.
Before he says anything she reaches down and unfastens her own
pants, and quickly peels them down around her knees. She moves
away just a bit and turns around, still on her knees. Then she
puts her head down to the floor and says softly, back and to the
side, "Go ahead."
Racino looks down at her, a vacuum again filling his ears, like
a dream. His jaw is unclenched now. His knees are weak.
Everything seems reduced to what's right in front of him. One
quick step and he could be behind her. And then in. Go ahead,
she said to him.
Straining. Throbbing. Resisting. "No."
"Please," she moans, deeply.
"No," he says again, and begins to pull up his pants.
She waits, but finally gets up on her knees, slowly, and then
stands. Without a word she pulls up her pants and then looks at
him, her lips pressed tightly together.
Racino looks at her, right in her face, and says, "That's not
what I want."
"Well then, what?"
"Here," he says, quietly. "Sit over here." He points to his
other chair.
Her face is tight again, her eyes again small. Just for an
instant she shakes her head, but then sits behind his table.
Racino picks up the black wig and opens it from the bottom.
Spreading the flimsy string net, he lowers it over her
bony-white scalp. His hands are shaking, and his erection rubs
up against her through his pants.
It fits about as well as he expected, but that doesn't matter.
When it's in place he untucks the tie strings and, from behind
her, reaches down around her neck and under her chin, and ties
them in a bow. Finally he picks at the dry hair, rearranging it
and covering the gaps. He moves from behind her and sits on the
other side of the table.
She reaches up and pulls the side of the wig so it falls down
her neck and in front of her shoulders. Then she looks at him
and smiles.
After he stares at her for several minutes he says, very
quietly, "What's your name?"
"What do you want it to be?"
"No," he says. "What's your name?"
She smiles again, and then says, softly, "Brenda."
"Brenda," Racino says softly. He looks at her, studies her, for
a long time. She lets him, smiling back occasionally, fingering
the hair on her head, holding it to her nose and lips, letting
it rub against her cheeks.
Finally she says, slowly, "I need to get going, Peter."
"Yes," he says, breaking his gaze. "I guess you do."
She stands up with the wig on. "Thank you," she says, beginning
to untie the bow under her chin.
"Yes," he replies softly. She slides the wig off her head as he
reaches out to take it; suddenly her face changes and she tries
to lurch away. Racino gets a hand on the wig, but she's already
pulling.
"What are you doing?" he says. "You're going to damage it!"
"No!" she says, her voice suddenly loud. "It's mine."
"No it's not," he says, shocked.
"I did what you wanted."
"No, that's yours." He nods toward the plait. "This stays here."
"No!" she says, pulling more, shaking her head. She pulls
harder, and the string net rips out of Racino's hands. He's left
clutching a handful of hair, and she's left holding the broken
net, gasping.
She throws her piece back at him. "Fix it!" she spits. "Fix it
by tomorrow!" She glares at him. "Or else."
"Or else what?" He glares back at her, for the first time ever.
She pauses and says, suddenly calm and quiet, "Or else we'll
find someone else, Racino. Like we found you. It's that simple."
He's clenching his fists; his arms drop slowly. A piece of the
wig tumbles to the floor. The room is drifting away, and his
vision begins to cloud over, without a fight, like a loosening,
like the way plastic windows look instead of glass, like the way
they took away their pictures, their reflections, their very
selves. It's too much, all his anger with no place to go,
nothing to strike at, nothing to hold on to but a plastic bag,
ten hours a day. Brenda. That's not what he had guessed.
Jennifer, maybe, or Melanie. He should have gotten a new hat. He
remembers the sound of rain on his roof, the way it feels to
walk on water.
"Good night, Racino," she says flatly, picking up her coat and
hat. "I will see you tomorrow night."
He stands there after she leaves, until he picks up the two
pieces of the black postiche. He sets them on his table and sits
in his chair, staring at them until he falls asleep.
On the Transit the next morning she gets on and stands backward,
looking right at him. Racino is in back, staring through her
when she brings her finger to her eye, when she coughs, even
when she wets her lips. She tries them each again, one more
time, but he keeps her out of focus, looking beyond her, to
what's after her. She turns around, shakes her head, and stays
that way. At his stop she departs ahead of him. It's never
happened before, always she stays on and rides away. He sees it,
but he's back in a vacuum, separated from the world, the sound
of nothing ringing in his ears.
At the entrance she breaks away to the left. The metal detector
quietly clicks; in the corner he sees her speak to Kurnicki, and
then he's swallowed into the long hallway. Of all people, he
knows what they can do to you. He arrives at his closet; by now
a Security team will already be knocking down his apartment
door. He ties his smock, nodding nervously to Jones; they'll be
into the plumbing, probing spigots and drains. Racino closes his
closet door and starts to walk again down the hall; he imagines
a sledge making the first hole in his gray plaster wall, shaking
the building. When he rounds the corner Kurnicki is coming
toward him; Racino clutches the partially-filled bag and stops,
thinking of the illicit picture of his parents that would now be
bouncing up off its hook. His veins puff up as he makes a fist
and clenches his jaw. "Racino," Kurnicki barks in a gruff, ugly
voice, dark hair twisting around and around in its frame,
falling down, tumbling toward Racino's mind. He knows exactly
what they can do, sees it all the time, wakes up at night
thinking about it. "There's a holy mess in two twenty-six."
Kurnicki allows a thin, quick grin. "Make sure you get it all,
huh?"
David Appell (appell@usa.net)
-------------------------------
David Appell is a freelance writer determined to exist outside
the corporate paradigm. His work has appeared in Audubon, The
Seattle Review, Sycamore Review, Hawaii Review, and other
magazines. He currently lives in central New Hampshire.
FYI
=====
Back Issues of InterText
--------------------------
Back issues of InterText can be found via anonymous FTP at:
On the World Wide Web, point your WWW browser to:
Submissions to InterText
--------------------------
InterText's stories are made up _entirely_ of electronic
submissions. Send submissions to .
For a copy of our writers' guidelines, send e-mail to
.
Subscribe to InterText
------------------------
To subscribe to one of these lists, simply send any message to
the appropriate address:
ASCII:
PDF:
Notification:
For more information about these three options, mail
.
....................................................................
The electrons in this magazine are packaged by weight, not by
volume. Some settling may occur during shipping.
..
This issue is wrapped as a setext. For more information send
e-mail to , or contact the InterText staff
directly at .
$$