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InterText Vol. 6, No. 6 / November-December 1996
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Contents
FirstText: Double Sixes... .......................Jason Snell
Short Fiction
When Something Goes...............................Neal Gordon
Come With Me....................................Duane Simolke
The Web.........................................Russell Butek
Gone..............................................Craig Boyko
....................................................................
Editor Assistant Editor
Jason Snell Geoff Duncan
jsnell@intertext.com geoff@intertext.com
....................................................................
Assistant Editor Send correspondence to
Susan Grossman editors@intertext.com
susan@intertext.com or intertext@intertext.com
....................................................................
Submissions Panelists:
Brian Byrne, Susan Grossman, Rod Johnston, Pete Jones,
Morten Lauritsen, Jason Snell, Paul Tekverk
....................................................................
InterText Vol. 6, No. 6. 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 intact. Copyright 1996, Jason Snell.
Individual stories Copyright 1996 their original authors.
For more information about InterText, send a message to
info@intertext.com. For writers' guidelines, mail
guidelines@intertext.com.
....................................................................
FirstText: Double Sixes... and Lucky Seven? by Jason Snell
=============================================================
This issue marks the end of our sixth year publishing InterText,
dating back to a time when nobody had heard of the Web, let
alone had enough time to get sick of the phrase
www.something.com.
In many ways, this has been the toughest year of InterText since
the first one. Everyone involved with the magazine has been
pulled in countless directions at once, and it's been a minor
miracle that we've managed to release our requisite six issues
during the calendar year of 1996 -- to which this issue, which
is being turned loose on the Internet on the penultimate day of
1996, can attest. We made it, but it's been a tougher struggle
than it's ever been before.
That said, I also need to recognize that we couldn't have done
this without the help of our new volunteers, who have assisted
in evaluating story submissions and even proofreading advance
copies of issues. Without them, we might not have put out those
six issues, and even if we had, the quality level wouldn't have
been as high as it has been.
In the coming year, it's still my intention to put out six
issues of InterText, and have them appear every two months as
we've been doing since 1991. But depending on how it all goes,
we may be forced to shift gears and look at a different
production schedule. In past years, each InterText issue has
provided five or six short stories, but this year we've been
hitting the bare minimum of four stories with regularity. If it
would make our jobs easier and improve the quality of InterText
to start putting out issues on a quarterly basis, that may be
what we have to do. I hope it doesn't come to that -- after all,
I used to dream of putting out eight or 12 issues of InterText
in a year, and never considered cutting back to four.
But times have changed. I only have to look at the state of
Quanta, the fine Science Fiction magazine that in many ways led
to the creation of InterText. Dan Appelquist, Quanta's creator,
is still working on his magazine, but we haven't seen an issue
of Quanta since July of 1995. I sympathize with Dan, because I
know just how hard things have been for me. It was easier for us
all when the Internet was younger and we were all college
students.
As I write this, 1996 is about to end. I know that 1997 will
bring more wonderful stories that InterText will be able to
bring to thousands of readers on the Internet. I don't know if
1997 will also mark a rebirth for the magazine, if we'll keep
plugging along like we have been, or if we may have to scale
back some. But we'll be here. And I'm glad that you're along for
the ride.
--
If you're interested in lending a hand with InterText -- whether
as a story evaluator or proofer -- drop a note to
jsnell@intertext.com.
When Something Goes by Neal Gordon
======================================
....................................................................
People always talk about family being important. When a part of
it goes away, you realize what that really means.
....................................................................
A spider's web floating in the air lands, ear-cheek-nose, across
my face. Instinctively, I close my eyes and reach for it. My
mother told me when I was seven that spiders put out the little
filaments like parachutes, lots of them, until the wind catches
them and the spider is picked up and transported. She called the
strands gossamers. "Angels collect the little strings and sew
them into wings," she said. "They're the thread of angels." We
were in the garden looking at her roses and azaleas and a silk
thread had drifted into us.
She reached out with the steak knife and cut off a bachelor's
button for me. "Now you don't ever have to get married," she
said, calming my fears about being asked to a girl's birthday
party.
I'm the first one home. Sarah won't get in until tomorrow.
Funeral's day after. I grew up in this house. Sarah grew up in
the old one in Des Moines. I still have a room here, somehow,
even after nine years. The front door's not even locked. Who's
got Sam? The place seems odd without her barking.
I drop my bags inside the door, leaving it open to air the
house, turn and go back out. I should go by and see Mrs. John,
thank her for calling me. Ask about Sam. I walk out and across
the street, past Jerry and Alice Satory's big yard to the tiny
green house. I knock, loudly.
"That you, Ty?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Come in, come in," Mrs. John calls from behind the front door
screen.
"Nice to see you again," I say, walking into the living room,
touching her arm slightly as I pass. Her flesh is very soft. She
points to the wingback chair and I sit in it. The radio plays
the baseball game.
She is a big German woman. Her vision is getting worse every
year -- I know from the writing in the birthday cards she still
sends me with two dollars in them. The same two dollars I've
gotten every year since we moved here when I was six. Now, at
twenty-nine, I wonder how many more years she'll be sending
them.
"I wanted to say thanks for calling," I start, but she puts up a
hand to me. She was my mother's best friend.
"I baked a pie for you. Don't let me forget it."
"Thank you," I say, looking at the threadbare gray carpet of her
living room. This heat, without air conditioning, and she baked
something. I look up slightly, seeing her knee-high stockings
over those big legs that aren't very sturdy. "Would you like to
ride with us to the funeral?" I ask.
"No, that's for you kids. Family, you know, just family," she
says leaning forward, her hand on her knee. She blushes a bit,
the old rose growing back into her cheeks as the fan sweeps the
air past her, moving her hair. She tucks the loose hair behind
her ear as delicately as if she were a girl of sixteen.
"You're family," I say, quietly.
"I'll go with Tom Brodie," she says. For a moment, no one speaks
and I'm struck with a memory of sitting on her back porch,
listening to her tell me about her late husband and how he used
to play baseball for the St. Louis Browns. Third base. She
showed me his old glove and let me put my hand inside. It was
hard and stiff, but it felt like baseball, and all my ideas of
it. He had big hands.
She taught me how to throw a spitball. How to line up the seams
and scuff 'em with your glove and work spit into that place so
the ball would just sail.
"Sarah's coming in tomorrow. It's just a drive for me, so I came
on right away after making arrangements."
She settles back into her chair with a sigh. "I've been sitting
here all day, listening to the game and remembering. Pat had the
most beautiful hollyhocks in town, you know. We used to sit on
that little patio back there and have a drink and listen to the
locusts." I can remember leaning out the back door and asking
Mom if it was okay for me to go to the movies, or to the park,
or downtown. Watching the two of them split a beer. And that
electric noise of the cicadas in the trees.
Later, I'm sitting in the bathtub. It's an old iron one, with
curled feet under it and a body about three feet deep. Full of
hot water. I'm reading the latest letter from Anne's lawyer.
Sarah's acting as mine. It's about division of marital property.
There are two lists; things she thinks are hers and things she
thinks are mine. Everything has a dollar amount next to it. The
rest of the stuff is up for grabs, I guess. I'm supposed to
decide what I want. I really haven't had much say in things so
far. She left, so she's handling everything. It's not her fault
that it won't, didn't, work out.
I close my eyes and lean back, soaking. Mom would tell me to get
out of the tub -- it's thundering outside. "Water is a great
conductor," she'd say, leaning in the door, rolling her eyes.
I'd be embarrassed that I was talking to her from the bath, and
she'd laugh and come in and sit down on the toilet and keep
talking. Mom never saw me as anything but her youngest child.
None of us was very private. It's one of the things Anne had a
hard time adjusting to. I listen to the rain for a minute.
I can remember standing on Sarah's balcony atop the back porch,
one night when I was fourteen. It was summer and Sarah was in
law school and I had taken over her room. I was wearing
headphones at about two-thirty in the morning, listening to a
radio station that doesn't come in during the day. There aren't
many good stations up here, but at night you get more of them.
It helps that we live on top of a hill.
I was looking out over the backyard, past the fence and over
neighbors' backyards down our block and up the hill of the next.
All the yards were laid out under the moon. At first I could
barely see the heat lightning way off north. It grew slowly, and
I could only see the effect of the black clouds overtaking the
bright stars. It was like the stars were being turned off. When
I could hear the thunder over the music, I counted, under my
breath, between the sight and the sound. The storm came in and I
went back inside and lay in my bed watching the lightning,
hearing the storm's voice and thinking about Sarah's being gone.
It's almost midnight when I call Annie.
"Hello, Anne?"
"Mmmm... Tyler?" I woke her up.
"I shouldn't have called."
"It's late. What's the matter?" Her sound is thick, syrup.
"My mother died."
"Where are you?" I know her eyes open in the dark, wide.
"At Mom's house. Home."
"Are you alone?"
"Just me and the house. Even Sam's at the kennel."
"You shouldn't be alone." Her voice is gentle.
"It's okay. I just thought you should know."
"You should have called me, I'd have gone with you."
"Would you?"
"Yes," she says, but it's a very quiet yes. A hard-to-admit yes,
a late-at-night-only yes. Like something that's covered with
tissue paper but you can still tell what it is. We both hear it.
I climb into my old bed, the bed I grew up in. Twin beds are big
enough if there's only one person in them. I'm used to a
queen-sized, but the only queen-sized is Mom's. I'm okay in
here.
When I get back with Sam from the kennel, Sarah is sitting in
the living room. Sam looks at her and turns towards the kitchen.
The dog never did like her. I start for a second realizing just
how much Sarah looks like Mom: thick black hair and deep laugh
lines. Mom was more relaxed, though; Sarah is stiffer. Mom would
be sitting back in the chair, but Sarah sits on the lip, with a
print cotton skirt over her knees. "The front door was open, so
I just came in," she says, getting up to hug me.
"It's your house as much as mine." It feels nice to be hugged.
"We need to talk about the house and everything, don't we?" She
pulls back some, like Dad always did when it was time for a
talk.
"Yeah, I guess so. Mom wanted us to divide things ourselves if
we could. If not, she left a list."
"Well, you're in charge, she never talked to me about it." She
begins to guide me toward the front door. "Let's go for a walk,"
she says. "I don't want to be in here." Outside, she takes hold
of my arm and we cut across the yard, heading up the hill toward
the Presbyterian Church. We don't say anything for a few
minutes.
"Do you want the house?" she begins.
"Do you?"
"No, but I thought we could sell it." We're walking past the
Dean's house. Its blue Victorian trim looks freshly painted.
It's a fine house.
"I don't want to," I say without looking at her. There's been
some work done around the eaves.
"What are you going to do with it? I mean, especially now that
you're divorced?" I wince and my eyes move down the house.
"I'm not divorced..." The basement windows haven't been painted.
"And I know you could use the money." A green hose snakes away
from the water spigot.
"It's my house..." It moves through the grass, coiling around
the Japanese maple.
"I know, but let's try to be reasonable. You need to think about
what you want." She tugs on my arm, but I can't seem to pull my
eyes from the garden hose. It ends in the flower bed. The water
is running over johnny-jump-ups and peonies and mums. You
shouldn't water flowers in direct sunlight. It can kill them.
You've got to be careful with things like that. "Now that the
restaurant is popular, you can't live here, and you can't keep
the place up otherwise."
We sit on the hill of the Presbyterian church. it's the highest
point on our end of town. We used to come here when we were kids
and watch the fireworks. They always mowed the lawn just before,
and you could smell the freshly cut grass, feel it poking the
back of your legs through the blanket. The sky would be full
with exploding stars and M-80s that you felt in your chest a
split second before you heard them in your ears. When it was
over, the sky looked out-of-proportion big and the stars were
dull as you waited for one more volley. The sky was huge. I lean
back in the grass.
"So you want the silver and the china?" I say, feeling like a
game-show host instead of a grieving son. And the rest of that
on a Spiegel gift certificate, Ron. I chuckle at the thought,
and Sarah looks at me.
"I think we should keep them together." She spreads her skirt
over her knees.
"I'll take the round table, and the chairs." I feel a little
queasy.
"Do you want the sideboard?"
"Not particularly," I say, getting up. "Let's go back."
From a block away I see the car in the street and stop dead. I
helped her pick it out a year ago; I should recognize it. Anne's
here. It takes a moment for Sarah to figure it out. "What's she
doing here?" she asks.
The front door is still open when we get there. "Annie?" I yell
out. No answer. Her stuff is on the stairs, though. She brought
an overnight and there is a clothing bag hanging from the
railing. I go upstairs, expecting the bathroom to be closed.
It's not. "Check the back patio," I yell down to Sarah. I turn
into my room and there are American Beauties on my neatly made
little bed.
I walk back downstairs just in time to see Anne coming out of
Alice Satory's backyard, azaleas in hand, still talking and
waving back. I'm struck by how good she looks, her strawberry
blond hair loose and a yellow skirt flowing around her legs.
Alice's yard is lined with dark evergreens along the back and
Anne seems highlighted against them. Alice and my mom would take
a wheelbarrow out there with buckets and gardening tools and
pick the raspberries and strawberries and huckleberries that
grew between the trunks of the trees. I can remember seeing
Mom's backside sticking out between the trees.
Anne gives me a hug and a small kiss and I squeeze her a moment,
remembering how nice she feels. It's been a couple of months
since we've seen each other. The only real separation since we
met nine years ago. "Where's Sarah?"
"Out back," I say, starting to let go, but she pulls me closer.
Into her neck, I mumble, "Thanks for--"
"Sssshhhh. You're still my husband." Sarah comes back in and she
and Anne exchange nods. They used to be close, like sisters
maybe. Sarah's my lawyer now, though, and she turns up the
stairs.
"Can you give me a hand a moment, Anne?" she says over her
shoulder.
"Sure," Annie says, backing away from me without looking away.
Her free hand catches the banister perfectly, and she slowly
turns up the stairs. The azaleas are for Sarah's bed, I guess.
I stand, listening at the bottom of the stairs as they walk down
the hall. "I didn't think you'd be coming," Sarah says.
"I thought I should."
"For him or for Mom?" I hear Sarah as she closes the door to
Mom's room. Without really thinking, I walk into the living
room, losing the conversation for a moment. The house used to
have steam heat and there are these round grates between all of
the floors. We're not a very private family. I stand under the
one to the bedroom, looking out the front window at the street
and listening to them upstairs.
"Well, I don't think it's very decent of you to come here,
knowing he's upset about the divorce," Sarah says.
"We're not divorced," Anne says. A green pick-up truck passes.
Looks like Moraine's.
"Then what are all of those letters I keep getting from your
lawyer about?"
"I'm not sure about the whole thing." I look up, wanting to read
Annie's face. There are silver cobwebs in the grate.
"This is a damn good time to be unsure, after you've screwed
him."
"Why are you suddenly acting like you care about him?" I hear
Anne's voice rise like when we fought about having children and
when she told me she'd slept with my ex-friend Dodge.
"Because he's my brother and my client, and I won't have you
come here and upset him any more." I feel sick with the memory
of Sarah protecting me. When I was ten she pulled two boys off
of me in a fight. I started crying, not because I was hurt but
because I was so mad.
"He called me and wanted me to come."
"When?" She couldn't understand that it was okay to be mad and
fighting and ten years old, and I was too mad to speak.
"Last night, late." There is a long silence.
"I hear you've got another lover." Sarah can be very
condescending. She is much older than Anne in some ways.
"I left him. It wasn't right." Annie's voice cracks. Someone
sits down on the big bed. I can hear it.
"Well, good. I hope it was awful," Sarah says quickly.
"I don't have to listen to this." The begonias in the living
room are blooming, I notice.
"What makes you think you can come here after you've pulled all
this crap?" One of them moves across the room and I look up
again.
"He called."
"Of course he called. He loves you. And you'd better understand
the responsibility of that." A shoe steps on the grate. It's
Sarah's shoe, and I step out of view.
"I do."
There is some quiet talk that I can't hear, as I think about who
is responsible for what. She had said that I'd lost myself in
the restaurant. That I'd let go of the things she wanted from
me. I didn't let go; I just got too busy to live.
"He's going to be very successful, now that the restaurant is
getting good reviews," Sarah says, after some time. She sounds a
little softer. I think Annie's been crying. I go out to the
front porch.
At dinner time, I'm in the kitchen with Anne. She's taking the
peeled sections out of oranges for a salad. I showed her how to
take the peel off and then the individual sections out of their
skins.
"I hear you're dating," I say. I don't think she knows that I
listened earlier.
"No, I'm not," she says, picking up another orange.
"Oh." I start to pick the cooked chicken meat from the bone for
the chicken-walnut sandwiches. There are lots of tendons and
small bones that you have to watch out for. I throw a piece of
the chicken meat to Sam, who snaps it out of the air. Her thick
tail slaps the ground.
"Are you?"
"No," I say without looking up. This is a very complicated task
that requires attention.
"I did see someone for awhile," she says. "What else do you want
in this?"
"Do some of those pears. What happened?" I say, looking over at
her. I have to stop what I'm doing to do this.
She looks straight at me. "I had to tell him everything. We
didn't have anything between us."
"Oh."
"He didn't know me."
After dark, the three of us are sitting on the back patio. It is
so dark that I can see only outlines, shadows. The crickets have
replaced the cicadas' rhythmic whir. I feel much better than
last night.
"This was a lot worse for me when Dad died," Sarah says.
"I was just there with Mom, mostly. I couldn't break down until
it was over."
"What was he really like?" Annie asks Sarah.
I hear Sarah's ice cubes clink in her glass as she sits back.
"Firm but very fair. Like when I got hit by a car--"
"When did you get hit by a car?" I've never heard about it.
"Way before you were born. A lot happened before you were born,
Newt. Dad spanked me the next day. I know he didn't want to, but
I think he really felt like he was supposed to. I think he did a
lot of things because he thought he was supposed to." She takes
a small sip of her drink. She hasn't called me Newt in ten years
or so. It was Dad's name for me.
"That's not the way I remember him. I remember that he always
knew exactly what he was doing." I look at Annie; she's heard my
side.
"He just acted that way around you. He used to call me in
college and ask me how he should handle things with you."
"You're kidding."
"No, he really worried about how you and he were. Everyone knew
you were Mom's. I used to be mad at you that he died first.
Isn't that stupid?" I shift a bit in my seat and so does Anne.
It's funny to think of my family talking about me. And Sarah
getting upset. We all sit still for a minute.
"He used to wash his feet in the bathroom sink," I say, more for
myself than for anyone.
"With Ivory soap. I used to sit there, talking, while he stood
on one foot, washing the other," Sarah adds. Anne laughs.
"Why did he do that?"
"I never thought to ask at the time, but I found out from Mom
that when he was in the war he didn't want to catch anything and
he really didn't get a chance to bathe too often so he washed
his feet in his helmet instead," Sarah says and sets her empty
drink on the ground.
"I tried to wash my feet like that a few times, but I had to sit
on the sink ledge because I was too short, and Mom had a fit."
"I'm going up to bed." Sarah says and stands. The crickets stop
chirping and I hear Sam stretch and get up.
When the back porch screen bangs closed, Anne puts a hand out to
me. "I've really missed you," she says. The top of my chest
feels tight. I can't say anything. The crickets start their
chorus again, reassured by my silence.
"I'm not going through with the divorce, unless you want me to
because of what I did," she says.
"It's history. I never wanted you to leave in the first place."
"I'm going to bed. Coming?"
"Yes," I barely say, standing. My knees are a little shaky.
Lying in bed, Annie's arm across my stomach, her head on my
shoulder, I stare out the window of my room. This is the same
window I have looked out for years. I've seen the seasons change
here enough times to know exactly what they look like. I know
the way the backyards look under the blue streetlight in winter,
when everything is asleep. I know that our yard gets more leaves
on it than Brodie's. I know it perfectly.
"I think we should try dating first," she says into my neck. I
can feel her breath on me.
"You sure?" I can hear Sam's legs move; she's dreaming.
"More than I was when I left." I feel her kiss my shoulder.
"You'll have to get used to a dog," I laugh.
"Okay."
Twin beds are too small for two people, but for right now, it's
fine.
Mom is shaking me. "You're wasting the day," she whispers into
my ear. I hunch my shoulders and giggle, pulling the covers up
around me. I know the blankets are untucked at the bottom of the
bed but my feet don't reach down there yet, anyway. "Do you want
to go to the store with me?"
"Yeah." I sit up.
"Then get cleaned up quick. I'm going in ten minutes."
At the grocery, she pushes the cart. "Get a cantaloupe," she
directs me and I go over and begin to pick them up, one by one,
until I find the heaviest.
I hand it to her. "This one?"
"Well, it's pretty good, but it's not ready. You see the little
veins on it?" she says, tracing one with her pinkie.
"Yeah." I trace one too.
"When the color between the little veins is orange, then it's
ripe. Otherwise they're still green, and you have to wait."
"Okay," and I start to look for another one. When I find it we
buy both; the other one will be ripe in a few days.
When I wake up, Annie is gone and I smell the air outside
through the open window. The Satorys are mowing their lawn. I
look out the window at the two of them. Jerry pushes the mower
in diagonal stripes over the yard while Alice works along the
edge of the sidewalk. The lawn is different colors of green
depending on which way the mower went over it, like velour. I'm
nine blocks away from my mother's body, but she is still in this
house. Out back by the gate fertilizing her hollies, tying Sam
to the run, or digging grass out from between the bricks of the
patio like Alice is doing. Today, I put my mother in the ground
that she loves, that I love, so much. I wish we could bury her
in her own garden or back under the evergreens and strawberries
across the street. That's where she belongs.
"We're going to try to work things out," I say to Sarah, sitting
together while people come by to shake my hand and say, "Hello.
Your mother was..." Annie is talking to Pastor Lucas. I can see
them.
"I know."
"Mom would be happy, don't you think?"
"Mom's happy regardless of what you do."
"What do you think?"
"I don't think this is the place," Sarah says, leaning forward
to hug Mrs. Paterson, whom she doesn't know. Then she leans over
to me and hugs me tight, just for a moment, and I know she's
happy from the hitch in her throat. She protects me because she
loves me.
When we get back to the house, there is a sort of reception.
People come by. I know almost all of them, Sarah knows less,
Anne knows most of the ones I do. In the afternoon, I go out in
the backyard. I sit down next to the garden and let the tears
come up. Mom's flowers are better than the ones at the church, I
decide, and somehow this stops the crying. Then I see the steak
knife in the dirt. I pick it up and go over to cut a bachelor
button to put it in my lapel, but then I think better of it and
cut an azalea instead. I put the knife in my pocket. I need to
tell Sarah that, more than anything, I want this.
Neal Gordon (gordon@ea.pvt.k12.pa.us)
---------------------------------------
Neal Gordon studied writing at the University of Iowa and
completed his graduate work at Temple University, during which
time he published several stories, including an excerpt from his
unpublished novel. He currently teaches at the Episcopal Academy
in Philadelphia and works with the Working Writers Group, a
long-running critical group.
Come With Me by Duane Simolke
=================================
...................................................................
What one person sees as a cross to bear, another can see as a
tremendous gift.
...................................................................
Faster, louder, faster, louder, the alarm clock beeped. Becky,
again regretting her New Year's resolution to never leave the
alarm clock close enough to reach without getting out of bed,
grabbed the lamp stand by its closest leg and pulled it towards
herself. After stopping the lamp stand from tipping over, she
turned off the tiny siren.
The bed's other occupant remained undisturbed. Becky looked at
the man she had eloped with four months earlier; a hint of a
smile creased his face into dimples, making him look even more
boyish than usual. Seeing this twenty-year-old as a child made
her think of her own childhood, staring out the school bus
window, into her dreams. The other children, who rarely talked
to her but often talked about her, thought she stared only at
the dismal houses and roadsides of their tiny Louisiana town, as
if nothing else could exist there.
"Is everything the same as yesterday?" one of the children once
asked her. "Are there any new blades of grass?"
As Becky got out of bed, Kyle rolled over and mumbled something
about his pickup. "Okay, honey," Becky whispered, in case he
wasn't just talking in his sleep. Kyle kept fixing everything --
her car, his truck, the broken refrigerator shelf, the bathtub
faucets with _hot_ and _cold_ on the wrong knobs. He even tried
to fix the washing machine, which kept stashing their socks in
some secret hiding place.
She told him they could both use her car if they set up
carpooling schedules with their co-workers, but what he mostly
needed was for the three-month lay-off to end so he and the
other newer workers could go back to the factory.
The older workers cherished the same job they had complained
about for years, from what Kyle told her, cherished it as deeply
as Becky's sister had cherished her status as the only child for
the eight years before Becky's birth, then cherished her
position as "the older one." Becky couldn't see why the factory
managers wouldn't want to hire Kyle back; he always worked so
hard and got so excited about his projects.
The phone rang. She ran into the living room to get it before it
could wake Kyle.
"Good morning, Rebecca Wilma."
Becky cringed at the sound of her middle name.
"Good morning, Regina." She tried not to yawn while she spoke,
but her sister's name came out as _Ruuuhjeeennnuh._
"I know it's early, but I've been with Dirk every night, and I
just haven't had a chance to see how your little job is doing."
"Which one?" Becky wanted to point out how much Regina's big
mouth got on her _little_ nerves, but she resisted, as always.
She just thanked God that Regina and Dirk had gotten back
together, so Dirk could keep Regina occupied.
"The new one, at the Japanese restaurant."
"Chinese."
Regina grunted. "Who can tell the difference? Those places get
closed down all the time. I hope your husband's planning to go
back to work soon."
"Yes, he is," said Becky, stressing each word to the point of
sounding like a bad typist, speaking while hitting one key at a
time. "I have to get ready for work. Did you need something?"
"No. Just seeing how my little sister is doing."
"Your little sister is doing just fine and dandy. I have to get
my shower. Bye." She hung up the phone before Regina could
remind her to take her medicine; she hated the way Regina always
brought up her condition.
Her mind drifted into the past, where a ten-year-old girl with
blonde pony tails stared at a basic skills exam. "Becky's unable
to concentrate," she heard one of her teachers tell the
principal. "Unwilling." Her teachers never understood how a
bluejay's song from outside the window could ignite her
imagination, sending her dreaming away while still awake. Then
came test after test and Regina's teasing and her parents
telling her they loved her, no matter what was wrong with her.
Wrong? She never felt wrong. Why would her parents call her
wrong? She stayed out of trouble and never hurt anyone.
Then she went to special education classes, in her principal's
words, "for a little while, to see how you do." A little while
became a semester and a year and an endless list of simplistic
classes that bored her even more than her old classes. She tried
to improve, but none of the work interested her, until the
school hired a special-ed teacher who used creativity in her
teaching style and the assignments.
At thirteen, Becky "assimilated" (a word mostly said with pride)
into lower-level classes with the "normal" kids. She soon missed
her special-ed teacher, a sweet woman who loved her students
without ever calling them "wrong." She even told Becky, "there's
nothing wrong with you. If anything, you're exceptionally
gifted." Later, she moved into honors classes, where she made
straight A's. Nothing wrong.
"What's wrong?" asked Kyle, wearing the polka-dotted bathrobe
she had bought him as a wedding gift. He wore it every morning,
never voicing the repulsion his face had revealed when he first
unwrapped it.
"Regina was on the phone, being... herself." Becky touched the
top of his long, thick brown hair, after noticing how it stood
up on one side and lay flat on the other. "I like your new
hairstyle."
"Hey, some people pay fifty bucks to get their hair to look like
mine does in the morning."
"I can't imagine you spending fifty dollars for a haircut."
"No way. You didn't make breakfast, did you? I wanted to take
you out for breakfast."
"That's sweet," she said, rubbing one of the orange polka-dots
on his chest. She wondered if she had ordered the wrong robe,
but she couldn't remember what the others looked like. Why would
she buy him something so frightening? "But I don't have time.
We're marking all the men's shoes down for a sale, so I'm
supposed to be in early."
"You should've told me. I would've made breakfast."
"I'm sorry. I thought I told you. I know I told someone. Anyway,
you don't have to make me breakfast. If you don't stop being so
nice to me, I'm never going to run off with the mailman."
"Oh well." He kissed her.
"I have to get ready." Becky lightly pushed away from her
husband, like the way she reluctantly put down a novel when she
would rather read all night than sleep.
"I'll scramble some eggs real quick, while you're in the
shower," he said. "Too bad we don't have a microwave. Then I
could cook up a big breakfast in just a few seconds."
"Maybe when we get our tax refunds."
"We already spent those."
"Oh yeah." Becky wandered into the bathroom, trying to remember
what they had bought, but she soon lost herself in the pressure
and coolness of the shower. She always loved cold showers --
they reminded her of a fall rain. She saw herself dancing on a
stage with the children from her special-ed classes. And they
sang, perfectly. Neither the dancing nor the singing embarrassed
them, though they sang before hundreds of people.
Then one of them spoke, his tongue barely moving as he mumbled
his lines. No one could understand; everyone left. "No," said
Becky. "It shouldn't end that way." She used to control her
fantasies, always granting happy endings.
"Breakfast is served." Kyle's fake Cajun accent rang through the
bathroom door. Becky had met him when he went to visit his
relatives in her Louisiana hometown. Her parents loved him and
kept saying what a good man she had finally found, but Regina
never liked him at all. Regina never liked anyone Becky liked,
and she made sure everyone knew it. But Regina still followed
them to West Texas and kept checking up on them.
Becky dried off and dressed, omitting the sparse lipstick and
eye shadow she usually wore. She stopped at the mirror only to
brush her wavy blonde hair and to put on the earrings she had
made in twelfth-grade art class, tiny replicas of the elflike
creatures she created for one of her fantasy paintings, _Come
With Me_. Her art teacher wanted her to enter the painting in a
state-wide contest, but Becky convinced herself she couldn't
win. Still, she showed it to her parents, who said "How cute,"
and pointed out that she shouldn't travel to Baton Rouge or
anywhere else without them.
She had gone into the living room but stood outside the door to
hear what they really thought. Instead of their voices, she
heard Regina's: "Most of those modern artists take drugs to get
their ideas. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if they tried
to get Becky to take drugs. And you know how naive she is." When
Becky heard that, she knew they wouldn't change their minds
about letting her go. Regina had spoken.
Becky opened the door to see Kyle reaching for the doorknob.
"Hey, you're wearing the earrings," he said, pushing her hair
behind her eyes so he could admire the intricate details she had
also stopped to see: olive-like eyes, flat noses, harmless
smiles, star-shaped buttons. Kyle always showed interest in her
art, unlike anyone else -- other than her high school art
teacher. "Aren't those from the painting I like?" he asked,
stroking her hair.
"_Come With Me_. Yes." She smiled. He always knew what to
remember, what to say.
"Well, then, come with me." He threw his muscular arms outward,
then lifted his hands, motioning toward the kitchen. "I think
I've perfected the scrambled egg."
Staring at the Bathrobe from Hell and the man inside it, she
walked into the kitchen, buttoning her work clothes. The
all-blue shirt and slacks of Sam's Shoe Store cried out for a
patch, a stain, anything to break the monotony -- anything but
orange polka dots. _Poor guy_, she thought, eating the
over-spiced eggs and smiling contentedly.
"When are you going to get all your paintings from your parents'
house?" he asked, again examining the earrings. She had asked
him one night if he daydreamed like she did, though she feared
bringing up the subject, letting him see the side of herself
that everyone despised and wanted to destroy. He replied, "Of
course," then rolled over and began snoring, as if the subject
held no controversy.
"One day. Maybe the next time we visit."
"When will that be?"
"I'm not sure." She never told anyone the next thing she had
heard Regina saying to her parents, as she leaned against the
door, losing all hope of entering the contest. Regina said they
should take the paintings to that horrid family therapist they
visited every month. Becky left the paintings in Louisiana, left
them to rot like Skydown.
She could just hear his likely reactions: "Yes, yes, very
special -- unhealthy repressions -- what's wrong with her?" But
he never said anything about the paintings. Instead, after two
years of sessions, he read them part of an article and said,
"Becky has Attention Deficit Disorder." Becky got up and walked
out, saying, "You're the one with the disorder." They never went
back to counseling.
"Well," said Kyle, yanking her from her thoughts and pointing at
his five-dollar watch. "You'd better go if you're going to be
early."
"Kyle, am I crazy?"
"No more than the rest of us." He kept staring at her earrings.
"You shouldn't listen to Regina, especially not after that
speech she gave us last week about the hazards of ADD. She
sounded like a public service announcement."
"You hate that robe," said Becky. "Why don't you go right out
and say it?" Her voice became louder as the words leapt from her
mouth.
"I've gotten used to it. Weren't we talking about Regina?"
"I don't wanna talk about Regina." She saw that annoyed look,
when his eyes get big. "I'm sorry, honey. Having two jobs is
wearing me out."
"Having no job isn't exactly a thrill for me."
She took one of his rough hands between hers, squeezed gently.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way. I have to go."
Becky spent most of the next five hours staring at feet: thin
feet, fat feet, feet shaped like dog bones. With the attention
of an artist, she noticed every detail. Even the toes varied in
width and length. Some people's small toes surpassed their big
toes. She liked the children and college students who wore no
socks, allowing her to see every scar, wrinkle, callus, or
whatever else socks might conceal.
One young man asked her if she'd even seen a foot before. "Not
yours," she replied. He shook his head, put his shoe back on,
and marched to the manager's desk. Becky worried about customer
complaints, afraid of losing one of her jobs before Kyle got his
job back. He needed her. Someone actually needed her!
The manager, an older woman with hair like white cotton candy,
called her aside during their lunch in the break room to warn
her about this latest complaint.
"I know you've been working too hard. You can take a few days
off if you need to."
"I can't quit. My--"
"Becky, honey, I don't want you to quit. You're too popular with
the children who try on shoes just so you'll tell them a story.
Besides, who would make all the posters? I'd have to go back to
those generic ones we get in the mail, with square letters and a
white background."
Becky smiled. "I'm all right. I'll get some extra rest this
weekend."
"That's a great idea. Still, I'd rather you cut back to twenty
hours a week for the rest of March. We'll be slow anyway."
"No. I can't do that. I mean, I don't wanna do that."
"You're a special girl, Becky."
Becky went back to work, trying to convince herself that her
boss knew nothing about her past. Special, after all, usually
meant something good.
Clock-out time soon came, and Becky walked three doors away, to
Chuck's China Town, a building painted with green and red
stripes. Regina called it Chuck's Culture Shock Express and said
just looking at the place could make Santa Claus hate Christmas.
"Regina. I hope she isn't planning a visit," said Becky.
A chubby man with a cigar, walking out as she walked in, asked,
"Who's Regina?"
Becky felt her cheeks redden as she realized she was talking to
herself. "Regina's my big sister."
He blew cigar smoke in her face and said, "Well, if she wants a
decent serving for lunch, she won't come here." He walked away
as Becky walked inside.
Chuck's China Town used a steam line set up cafeteria-style,
where the customers pointed at what they wanted and could see
the employees prepare their plates. Becky didn't like it.
Several times each day, she'd hear: "Put some more meat in
there; I'm not a vegetarian!," "Is that all you get for a
dollar?" and "You're going to give me more than that or I'm not
coming back."
The idea of not coming back appealed to her. She liked most of
the customers, but the mean ones reminded her of Skydown, where
everyone made her feel wrong, abnormal, unacceptable. Chuck, a
self-proclaimed cowboy, said to her from behind the cash
register, "Hey, Becky, wanna quit giving everyone double
servings?" Just before time to clock out, someone dropped a
glass of papaya juice, in keeping with the secret rule that
something must spill before Becky's shift could end.
When Becky got home, she found Kyle wearing his traditional
black T-shirt and blue jeans combination and smiling like the
Cheshire Cat.
"What have you been up to, Kyle Blake?" she asked, pointing at
him.
"Good news."
"Your job?"
He nodded. "Not full-time yet, but it's a start."
"Honey, that's great." She hugged him; instead of the expected
smell of Kyle's sweat from all his work around the house, she
smelled the cologne he wore whenever they went out.
"I wanted to do something special, since this is Good News Day
_aannnndd_... it's also March the fifth. You remember what March
the fifth is, don't you?"
"The day I dropped the phone in the blender?"
Kyle laughed. "You're joking."
"Never mind. Could it be my birthday?" Becky never mentioned her
birthday, because her family never really celebrated birthdays
or anniversaries.
"Could be. I caught a ride uptown with one of the guys from work
to pick up some things. Come with me." He grabbed her hand and
pulled her forward, as if he were ready to lead her through
Wonderland.
She found newspapers spread out on the kitchen table, with a
stack of paints and canvases in the middle, and she touched the
paint tubes as if touching the charred remains of some treasure
lost in an invader's arson. "Why did you buy all this?"
"For you. It's what you wanted, isn't it?"
"No. Yes. I don't know. I don't have time."
"Becky, I think your artwork could make you happy, just like
having my job back makes me happy. When I saw your work at your
parents' house, I felt like I was seeing inside you. And when
you left all your paintings and supplies there, you left a part
of yourself."
She shook her head. "I'm not an artist, Kyle. That was just
something I did when I was bored."
He tossed up his hands. "Whatever. Why don't you go change? We
can at least go out and eat."
"Kyle..."
"Let's not talk about it. If you don't change your mind, I'll
take it all back tomorrow. God knows we could use the money."
Becky stared at the supplies for a second, then went to the
bedroom and changed clothes. She could see how much it hurt Kyle
for her to refuse his gift, but why bring back something that
made people call her crazy?
At 3 a.m., Becky grew tired of laying awake, so she got out of
bed, slipping from the accepted weight of Kyle's encircling arm.
She couldn't stop thinking about the blank canvases.
Pulling the paints and a canvas closer, she sat down at the
table. She would work on a painting, only for Kyle and for
herself. He would keep her secret, that she had to paint. No one
would see her work and call it cute or dumb or psychotic. She
would sit at her kitchen table every night. If Regina called,
Becky would continue working while listening to Regina rave,
continue creating worlds that only Kyle would see.
Her hands moved, unbound, across the page, releasing an image
she held captive in her mind.
Duane Simolke
---------------
Duane Simolke has had his work published in Midwest Poetry
Review, Mesquite, the New Voice of Nebraska, International
Journal On World Peace, and others. His electronic publications
include Ydrasil, The Bridge, and Poetry Exchange. An English
major, he received his B.A. at Belmont University, M.A. at
Hardin-Simmons University, and Ph.D. at Texas Tech University.
The Web by Russell Butek
============================
....................................................................
One person's lifestyle is another one's crime. It's all a matter
of perspective.
....................................................................
My meals often talk with me, though rarely with such clarity as
your conversation possesses. Typically, if they talk at all,
it's with whining entreaties. They lack intelligence, and I do
them a favor by consuming them quickly. But even these I
shouldn't fault. They weren't designed for depth, and they do
often impart some bits of information.
I'll devour anything that comes my way, but your kind are rare
gems, so full of thought. My great desire in life is to pass my
time in endless idle discourse such as this, but, alas, as no
doubt even you feel at this moment, my livelihood incessantly
intrudes. You'll pardon me while I go and tie down my next meal
before it shreds that quadrant of my web.
It is one of the nearly silent ones; an occasional whimper is
all that it passes on to me. But it may serve to extend my time
with you; a bit of lucky sustenance will prolong our idle
discourse. I only hope the breezes stay as quiet as they've
been, else I will be called off to mending. When the winds
arise, I have no time for idleness, and since the work takes a
furious amount of my energy, I must consume whatever is about
without consideration of my finer desires.
One of your kind once asked me why I don't build my web lower,
out of the wind. The suggestion seemed a wonderful idea at the
time, so I tried it. The anticipation of a more leisurely life
was quite exciting. I built an elaborate lattice in a corner
near the floor far from any draft. It had as much beauty as
function. I almost starved. Very few meals wandered into my new
corner. It was a terribly naive experiment, but it taught me
many things. One of which is a distrust of your kind. I still
hunger for your ideas, but I treat them with more caution.
Oh, dear, I feel a storm approaching. Can you not feel the sway
as the wind nibbles at the anchor points? I'm afraid I'll have
to desert you for a few moments. The web needs reinforcing...
perhaps a snack...
The clover is now blossoming. My snack had partaken of its
nectar.
Yes, I've strengthened the web in the past. Don't think me a
fool for living in such a precarious condition. I've
strengthened the web: I've doubled the thickness of the lines,
doubled again and tripled the primary threads and increased the
number of anchor points. It took a much stronger draft to shake
the web then, and the usual fare took longer to fray it, but
then more than the usual fare came my way. Meals I couldn't
handle began to threaten me before they escaped, and they would
completely shred the web in the process. Today's web wouldn't
even slow one of them down. They would destroy a couple of
threads in passing, but I would still have a home.
I was slowly dying in those days, trying to keep my Great Web
intact. I talked not at all. I still don't have time for the
conversations I desire, but at least now a greeting passes
between my meals and myself.
You ask why, if I enjoy your conversation so, why I catch you
and poison you and consume you. First I must say that I take
offense at you calling it poison -- stop twitching so, all
you'll do is tear the web and I'll have no time to chat; hold
still, I'll tie your errant wing down -- poison implies pain,
but what I do takes away all pain. In time I will simply fade
away. That is all.
But there is the catching and consuming. The catching is pure
serendipity. If I could control it, I would catch more of your
kind and less of the others. And the consuming? Well, that is my
nature. Just as it is your nature not to be neighborly to my
kind. Would you greet me cheerfully if I would wander from my
web and discover your nest? You see? You wouldn't tolerate my
presence, so I must take what conversation I can, however I can,
whenever my tangled web permits. I would much prefer that my
nature were other than it is, perhaps that I were one of your
kind. My time would be much freer of toil and fuller in thought.
But my nature merely allows me to chat momentarily before
feeding.
I see that you are fading. I will tire you no longer. Your kind
is full of wisdom, but it is also full of the most delectable of
juices.
Russell Butek (butek@rconnect.com)
------------------------------------
Russell Butek has B.S. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from
the University of Wisconsin, but finds computers dull enough to
have taken up writing in his spare time in an attempt to avoid
geekhood. (His wife doesn't think it's working.) He currently
lives in Minnesota. His home on the World Wide Web is
http://homepage.rconnect.com/butek/.
Gone by Craig Boyko
=======================
...................................................................
People have different ways of dealing with loneliness: some seek
comfort outward, and some retreat inward. And sometimes it's
hard to tell the difference.
...................................................................
One.
------
He walked in with a bag of groceries, locking the door behind
him -- an ingrained habit. There was really nothing here worth
stealing, and no one with so much as an intention to steal got
in the building anyway. But it was habit, and habits rarely die;
they can only be repressed.
He walked through the darkness, avoiding the light switch. They
had voice rec here, not like the last place he had been, and for
the first week or so he had found it handy. "Light," light.
"Light," no light. "Television," television. Handy. But the
lights here were harsh, and there was no dimmer option, so in
that sense he faintly missed the old place.
A string of old places, like faded photographs, only more
potent: photographs of the mind. Images he didn't want to recall
but that came unbidden. The past did that. Plagued you. Even if
it was just a past of vacancies and nothingness. You had to look
back. Too simple to live obliviously in the present. At night,
and at quiet times, whenever the world burned around him, it
turned into six o'clock attack-mode drama-news. The crackling
newsreel of his life, coated with sugar-candy sweetness so the
present would do an even harsher fade-over.
He realized he was standing a few feet inside the door of his
apartment, in darkness, thinking about nothing at all, except
maybe the past. He shut that down, hard, and walked to the
kitchen nook.
Put the paper bag down on the counter. Paper bags, like from his
past. When that had been so much vogue. Use paper, use paper,
recycle, recycle, make the world free and clean and beautiful
again. Something people in general didn't much understand was
the phrase _Point of No Return_.
He emptied the contents of the bag. A six-pack of Coke. Pina
Colada-flavored Crest. Condoms. Kleenex.
He stared past the darkness of his apartment and out to the
dust-filtered flickering twilight that was setting down on the
city.
What city was this? he wondered. Something with a _C_, he
thought, and midwestern. Maybe Cleveland, or Chicago, but in the
end it didn't really matter.
He didn't really need to go shopping. In this building, all you
had to do was make a list through the idiot-proof television
menus and your order would appear magically the next day at nine
in your food tube. Unless you were paranoid, afraid of
technology -- which usually meant _old_. Then you could get
someone to bring it up to your door every morning. He didn't
think there were any old people in this building, anyway. They
had other buildings for them.
He put the Cokes in the fridge and left the rest scattered on
the counter. He folded the paper bag carefully and dropped it
into the incinerator tube. Latched it, fired it. Listened to the
whir of the interior vacuum as it sucked the bag away through
walls and floors, past pipes and wires, into an implicit fire
that burned perpetually, miles below ground.
He sat down on the couch with a Coke and looked out the
wall-window, out at the cityscape, the world. His little corner
of it, anyway.
Not really seeing anything, but knowing there were people out
there, behind the steel and the smog and beneath the cement and
streetlights, hidden away behind reflectorized glass. People
loving, people thinking, people watching TV.
But the image was distant to him, forlorn, and he abandoned it.
He left the apartment. In the hallway, he stole a furtive glance
around. No one to ask him about the weather, or the pollution
index this week, or television, or the illicit poodle that was
pissing in the hallway and seemed to belong to no one.
He locked his door with the key they gave out mostly because it
was a reference point, a symbol of false security, a hallmark
from the past that was also ingrained. The keybox on the door
beeped sonorously and lit up red. He turned and walked down the
hall, hands in his pockets.
The elevator, empty. Until it reached level four, and then a
woman of about his age got on. They were all his age. All
heterosexual, too. The communes made sure of that. He nodded at
her solemnly. After she asked if the elevator was going down, he
nodded and looked away.
She got off on ground level, but he rode it further, down to the
first sub-basement. He stepped from the elevator into cool
temperature control. It was hot, very hot, and very loud, but it
was also very crisp and cool down here. One thing he could say
about this building was that they had a hell of an environment
simulator. Like walking through a cool breeze on a warm summer
day, or relishing the first soft telltale caresses of distant
summer on a late winter day, with the snow melting beneath your
feet, puddles everywhere, the effervescent purl of water
dripping hollowly through rusting eave troughs.
Seasons, he thought. Were those a dream?
He walked past the burly bouncers who were almost undoubtedly
there just for ornamentation, as he'd seen girls thirteen,
fourteen, maybe younger, in the club numerous times. But when he
asked them they all said they were nineteen, sometimes twenty,
and the bouncers didn't care, and neither did the management,
nor the tenants, so why should he?
The music was too loud. The lights were too dim. The flashball
hanging from the ceiling and the numerous spasm bulbs that lined
the walls almost made up for the darkness, but it was an uneven,
convulsive light they shed.
He sat at the bar and ordered a drink, the special they had
advertised on a chalkboard out beside the elevator. Something
called Hedonist Frenzy, and he wasn't sure what that meant, but
he ordered it anyway. He signed his name on the magnetic strip
that the bartender handed him after he said he would be charging
the tab to his room. The bartender took it back, frowned at him,
and frowned at his signature, as if trying to discern if it was
a fake, as if he could tell by powers of vision alone. Then it
beeped, and he could hear it beep, even over the deafening,
ubiquitous thud of the music. A little corner of the slab lit up
green, and the bartender handed him his drink.
He sipped it, liked it, and spun around slowly on his stool, all
charm and boredom and scintillating indifference. Half imagining
he was being watched, or maybe filmed. He smiled apathetically
at the dance floor, at all the people, and imagined they smiled
back.
A woman sat down next to him and his heart shuddered. He caught
a glimpse of her left breast, a sidelong glance, as she talked
to the bartender. He couldn't hear her words. Then she was
looking at him. He forced his eyes to meet hers. She was
smiling. A complex smile. She said something to him.
"What?" he said, too quiet.
"What?" she said.
He shook his head. She shrugged and smiled. She followed his
glance, out to the dance floor and the thrash of the crowd. Then
she looked back at him.
"What are you doing this weekend?" she asked.
So blunt. Just like that. His face flushed.
"No plans yet," he said, too loud.
She smiled. "Want to have sex?"
He choked on his tongue a little, trying to swallow what was in
his mouth. It burned his throat and coated his stomach with
heat.
"Do you go around asking everyone like that? Just up front? Do
you just--"
He stopped himself. Jesus, what was he saying?
But she kept smiling, although the smile faded somehow, if only
in her eyes.
"It's just a test," she said, and looked away.
"What?"
She looked back. Her eyes were black, he thought. Like the
leather she was wearing. But it wasn't leather either, some sort
of plastic, which was pretty bold, both because it was revealing
as hell and because it was, after all, real plastic. No, he
thought, he didn't know that for sure. But he liked the idea.
"It's a test. I just say that to guys, sometimes, you know, to
see their reaction. If I don't like their reaction then I laugh
in their face and tell them to fuck off."
He sipped some more of his drink and tried to avoid looking at
her cleavage, but the drink was gone. He placed the glass on the
bar. His hand shook slightly. Looked at her breasts. Then her
face.
"Why?"
She laughed, but the smile faded further. "Fuck, I don't know."
She was yelling, enough to be heard, he supposed, but he was
afraid everyone in the club could hear. Before long, they'd all
be looking at him, watching his reaction, and it would become a
global test, an initiation, a joke. "A lot of people are
assholes. I think it's good to start with a really blunt
question that's on everyone's mind anyway, but they're usually
too chickenshit to say it or even hint at it, right? And it's a
theory, sort of, that people will act most like themselves under
pressure, and that's probably all wrong, way off, but I at least
know what they're like under pressure, how they can cope, what
they can take, and sometimes, you know," she said with a sly
smile, "I need to know that."
She turned toward him and moved closer, sliding one black --
plastic-clad leg over the edge of her stool.
"So, I ask you, you wanna fuck?" She smiled.
He asked for her room number and promised to call her. She
shrugged indifferently and let her chest fall a little as he
walked away.
Walked past the people, around the people, through the people,
out the door, into the elevator. Finally, the doors slid shut
with a pneumatic purr and he was alone with the pounding of his
heart.
He met three people on his way back to his apartment. Two women
and a man. None of them together. He avoided their glances. None
said a word. They all got off on different floors than he did.
He stopped in front of his door, searching his pocket for his
key. He found it, punched it through, then jerked it back. The
box bleeped INCORRECT READING -- TRY AGAIN.
He stared at his door number for a minute. Then he returned to
the elevator, silvery threads of thoughts straining his mind.
The lobby was empty.
He walked across the vastness of marble-patterned linoleum to
the pictures. There was no one around, except for the
receptionist/security guard, who was watching local baseball on
a plain cathode screen behind the front desk.
The pictures were lined up on the wall by floor, with the room
number stapled below the face. The photos were just cheap
security-pass duplicates, as there had been a move just a couple
weeks ago and they hadn't gotten around to the professional
treatment yet.
He found the face of the woman in the bar and committed her room
number to memory. She'd told him in the bar, but he hadn't
really been listening. She wasn't all that pretty. Her body
wasn't ideal, not magazine-cutout perfect. Her eyes were a
little too large, much like a cartoon, and she was a little too
short.
There was the woman who was from floor four, the blond who had
ridden down in the elevator with him. She'd said only a word or
two to him, but she wasn't ugly, and they _had_ ridden in the
elevator together, so maybe he had a shot.
He found the face of the woman who lived on his floor -- right
next door, in fact. The one who listened to that terrible music
and watched a lot of pornography. He was often torn, late at
night, between punching his hand through the wall and
masturbating. Most nights, he did neither.
Well, he hardly needed her number, but he made a mental note of
it anyway. Three numbers. It would surely do. Then, as a final
safeguard, he memorized the number of a pretty brunette from
floor twenty. It was completely random and probably utterly
futile, but she _was_ beautiful. Then he turned and walked
towards the front doors.
The night was warm and black. As he stepped from the shadow of
his building, he was born, a blind fetus emerging into the
stinging putrescence of neon and graffiti, the undead commercial
night. He almost turned back.
He passed by numerous receding doorways, all washing the
sidewalk with voices, synthetic music, boisterous rainbow light.
Hot stumbling bodies entering and exiting, narrowly avoiding
tripping over their own feet. He followed none of them, and
eventually their laughter dissipated somewhere behind him.
The tumult of bastardized daylight slowly receded to true night,
the streets fading away to the warmth and desuetude that he
longed for. Cracking pavement, shallow streetlight.
But he couldn't escape it. Not even here in the slums. The
distant hum of engines, music, electricity, even voices. He felt
small, all of a sudden, like a toy in a box.
He kicked something. He stopped walking, enraptured by its
movement as it skidded across blacktop. He sat down on a nearby
bench, leaned over, and picked it up.
He held it for awhile, not looking at it, not looking at much at
all. He liked the feel of it in his hand, smooth and one. Hard,
complete, old. He slipped it into his jacket pocket without a
thought and sat there for a little while longer before getting
up. The night was cooling, and he zippered his jacket up to his
neck.
Two.
------
Late at night, with dawn encroaching beyond a rosy pavement
horizon.
Unable to sleep, he rolled over and kicked the covers from the
bed. He got up and walked over to the generic building-supplied
deck, which was mounted on the television. He goggled.
He tried to remember the names and the numbers. No, the names
didn't matter. The woman in the bar, however, was Rita Ess,
something like that, and the woman next door he knew as Jennifer
Rourque. But the numbers. The numbers were eluding him.
A cartoon dwarf with egregious cartoon breasts stood in the
bottom right hand corner of his vision, patiently tapping one
foot. "Need any help?" she breathed.
He goggled out and entered the numbers manually. He remembered
all four, finally, but left out the woman at the bar. She was a
bit strange. That whole test thing. Some kind of joke. A game.
He could do without.
She wasn't that pretty, anyway. Not really. Not really.
He fell asleep minutes before the sun began to filter past
soot-stained building tops.
Awoke the next day. he rubbed his eyes with dry, peeling hands.
He hated the soap here. He blinked through the sleep in his eyes
and focused on the clock. God, it was bright. But the sun was
receding. 5:15. P.M.? It felt late. Too much sun. The woman next
door had her television way up again, some pre-evening soap.
Cheesy instrumental music and overly dramatic monologues. He
hated the fucking soaps.
Thursday today, he thought. Fuck night.
He gargled salt water from the tap and spit it down the
suck-drain. He turned on the disposal and heard it whoosh away.
He put on yesterday's clothes and ate some cheese. On a sudden
yet oddly demanding whim, he walked over to the deck. He punched
through menus, watching the words morph and scroll on the
screen. He entered the number. The woman from the bar.
He didn't feel any better, but it was almost six, and the
cut-off was at six, every Thursday. Still, hardly gave you much
time. Results would be uploaded by seven. Dates were arranged
for eight, always, unless one of the parties needed a half-hour
extension, or needed to get started earlier, or whatever. It
didn't matter. He wouldn't wait around, holding his breath.
He went out to get breakfast.
The television blinked when he returned. He walked inside,
locked the door, and looked.
Blue on red was a match: A date has been arranged for you this
evening. Please dial this room number and confirm the
arrangement. Have fun.
Red on white was failure. He'd seen it enough. But usually it
was okay; it wasn't cause for any underlying psychological
insecurity or anything. No inferiority complex. He could always
blame it on himself, or on the bitches he chose, or something
else. Usually himself. Better to blame himself, his personal
choice, his unsociability, whatever. Sometimes he didn't even
enter any applications at all. Then the screen didn't blink at
all. It remained silent and black and unassuming. Peaceful.
But tonight it blinked green on black.
Good evening, Holden M. Decker.
A confirmative match has been found for you this Thursday
evening.
However, due to scheduling conflictions, the following potential
matches for you were rescheduled or aborted.
Match one(1): Rita Ess, (F), at room number 1734. Status:
Aborted. Explanation forwarded: Not found.
Match two(2): Not found.
Try rescheduling!
Have a nice day!
He felt tired, suddenly. Nearly twelve hours of sleep and he was
still tired. He decided he didn't care. He turned off the box
and walked around it, past the kitchen alcove, and around the
poorly-positioned clothes chute, which was little more than a
trap door over a hole in the floor. You dropped something down
there, it would be gone forever. Unless, of course, it was
clothing, and properly bagged and tagged. Then it came back the
next business day, right to your door, in the fleshy hands of a
semilegal alien, working under strict visa for the right to stay
in this wonderful land of opportunity.
He fell to the bed and stared at the ceiling for a long time.
"Lights," he called to the gently and precisely oscillating air.
"Window," he yelled, and all light from the city and the sun was
cut off, without a millisecond of pause. The light trapped
within the apartment flickered and burned slowly away, dancing
across his retinas, until all that remained was a shifting void
of blackness and the undulating electric voices from next door.
He didn't sleep. Some time later he sat up in bed, staring at
the cartridge.
He didn't realize he was staring at it. He wasn't even fully
aware of being awake. It was sheer coincidence that he found
himself looking at it.
He'd taken it out of his pocket last night, and tossed it onto
the overturned stacking crate that served as a coffee table. His
jacket lay nearby, on the floor. He stared at it for some time,
not seeing it, not seeing anything. But then he did see it,
suddenly, and his mind strained to find significance and meaning
in it. For long blank minutes he could not recall what it was.
Then, finally, something clicked, and his thoughts turned sour.
He frowned in the half-darkness, feeling vaguely nauseated. He
had been searching for its identity for long minutes, minutes
that mutated within him into hours, hours filled to the rim with
longing and hope and need. So much time spent pondering that
little object, which he was almost undoubtedly _positive_ was
something important, something supernal. But then he remembered
it was just junk from the street, and he wanted to spit.
He got out of bed and walked to the wall panel. Turned on the
lights. Extreme white light. He turned them off again. But it
was too late, he was blinded, his night vision obliterated. He
turned the lights back on, squinting painfully. He sat down on
the desiccated old couch and picked the object up. He rotated it
slowly in his hands, pensively. As his eyes gradually adjusted
to the light, he realized what it was. A sim.
Like from his childhood. There were still sims around,
everywhere, in abundance. But usually you wanted a sim these
days, you downloaded it. That was the only legal way, anymore,
since it ensured against copyright infringement and illicit
exhibition. It didn't really, nothing was ever foolproof, but
usually it made the dealer breathe easier. Even the pushers
downloaded, unless they wanted to distribute and make it
surreptitious, untraceable. Then they used standard coin. You
didn't see a sim in cart format like this anywhere, ever, not
anymore.
He found the deck wrapped in an old sweater on the top shelf in
the closet. He knew it'd be there. The deck had both cart and
coin slots, so it was pretty old, but when he'd bought it, it
had been edge-biting. He hadn't used it in over a year, when he
had given up sims, leaving them to the masses, because at the
time, he considered himself better than all that. Getting the
old deck out felt natural, though, and the old cellular fear
resurfaced. The fear of losing identity.
And another fear began to rise, more potent than the other. Even
as he unpackaged the deck and its gear, as he uncoiled the fiber
optic, as he cleaned off the tongue-piece with a paper towel, as
he blew dust off the new-found cart, as he plugged it in and
prepared to jack.
Fear like bile, rising in his throat, but he pushed it down and
ignored it.
You didn't punch deck on some cheap-ass cartridge sim that you
found out in the street. Bad enough that rainwater and engine
oil and dog piss could corrode the goddamn contacts. That was
bad enough, because serious corrosion made a bad connection and
could fuck you up, plain and simple.
Not only that, but you _never_ punched deck on a sim you just
found. That was insanity. `Specially a goddamn cart that was
just lying on the street. No doubt it was probably heavily laced
with bugs, if it wasn't a downright snuff job. The deck itself
had viral screens, but they were just rudimentary. They didn't
pick out the new stuff, the street breed of any virus.
He wasn't thinking any of this, not consciously, but he was,
too. It sparked in his mind, somewhere deep down, ever so dimly,
in a fraction of a second, before he could choke it off. There
was fear underlying what he was about to do, but the
determination overrode it.
Kneeling on the floor, the deck between his legs. He lifted the
cable, eyeing it cautiously. It was clean. He attached the
mouth-mod. A clean, wholesome, use-me-I'm-sterilized type click.
He opened his mouth.
Placed the jack softly on the back of his tongue. Closed his
mouth.
Bent over. Flipped it on.
Synthesized endorphins released at the speed of light, down his
throat, into his stomach, his lungs, his bloodstream.
Metastasis.
No intro screen. just the sudden brightness of importunate
sunlight, clean and brisk air, crisp and wet, working through
his lungs.
A beach.
Or maybe this was the intro. Didn't feel like it, though.
Nothing was happening. This was response-based, and all the
intro clips he'd ever seen were fast-paced, sharp, colorful,
extreme and inexorable. Totally stand-by-and-watch, and try not
to piss your pants. They were put in to grab your attention and
give you heart palpitations off the tip, so you stayed jacked,
so you played it out.
There was a woman down the beach. Waving. Beckoning. The
crystal-blue water lapping at her legs, licking her knees.
He ran toward her.
She needed his help. Her leg was broken, or something. She said
no words; it didn't matter. The message was relayed directly to
his brain in dreamspeak.
_Help me_.
She was beautiful. He tried to focus on her body, but none of it
mattered. He tried to memorize her face, her beautiful
immaculate features. He tried, but it wouldn't come. It was
strange, not being able to really truly see her, but all he
could focus on was the knowledge of her consummate beauty. She
was more beautiful than any woman he had ever seen, ever known,
ever dreamt of. Yet he couldn't even discern the color of her
eyes, the tint of her hair.
He lifted her in two bulging, capable arms. Her gratitude
emanated from her in a cogent, nearly overpowering radiance. His
heart swelled and his blood ran warm. He smiled benevolently
down at her and carried her away.
"Are you all right?"
Whether he spoke the words or merely felt them was immaterial.
She answered.
"Yes, I think, could you just..." Her voice slightly strained,
perfect pink lips pulled taut through the pain. He quickly
dashed across the room to her. He made a swift motion with his
hands across her knee. Her face softened and her eyes fluttered.
He wasn't sure what he had done, but it had been the right
thing. She would be all right, if he was here, to watch over
her.
"Oh, God, thank you. That's so much better." She smiled at him.
"I love you," he whispered.
Holy fuck, what the hell are you saying?
Back out, slide out, retreat, deny.
He yanked the trode from his mouth and spat. He looked at the
sleek deck accusingly, horrified.
"Those weren't my words," he said quietly to the still air.
He could smell his own stale sweat. His back was still arched
over, his knees and lower legs were completely numb. He tried to
shift his weight and fell to the floor.
"Not my words," he whispered, grimacing through two simultaneous
muscle spasms in his legs. "I wasn't in there that fucking long,
maybe an hour, but I hate those fucking cheap-shit wares that
place fucking dialogue in your own goddamn mouth, makes you
start to wonder if you're losing your mind, godammit, stupid
shit, falling in love with a goddamn personality construct."
He furiously kneaded the constricted knots of muscle in his
legs. One, then the other. His feet and legs began to tingle,
ghosts of nerves promising to return.
He lay on the floor then, for a long time.
The woman next door was either having sex or watching it. Moans
and flesh-muted screams buzzed through the wall.
He didn't remember falling asleep.
A flare of pain in his back awoke him to dark silence. The
hardwood against his cheek was cold and confusing. Where was his
bed?
Then he got up, clenching his teeth against the pain in his back
and neck, and started limping slowly towards his best guess at
the location of the bed. He kicked the sim deck with his left
foot, sending it skidding across linoleum. It clacked hard
against some table leg or counter base. His knee collided with
his nightstand and sparks jolted up his leg. He swore. He fell
to the bed, cursing at the darkness. He near-screamed for the
window. Hypnagogic, light-red sunrise flickered in and stung his
eyes. Night gone, already.
"Window," he said softly. Then louder. Then again. Finally,
darkness returned.
A warm, electric, pleasantly distorted image flashed behind his
eyes. Of a beach, and a woman, and beauty.
He didn't sleep.
A week passed. spent in his apartment. Avoiding the people in
the building. Going out only at night. Then sitting for long
hours in bars, narrowly avoiding drunkenness. Watching the
subtle organic dance of the frequents, the unspoken gestalt of
business and professionalism, manifesting itself in
twenty-dollar cloned hookers, fresh from the flesh tank. Silence
and laughter intertwined; the smell of alcohol and perfume and
sweat.
Avoiding meaningful glances from heavily blushed faces, avoiding
surreptitious nods from hustlers on the street, druggies
procuring their wares from under brittle skeletons of storefront
awnings.
The night sucked him up without distinction, giving him
anonymity and peace of body.
Peace of mind, another matter.
Thursday came. Through equivocation, he pretty much managed to
avoid thinking about fuck night at all.
He woke up at three, yawning stiffly. Gray sunlight stinging his
eyes. He offed the windows and stumbled to the kitchen. Gulped
warm orange juice that he had left out on the counter. Walked to
the television.
He didn't even bother with the headset. Just flicked through
menus. The screen buzzed, the bluish light cloaked his naked
legs.
He called in a wildcard.
Then he dialed downstairs for movie listings. Instantaneous text
appeared on the screen. He scrolled down through it and finally
ordered a year-old Playboy-funded pseudo-porno.
He sat on his bed and watched. He fell asleep ten minutes into
it.
He awoke with a thought: _time_.
He looked at the clock. A bad feeling already growing in his
stomach. Because sometimes he awoke, like this, just knowing he
was late, knowing he had slept too long. 9:37, flashed the
numbers. Too fucking late.
A disastrous scenario pounding around in his skull. His match
for tonight, whoever she might have turned out to be, had come
up to his room. Or maybe she'd sat at home, on the edge of her
bed, a chill glass of champagne going flat between her thighs,
waiting for him. Yearning. Or knocking on his door. Or phoning.
Letting it ring fifteen times. And he hadn't awoken. And she had
either been stood up, screwed out of a date for tonight by his
lassitude, or had submitted for a rematch.
He jumped out of bed and ran to the television. His heart
thudding and reverberating within his ribcage.
An amorphous cube of dusty floor and blank wall flickered
somnolently with red and white television light.
He didn't bother reading the words. Knew what they'd say.
No matches.
He stood there a long time before turning off the television,
and a long time afterward.
Walking through blackness, reveling in his stealth, his blind
dexterity. He stepped into the closet. Pulled the deck from the
shelf. Cool and hard to his heated touch. Already gathering a
film of dust across its sleek surface. Tossed the jack and the
wire across his shoulder.
He sat down on the edge of the bed. He listened to his own
breathing for a long moment. His body began to shiver. The back
of his throat trembled a little.
He plugged the wire into the deck by touch. He sat the icy box
on his lap. He stuffed the jack into his mouth quickly, defying
hesitation. The instinctive motion of a hungry child.
She lay supine on the bed, gazing up at him. Her perfect white
body listless, her eyes gray and demure, resplendent with carnal
diffidence. He felt his own body shudder, the muscles in his
neck rigid with delightful tension.
It was where he had left her. Only slightly different. If he
remembered. Her leg seemed healed, if it had ever in fact been
injured, not just a game or a trick. But it was all a game, all
a trick. He knew that. He knew that. If he accepted that, he
could pull out at any time.
Yet how was it possible that she lay here, convalescing or
otherwise, in the same position he had left her? And he could
sense, could _feel_ that she remembered him, too. It was all a
trick. A fancy memory bank filtered through a gracious smile and
waves of near-tangible desire. Coming from her.
Stupid, he told himself. So what? It had a resident memory in
the chip, to save progress, and maybe an individual DNA scan, or
something, because surely there had been others before him,
others who had used it. Used her. And he hadn't left off where
they had gotten. The wear on the label of the cart. Previous
ownership. Indubitable.
She whispered his name.
It was a cheap trick. Cheap. He knew she wasn't actually
speaking his name, knew she wasn't a she at all but a complex
personality structure hardwired into a visual illusion. The drug
rampaging through his body merely made him believe she spoke his
name. Direct brain plant, using existing information. A cheap
trick. Effective. Uncommon. Frightening.
She spoke his name and he tingled.
A distant, recessive part of his brain pondered if he was really
responding so strongly to her words, to her body and her lips
and her voice, or if it wasn't just the sim telling him he was.
If it wasn't another cheap trick.
A dominant, longing part of his brain ultimately decided it
didn't matter. His body joined hers on the bed.
Her more palpable features slowly accreted under his touch. The
only thing that could possibly make her more beautiful was
detail. Her voice become more personal, filled with warmth and
character. Maybe even love, and that wasn't so impossible; it
was easier to accept love when it was behind the guise of a
cheap street sim.
Her body and face solidified. Her body supernal, eliciting a
simple cellular rush within him. Her hair now blond, soft,
smelling of honey and fresh rain. Her eyes dark gray, glimmering
with the intricacy of reflected sunlight on deep coagulating
puddles. Her voice like water. Thick red wine, her white cheeks
flush with blood. Her face not completely unblemished, which
added to the amalgam of depth and realism.
Her body warm on his skin. Naked or not, it didn't matter. The
mystery of her body nearly insufferable in its proximity. Her
love in her lips, brushing his neck and chin. His love in his
fingertips, brushing infinitely fine strands of blond from her
cheek.
They made love. Or they did not.
It transcended the sexual.
"Do you love me?" she asked of him, propped up on one elbow,
studying his face meticulously as the air conditioning kicked in
across the hotel room.
"I love you, unconditionally."
"Will you ever leave me?" she asked, fixing a drink for him from
the small cooler set in the sand, her naked body sprawled on a
bamboo-twine lawn chair, the tropical sun heating and lightly
tanning her soft skin.
"I may part, but not for long. I will never leave you. Not
intentionally."
Walking through a thunderstorm in a deserted European bazaar at
night, holding hands.
"Do you remember anyone before me?" he asked her.
"I have never known anyone but you. Through you, I think, I am
complete."
Lying together in thick green grass, a canopy of verdant foliage
overhead masking the sun.
"Do you feel?" he asked.
The corner of her mouth faltered. She kissed him.
"I know that I love you," she said.
Three.
--------
When he pulled out, it was because of a voracity that even a sim
couldn't hide. Not legally, anyway. It was against the law to
make a sim where you could consume food or drink that actually
seemed to replenish you.
Otherwise, you might just forget it was, after all, a sim. And
die from thirst, within a few days.
He dialed down for room service. Next month, for his work term,
it might mean working an extra two hours or so, but he didn't
much care. Everything cost hours. And there was only so much you
could do within a work term. But he knew if you started running
up debts they demoted you to less enjoyable tasks, come next
term. Like going from short order grill cook to midtown
streetsweep, or sewer basin detail.
Fuck it. He could always call in his holiday time.
The knock at the door came, and he called for them to leave it.
The bar of light beneath the door flickered briefly, returned.
He left the lights off in the room. Too bright. Just wavering
blue television light, so easy on the eyes.
He unlatched the door, opened it a foot, and grabbed the warm
paper bags. A smell of heated Styrofoam and charred grease and
moist dough wafted up to him. He closed and relatched the door.
He sat on the edge of the bed and opened the bags between his
legs. He ate the two vegetable burgers, and then the deep-fried
chicken sticks. He drank half the Coke. Couldn't stand it
without the caffeine. He slotted the paper and plastic into the
incinerator tube and fired it.
He fell heavily to the couch and spiked the sim.
I sometimes think we've talked about everything.
Everything?
Everything there is to talk about. Everything there is to
believe. Everything to feel.
It doesn't matter. Words are inconsequential. We've got each
other. We've got our love.
We've got our love.
On a tuesday, a move was called. Black on white words blinked
complacently on the television screen.
He looked at the words, his body itching, for a long time. His
neck so sore. Calling a move. His throat dry.
He drank a liter of warm cola and returned to the television. He
scanned through menus. New menu item. He punched it. He called
in a suspension.
He took a shower.
Late one night, taking a brief leave of her. Necessary for food
and drink and hygiene. And sanity, he thought, with a soft
giggle.
Outside, beyond his door and behind the walls, people were
moving. Shouts and laughter and muted talk and televisions being
switched off. Doors shutting. Weak thuds of lightly-packed
suitcases hitting hallway carpet. The distant chime of the
elevator, the oil-swept hiss of the doors sliding open, then
shut. The voices fading away into the darkness around him. All
sounds disintegrating until he was alone.
But it was a temporary solitude. More would come. Soon.
He disjacked. he left her to take a piss. After apologizing to
her profusely.
Distant televisions buzzed and voices murmured, to themselves or
to others. The sound of feet on linoleum, glass on glass, and
springs and hinges creaking. The overwhelming smell of dust,
sweat, climate-controlled Freon, frying hamburger, floor wax.
Like they had never left, he thought.
He wondered vaguely if it was Thursday.
Laying back in bed. The deck on his chest. Eyes closed against
the oppressive black. Slow-lapse time freeze, the mouthpiece
sliding smooth against his wrist, into his hand, cutting the
air, arcing invisibly. His involuntary, primal grin at the
aesthetics of it. Down his throat.
Her love and passion and heat consuming him from within.
Timeless.
Only when he came out did time exist. Then his body would ache
and his stomach would growl. His skin would itch and the
electricity humming through the walls would grind at his bones.
And the pasts of this darkness, this life, this apartment and
the many before, would consolidate into a silver line, tangible
and intense. His childhood and his adulthood and all the times
of pain and disgust would coalesce into a tight hot lump in his
stomach. Bile rose in his throat. His anger flared through dry
fingertips.
He came out, raging at the irreverence of leaving her.
He almost put his fist through the wall that day.
Instead, he showered, put on clean clothes. Ate all the food
left in his fridge, which amounted to a couple of shrink-wrapped
pickles and a rigid crust of cinnamon bread. Combed his hair
neatly. Looked for a long time into the mirror, the rage
threatening softly to resurface. He left the apartment, locking
the door twice, and left the building.
It was night and he was glad. Instead of a busy, overcrowded
deli or supermarket, he turned into the first twenty-four hour
neon-encased superdrugstore.
They had little for food. So he bought fifty dollars worth of
the junk food that so brightly lined the front counter. Six more
liters of Coke. More aspirin. His nerves were singing. From
exhaustion, lack of sleep, or lack of activity. He didn't care.
Walked back through stacks of glossy magazines and baby products
and sexual aids. Asked the corporate pharmacist for Demerol. The
woman shook her head, launched into the Drug Legality Act
speech. He cut her off, asked for morphine. Anything legal. She
traded him a small bottle for a hundred-bill, some change, his
health card. He paid for it at the front.
Rifling through his wallet, his vision blurring. Peripheral
movement. He looked up. Outside, through the caged glass and
neon advertising logos. Into the night, the street.
He blinked.
She was gone.
He shook away the image. He hadn't seen her. This was life. She
was dream. Fantasy.
He paid the cash and hefted his bag in one hand. He exited
finally, out into the street, the bright illicit business of the
city and its many emblazoned slogans sizzling against his
retinas.
He locked the door, twice, behind him, and clamped his eyelids
down. He could smell himself here. The smell of warmth and bed
sheets and carpet and garbage. And something else.
He opened his eyes.
She smiled at him.
The blue static of her eyes soporific and melancholy. Her skin
glowed radiantly. Her teeth shining gray despite the darkness.
Her hair, fine as sand.
Despite the complete darkness of his room, he could see her. And
then, somehow, he could not.
He fumbled feverishly for the lightswitch. Tripping over garbage
and his bag of food.
"Fuck!" he screamed. "Lights!"
Apocalyptic white drenched the room. His eyes shuddering against
the differential, pupils quickly shrinking.
He finally opened them. She was gone. His apartment, nothing
more. As always.
"Wait," he whispered, too late.
Inside. She beamed at him.
"Was that you? Were you out there?"
A quizzical grin. "Out where, love?"
"Out of here, out there, in my goddamn apartment!"
The grin fading behind subtle folds of pale skin. "I don't know
what you're saying. I can't be there. You know that."
"I just saw you. In my fucking apartment. On the street, too, by
the sidewalk, outside, in front of the drugstore, you were there
too. I swear to God I just saw you in my apartment, and I wasn't
even stimmed. Were you there? How did you do it?"
A solitary tear slid down her cheek, leaving the faintest pink
trace. "I can't leave here. Here is the only place we can be
together. I don't exist out there."
He stared. A long moment. Eternity held in a moment. He
comforted her.
Out again, being born to light. "Lights," he spoke falteringly.
The depth and comfort of dark returned.
He popped morphine tablets, slept.
When he awoke, if he awoke, she stroked his cheek, lovingly, and
caressed his arm. Her tongue slipping between his lips.
He was drugged. He took his consolation in that fact. And tired.
And sick. Very unhealthy. He was drugged, and he succumbed.
He awoke in the sim. She smiled, pleasant, innocent, oblivious.
Still drugged, probably, because her form shifted and shuddered
and focused. The walls and the sands and the sky fragmented,
focused, melted, reshaped, and petrified.
The smell of papaya, mango, dish-cleaning liquid, damp socks,
fresh air, burning leaves, laundry detergent, sweet feminine
perfume. The taste of her tongue and her skin and saltwater.
His actuality was spiraling, refracting, dissolving. He
screamed, or dreamt that he did, and pulled out.
In the glow of the television she stood.
"I'll love you forever," she said.
"I know," he said, but his voice was silent.
He stood. His legs nearly collapsed. Stars and cracks of white
darting light swept across his vision. The morphine was dying,
and maybe his rationality with it.
"You're real," he said, his voice cracking, his throat parched.
"Will you stay? Or will I wake up?"
She smiled, reached out to him.
Gone.
Gone.
"Motherfucker!" he screamed, his throat scorching. Through the
walls, he knew they could hear him. But they were not real. Not
real. Maybe none of them. Maybe not he himself.
"Motherfucker," he whispered. Tears began to stream down his
cheeks, and it took him a long desperate moment to recognize the
sensation. Salt on his lips. A wrenching synesthesia.
And then it came. Less like a bolt of lightning, more like a hot
wet rag being slowly wrapped around his cerebrum. Within his
very skull a dull warmth spread, hot and chlorine-rich, his mind
wading into the shallow bubbling effervescence of some esoteric
whirlpool.
His eyes and thoughts thickly coated in cotton. His head
ringing. Sound erupting. And then a black plane behind his eyes
began to crack, until the shards were expanding with a muted,
slow-motion dissiliency.
The thought came. It was pure:
I'm in the sim.
He tried to pull out. Panic and reaction. He stuffed his fingers
into his mouth, feeling around for the mouthpiece. He coughed
and spat and flexed his throat. His fingers triggered his gag
reflex, and he couldn't stop; suddenly he was vomiting all over
the floor, his stomach heaving with vacuous tremors.
There were knives, and forks, and knives, and maybe even an
icepick. Supplied with the room. In the cupboards, in the
drawers...
He nearly slipped on his own vomit. His mind was buzzing with
white light. Distortion. White noise, feverish, high, infinite,
vibrating through his skull, focusing in on the backs of his
eyeballs.
He bit down on a scream.
Fumbled towards the kitchen. Fumbled through a drawer. Another.
A knife. He held it with unsteady fingers.
He walked to the bed with renewed calm. Greased gears within his
very flesh seemed to glide into position. All systems go. It was
very close to being clear, despite the fog of confusion and
pain.
He stabbed through the deck. Three, four, ten times. A single
clear drop of battery acid sliding across sheer black plastic,
singeing a hole in the bedsheet.
The thought of tears permeating the fog. A tear on immaculate
flesh. Memory...
He stabbed the cartridge. Once. Cracked casing. Two thin
fragments of dull and finger-worn black plastic. Sudden contrast
of gray-black shards against gray-white sheets.
Then silence. An inertia.
Behind him, beyond him, in the darkness, outside his apartment,
yet so close that he could taste it. Girl's voice, and the slow,
muted sound of crying. Her voice, her tears on his lips, her
soft weeping.
Dying.
He screamed then, and threw the knife with every twitching
muscle in his body.
A dull crack, a flicker of blue spastic light. The knife
collided and stuck in the window-wall. A pained hiss. The slow,
lugubrious fall of white sparks, television tears.
Then the sunlight erupted all about him, flooding in through and
around the concentric freeze-framed black lightning.
In a small foam-enclosed sleep casket, fifty dollars a night.
Nothing but a clothes-filled suitcase to prop his head on.
A receipt for the wall-window repair, seven hundred dollars. An
official eviction notice. An Inappropriate Conduct written
reprimand. A form to apply for transfer; basically a mandatory
move. Another city, new faces, new life. But always the same,
inside.
He'd stay. The communes weren't for him. Not anymore.
A street pistol, twenty years old, bought from a kid on a
corner, ten blocks from the apartment, twelve dollars.
A fake passport, wholly superfluous, three hundred dollars. He
didn't feel like going anywhere. A prosaic street ID, under the
name Gregory F. Gardener, two hundred.
No new face.
No new life.
He walked at night, garbaged all the papers. Defied the past to
haunt or plague. Dared any of it to reach him.
But it did, slowly, eventually. As he walked at night. As he
killed, or stole, or ate, or drank.
Sometimes, beyond him, from the dark, came her voice.
Mollifying, soft and smooth, feminine and voluptuous.
His only comfort. He would smile, or cry. And then, without
warning or pause, she would be gone. And for a short while, he
could almost convince himself it was as if she had never been.
Craig Boyko (boykocc@meena.cc.uregina.ca)
-------------------------------------------
Craig Boyko lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, the coolest
city 50 kilometers northeast of Moose Jaw. Craig sleeps alone,
has no cats, and avoids all direct eye contact. He can be
further researched at http://www.geocities.com/paris/3308/.
FYI
=====
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InterText's next issue will be released in early 1997.
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In a previous life, Reginald was a sea cucumber. You can just tell.
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