The Canal

by Daniel Morris

  "Did she have anything to do with the bridge?" pressed Joe.

  "Dammit, gingerbread," scolded the secretary. "Let a man concentrate... I mean, do you really want to know about that chick? For sure?" He removed his arm, shaking off a watery curd. "Well hear me -- she just does whatever she feels. 'Me, me, me,' that's all she is. This is a collective, privately held, we the people and all that shit. We ain't got time for those who see only what they want to see. Who won't listen to consensus.

  "Look, like all things, it starts with our best friend and deepest associate -- that singular stream, that terrible tributary..." The secretary reached back into the tub and pulled up a handful of water. Joe watched it squeeze, jelly-like, through the man's fingers. And in a whisper, one appropriate to churches, or a lover's ear, the secretary then said: "The Chairman of the Board."

  Joe looked at the man. "...The canal?"

  "Don't say the word!" hissed the secretary. "Not in here, motherfucker! Someone could have an ear on us! ...But yeah, yes, Mr. Old Man River, and you're a baptized SOB, so don't pretend like you don't know!

  "Now, as I was saying, The Chairman is always looking to expand market share. You hear me? Likes a return on its money. And let's just say one of the Chairman's pet projects, a rather capital venture, a certain Enterprise, has exceeded most expectations. This project is a new thing, brother. A trade secret, been kept under wraps for a long time, pending copyright and all. But it's too big to stay quiet -- we've begun to see it here and again in our, uh, internal forecasts."

  "This project, the Enterprise, although profitable, has begun to upset market stability. It has caused certain trouble within our financial community. It is detrimental to the operation of the...of the you and me. The us. The economy. Hear me? Because this particular operation takes a lot of investment. And you see, we have become investment. And investment hurts, motherfucker. It hurts bad, believe me -- you and me, us, we don't want to be invested, because once you're invested, you're gone. You get deposited in the local branch, underside the motherfucking bridge. Even a healthy motherfucker. This, uh, particular concern is set to go worldwide."

  "It's the truth," murmured someone in the circle.

  "Now, we all respect the Chairman, we are all, uh, consumers of its product, but if this Enterprise succeeds, there won't be a 'we all.' So in the interest of our own continued job security, we'd prefer to assure this Enterprise's financial failure. And then that crazy what's-her-face is gonna disagree with our market analysis? She thinks our forecast to be inaccurate? Like I said Charlie, she sees what she wants to see. She doesn't see the enterprise for the Enterprise, got it all mixed up, know what I mean? She isn't welcome here anymore. Pink slipped, Charlie, that's what she is."

  Joe abruptly turned toward the pipeline -- he had heard something, a metallic thud, a bending. The secretary must have heard it too, he leaned forward, his face tightening. Everyone in the room, in fact, they all seemed to be straining to hear...

  There was a gassy murmur from the water in the tub. But that was it. The secretary relaxed. "With the industry being so volatile," he said, "it pays to stay alert."

  Joe put a tired hand to his forehead. He recoiled at the touch, his fingers slipping in his own sweat, his skin feeling more like hide, like pelt.

  "Take me back down," he said, his whole head, humming. It was a mistake coming here. These people had been steeping in fever for too long, they were fried, overcooked. Deranged.

  "What? Speak up, gingerbread."

  "I said, take me back downstairs. 'Cause I'm hearing a whole lotta talk about enterprises and bullshit and none of it means a goddamn thing."

  "Aw, but you just got here."

  "You people...you people are sick."

  A queasy, sticky laughter went through the group.

  "That is rich," giggled the secretary. "You know, for a cop, you ain't so bad, Lombardi."

  "...What'd you call me?"

  "Let's not play this game, baby. You think we don't know you? You think your Rose wouldn't shut up about it? And if I may, sir, you and her -- the two of you suffer from the same symptom. She chooses what to see, and you choose what not to see--"

  He was cut short by an echoing growl, like the sound of a capsizing ship. The pipeline began to shudder in its mooring, hesitantly at first, but then with greater urgency, thrashing from side to side, fissures of light beginning to show where it was pulling away from the wall.

  The secretary bounced from his perch. There was a chorus of fearful gasps as the residents began to come fully awake, pulled roughly from sickly fugues. A snort of sea spray burst from the opening, showering those nearby, as if the tide itself were coming up the shaft, to overwhelm them all.

  "Incoming," someone kept rasping. Over and over: incoming incoming incoming...

  The pipeline continued to twist and buck. There was a tin-sounding crackle, a sound like popping joints, as bolts snapped free, as metal ruptured. And then came a slithering, subsonic growl, one that drew itself into your ears and pooled there, thick like a sap. It wasn't a sound of wreckage, or instability, or collapse. It was a voice, and it called a name.

  The secretary looked at Joe, his eyes flashing panic. "You..."

  Joe stared at him, open-mouthed.

  "It said your name, motherfucker!" screeched the secretary.

  Joe's voice was vague, pleading, "What-- No. This is--"

  The secretary began to back away from him. "The Enterprise, lawman. Can't be anything but. It knows you're here! And it wants a word!"

  *

  Closer to the river the outer frontier of liquor stores and check cashing emporiums finally gave way to the wilderness -- stripped cars and coal depots and garages and bonfires and hooded wolves who played with pistols.

  Alan followed Joe in his car. He let Joe stretch out a lengthy lead, assuming he was headed for the bridge. But to Alan's surprise, Joe passed the bridge without so much as a quiver in his ape-gait. Instead, he went deeper, deeper into the wasteland.

  Joe finally stopped in a particularly godless corner of town. The road was dominated by jagged cess-filled potholes, graffiti frescoes were spattered along every available wall, doorways were kept barred and bolted. At the end of the street was a null space where the canal lay. And beyond that -- a gorgeous view of mangled construction machinery, mud dozers and land pounders put to pasture. All in all, another stunning candidate for the wrecking ball.

  Joe was staring up at one of the taller buildings. A tottering ruin that had been abandoned to the pigeons, which were squirming in the blank sockets of windows. There was no signage of any kind that Alan could see, although he couldn't blame anyone for not bothering. These places didn't deserve names.

  Joe. When Alan thought about it, it was alarming how little he actually knew about the man. Joe smoked by the shovelful, ate whatever processed, hydrogenated, and preservitated foodstuffs his tarantula hands landed on, and generally made a mess of things. But that was about as far as Alan's knowledge went. He knew Joe tended to the sickly side, but that was no secret -- everyone saw Joe retch into the office wastebasket at some point.

  But if personal appearance was a reflection of inner-spirit -- and it was -- then Joe's spirit, without question, bespoke a resounding criminal act, something porno related with a public indecency overtheme. Just look at the street they were on -- Joe fit right in. He was practically one of them, one of the savages. And someone like that in a place like this, that could only lead to one thing: error. And Alan had spent all last night scraping a dead body off the underside of a bridge -- he knew firsthand what error could accomplish when it was allowed to go unchecked.

  Alan watched Joe make his way into the building. An illegal entry, Alan noted. That was private property.

  For now, he decided to watch and wait. He suspected Joe would be on the move again soon enough. And if that were the case, Alan would radio Vincent to check this building out -- let him brave that filth hole.

  Alan fiddled with the A/C. God
he was hungry. He could just murder a celery right about now. He could still taste the morning's leftovers, sour and regrettable in his throat. Did Susan feed that stuff to Eugene? He began making a mental list: Foods for Eugene. Nuts, berries, fiber. Flaxes. Brain foods. The child's processes, they needed to run like a machine.

  He looked out the window. This fucking neighborhood. Call in the air strike.

  Alan listened to the drone on the police radio for a while. A smashup on the expressway, but that was about it. Even on a relatively quiet day, people were still getting squashed. That's why you couldn't let your guard down, not even for a second. You couldn't get lazy, and you couldn't get sloppy.

  Alan wouldn't. Every Joe, every homicide, every bum, every crumb -- let them come. Let them keep piling on the filth, because Alan would be there to pile it right off. Tit for tat. And when the day came that Alan did pass from this mortal realm (purely a hypothetical), well, he was confident his legacy would continue...through his son and then his son's son, and onward. Alan's mission would forever be sustained, from one generation to the next, until the end was achieved. Until light stayed the dark, life triumphed over death, and humanity mastered, well, everything. Yes, in time, humanity -- humanity and Alan -- would defeat the very universe, the very heartless and very arbitrary universe. The universe would be banished to the stockade, to be spat on and taunted and disgraced. Humanness would rule with totality. Total design. Total purpose. Total law. Total--

  A sheet of pigeons suddenly scattered from the roof of Joe's building. Alan rolled down his window…he could hear something, like the throbbing of an airplane, but coming through the building, microphoned through the bricks.

  And then the door on the loading dock popped open, slamming back flat against the wall. A man scurried out. Alan saw the limp, the grimy sheen on the piecemeal clothes, the unkempt hair. Although the man's cap, it shone white and new. Shoplifted, unquestionably.

  Error. That's what this was.

  The man stumbled off of the loading dock, crashing to the ground below. Alan was already out of the car. He knew the way it worked. Error begat more error, so you had to act fast, you couldn't let it grow. Besides, maybe Alan would get lucky -- maybe this clown knew a thing or two about bodies and bridges.

  The guy was already shimmying through the gate by the time Alan got close.

  "Stop! Police!"

  The man squinted, seeing Alan for the first time.

  And then came the flood. An entire, ragged looking crew came charging out of the building. They looked like escapees from some apocalyptic meltdown, blinking in the sun like half blind trench-dwellers. Alan thought Joe might be among them, but that didn't seem to be the case.

  "Nobody move! Attention! Do you hear me!"

  These were the untenured, the floaters, the drifters. The type who didn't earn, they stole. The type who didn't live, they survived -- a careful distinction, living being grand and ethereal, survival being base and reptilian. They were loners who watched the glow of civilization from afar, from out in the woods, with their sloth and their vices, with all the other beasts. No matter what you called them: gypsies, drunks, beggars, tramps (lazy, lazier, laziest, lazing) -- they defied all of Alan's ideals and endeavors.

  Alan was suddenly overwhelmed by this stunning bouquet of loserdom. How to choose? Each bum was more tantalizingly problematic than the last. He wanted to be everywhere, he wanted to hunt them all. The mind reeled--

  Alan stopped himself. He had to remain calm, here. He had to maintain his focus and approach the situation one problem at a time.

  The first man, he was nearly across the street, his baggy clothes flapping in the wind like a garbage flag. Alan went after him. The guy wasn't fast, Alan easily narrowed the distance. "Desist, fucker! Desist!"

  Alan got the man from behind and shoved. The guy hit the ground rolling. Alan was about to kick him when his foot slipped. He fell awkwardly, face-forward, cracking his knee on the asphalt.

  He was close though, just behind the guy. He grabbed the man's shoe, wrestling with the foot. Alan tried to get standing, but gasped from the pain in his knee and sat back on the ground. The guy was already up on one foot and half-crouched on the other.

  "Get off me, Charlie! This ain't no game!"

  Alan was climbing the guy's leg, one handful at a time, almost bringing the man's pants down. The guy hopped forward on his free leg. "Stay...still," grunted Alan.

  The man looked at him. And then in a quick motion, more an afterthought, he swiped at Alan's forearm. Alan felt the flesh there snag and give way, saw the dull shine of metal in the man's hand. A large parenthesis opened in his skin.

  Alan recoiled, and the man was gone, loping across the intersection. Alan immediately hunched over his arm. Oh shit. He didn't think the cut was deep. The knife had only sheered the surface, leaving a surprised flap of skin that was just now starting to flush with the blood. But still. Oh shit. What about that knife? Where had that knife been? Holy fuck, what filth had that knife touched?

  Alan's hands were trembling. The grand organism had been breached. THE GRAND ORGANISM HAD BEEN BREACHED. He unholstered Womack's revolver and aimed. One bullet, one wad of metal the size of a fingernail, that's all it would take to churn that man's head into sauerkraut. It was one mess that would probably be worth it.

  But... No. Alan wasn't shooting anyone, not in the back. Not when he could pursue them and capture them and put them in a cage instead. Not when he could force-feed them obedience and court and discipline. Get them fat on the stuff, like those foie gras ducks. Only, if you were to slice them open in a few years, instead of a big buttery liver you'd find a big buttery heart, absolutely engorged with the System.

  That's what they'd get for fucking with him. That's what they'd get for cutting Alan's goddamn arm with that (shit oh shit) filthy goddamn knife.

  He replaced the gun. He noted with mounting dismay that blood had gotten on his shirt, leaving a thick smudge, brilliant against the meticulous, white cotton, a stoplight glow. The virginal expanse of his shirt: violated. And his pants, where he'd fallen, were scraped, maybe torn. The neat uniformity: compromised.

  As he stood there taking this in, absorbing the ramifications, the rest of the gang, the rest of those sorry musketeers, they were scrambling in all available directions. All those errors were escaping to their burrows, dens, and nests. Alan, he'd have to find them later. And he would, eventually. All of them. Just...he just had to get to his car first. There was a first aid-kit there, for the cut (festering, festering, turning green, oh shit). There was iodine. And God, bleach, he hoped. And then, then he'd go and round up them up, those errors. Then he'd embark on one massive, gleeful correction. Just...give him a minute.

  The street was empty by the time he reached his car. And the car, he discovered, trembling, was locked. In his rush he had left the keys in the ignition. He peered helplessly through the window. His radio was in there too. All the while he was losing valuable time -- untold microscopic intruders surging further and further into his body...

  Then came the gunshot. Coming from Joe's building, the upper floors.

  A second gunshot made Alan flinch. Instinct quickly took over. Was Joe on the giving end of those bullets, or the receiving? There was no question in Alan's mind what needed to be done -- he was going inside. Forget the runners. Forget his car. Forget even radioing for help. And forget his arm, his rotting arm--

  Focus. Alan straightened his shoulders. Focus. Checked his gun. Focus. Then he forced himself to think about how badly the world needed him. How he had never shied from that need. How he'd strap the whole goddamn world to his back and carry it to some better place, a brighter place, all on his goddamn own, if that's what it took. Even if that world had Joe in it. That's right, even Joe -- Alan wasn't leaving a single person behind.

  Alan turned around and began limping towards the building. And the street, it was if it was anticipating him. The narrow block, emboldened, seemingly reared up to meet his challe
nge, readying to stomp, basking in its lush bankruptcy.

  It wanted a fight, did it? Then Alan was more than happy to give it one.

  >> CHAPTER EIGHT <<

  Joe watched, transfixed, as something darted from the pipeline. It was too fast to see, latching onto one of the nearest residents and pulling him swiftly toward the opening. The guy slammed sideways across it. He must have been about Joe's age, long haired, like a shabby yogi. He screamed as his body began to crunch under the weight of whatever was climbing up the pipe, pulling on him like a handle.

  Joe spun sideways as someone lumbered past him. There was a frantic, crippled exodus as the most ill and malnourished of the top floor's residents mounted unsteady and long ignored legs, relearning to balance. Some of them crawled -- so atrophied they looked like scribblings rather than people, their spines folded like a 7 or looped like an 8.

  Wordlessly, the secretary hurried to join them.

  Joe grabbed him by the arm. "Where the hell are you going?"

  "This isn't my business, lawman." He was trying to yank his arm loose.

  People were yelling from the elevator. The residents were cramming inside, everyone jostling for a spot furthest in, away from the open door.

  The guy at the pipeline screamed again as he fell hard to the ground, laying motionless below its mouth. There was a moment of quiet. Joe thought maybe it was over.

  And then it appeared.

  It unfolded itself through the opening -- something from the deep, a creature from down in the ooze, breathing a brackish, fly blown smog. It was a vision to make men mad, to melt the brain's circuitry. And of all its displayed horrors, Joe was helplessly drawn to one in particular -- a growth, a profane and pulsing sac that spasm'd on its chest like an insane rooster goiter. Pounding out an unmistakable rhythm.