by John Shirley
She laughed. Then her expression went ludicrously earnest. "Did anyone call for me?"
"No, hon, he didn't call, whoever he is. What's his name? Is he in puberty yet? Does he have pubic hair?"
" Da -ad!"
Ephram thought about doing away with Megan. He thought about it as he drove his '88 Porsche to the condo he'd rented near the beach, in Alameda. On the way, he drove through a neighbourhood of Victorian and Queen Anne houses, most of them prettily restored and trimmed, ostentatiously gardened. The matronly old houses seemed to wear the lush foliage of the street's many oaks and maples like fir stoles. He would have preferred one of the fine old houses to a condo. But anonymity was better, and you were more anonymous in a condo.
He left the old town neighbourhood, drove into the area of housing projects and condos and beach front apartment buildings; an area of town rather glaringly open to the sky. It was a sweet summer evening for a drive by the beach, a few clouds strikingly purple against the lemon glow of the horizon. It was an evening to savour, an epicurean's evening, and Ephram regarded himself as the last word in epicureans.
A nice night to do away with Megan. She was mostly used up. There wasn't much left but the sticky, impure stuff at the bottom of the bottle that was her brain.
He always thought of it that way: Doing away. It was such a pleasantly euphemistic expression. It made him think of the way Valentine Michael Smith had rid the world of unwanted people in that novel, that bit of silliness from the 60s. Stranger In… something. Valentine Smith would simply think them out of existence.
He couldn't do that with Megan, just think her out of existence when he was done with her. And having to do away with them physically, personally, was his least favourite part of the whole process. Well, the actual killing was all right, but the disposal – the away of it – was a bore and a mess. Literally, a mess. There was no truly pristine doing away, he thought. Not even incineration. There was always a mess of some kind. A cadaver leaving its mutely insistent signature on the scene, if only a little grease and ash.
Nothing for it but to roll up his sleeves…
Ephram arrived at the cluster of two-story security condos and pressed the door signaller that would let him into the parking lot. The gate lurched a little, then rolled aside. He drove through and neatly into his parking place. He was not a man to waste movements.
He went into his condo without bothering to check his mailbox. There shouldn't be anything in it except bills and trash. No one knew he was here. And, of course, there was no one alive who would write him a letter, anyway, ha ha.
Megan was right where he'd left her, under the sink in the bathroom.
Part of her naked, pale, pinkwhite body was set aglow by a long bar of light that expanded from the hall when he opened the door. She had her back to him, lay on her side, curled up around the sink pipes like a snail around a stem. Her long red hair – now matted and oily – fanned across the bathroom tiles. Freckles across her back. He often chose freckly girls, or girls with birth marks. Marks on the skin were signs to him.
She groaned when he switched on the bathroom light, but of course she couldn't move. He hadn't given her leave to move. She was still cerebrally locked. He reached oat with an exploratory impulse, the probe making her shudder and gag a little as it passed through her skull. He tasted the pleasure centres of her brain. The reward receiver of the brain, as Ephram thought of it. There was some capacity left. Some cells not yet wrung out. More than he'd thought. Best use her once more before the doing away. Waste not, wanton. Ha ha.
He first had to unlock her brain. He reached out mentally and undid the partial paralysis. She spasmed like a sick dog and defecated thinly and wetly on herself, then flopped onto her back. Ephram wrinkled his nose at the smell and switched on the bathroom's ventilator fan; he took a little can of air freshener from the glass shelf over the sink and sprayed it around a bit. Honeysuckle.
He put the can away and inspected her. The marks he'd made were scabbing over, but rather badly. Some of them were purulent. This definitely did have to be the last time with Megan.
She tried to speak, managed to croak, ''Listen… just once… listen I can't believe you don't… you can't…"
"You should believe it," he said, sending a probe into her cerebral punishment receiver. She gave out a cawing sound that was all the scream she could manage anymore and arched her back. Ephram felt his penis harden. It hardened a bit, anyway.
He moved to stand beside the bathtub and said, "Come over here and get in the tub. Facing me."
The look on her face. Her eyes going dully to the door. Thinking about pushing past him, running. Not having the strength – and knowing he'd never let her get a step toward the door, anyway.
He savoured the completeness of his triumph over her. She had fought him all the way. She was better than some, who'd capitulate in some kind of role reversal madness, beginning to identify with him, losing their grasp on identity. That was a bore. But Megan fought to the last breath, bless her.
All she could do was say, emptily, "No.".
Psychically, he speared her again. She writhed and tried to weep, but the tears were long since dried up. Her lips were cracked from dehydration.
She struggled to her feet. She swayed.
Ephram reached over and turned on the water, started the shower going, lukewarm. He didn't want any steam to obscure his view. Then he said, again, "Get in the tub."
She took a wobbly step toward it. She might not make it…
His mental probe encircled her reward receiver; grasped it, almost squeezed it like a sponge. His use of her this past week made the extra exertion necessary.
She struggled, but the pleasure rippled through her, prompted by Ephram's control of the master switch in her brain, the nexus of all biological switchboards…
Raspily sobbing, she struggled across the floor to the tub and, with great effort, climbed over its rim, stood miserably in the shushing water. He waited till her fouled thigh was rinsed, then bent to the portable cassette stereo he kept on the floor – what people called a "ghetto blaster", ha ha – and Mozart unreeled sweetly from its speakers, the music bouncing tinnily from the tiles in the little room.
Ephram closed his eyes and listened. He took a deep breath, refining his senses, and opened his eyes.
He grabbed Megan by the hair, turned her about in the shower to lubricate her. He unzipped his pants. His psychic probe found the last pleasure receivers that could still be stimulated in her… She wailed and commenced involuntary humping motions with her hips. He put a hand around her throat and forced her to her knees, directed his semi-erect penis into her crusted mouth…
His hand closed slowly around her neck; as the crispy tissues of her throat collapsed under his strong, practiced fingers, his penis briefly hardened to something like complete tumescence.
A minute after the Mozart cassette ended, he withdrew from her, mentally. Withdrawing with excellent timing: just as she died. He dared not experience her death more closely, with the psychic probe. That would set up etheric repercussions and the Akishra would hear. They would find him again. The soulworms would find him. His freedom from them must be scrupulously guarded.
He wasn't sure if he'd killed her with the choking, or if she'd simply died from being used up, from exhaustion.
She was rather emaciated. It didn't matter.
Now he had to clean up the mess.
There was always a downside, in life.
"Did Constance come back there, Mr. Garner?"
"What? Isn't she with you, Terry?" Garner told the cold, clutching hand of his imagination to let go of his guts. Constance's friend Terry phoning from the mall – he could hear the video arcade going bing, bam, bong in the background. The girl was looking for Constance. Who, dammit, was supposed to be with this girl Terry. But there could be a lot of explanations. "Terry..?"
"No, uh, she was with me, but, it's like, she goes, 'I'm gonna go to the restroom', you know? And I'm lik
e, 'Okay but hurry up because you have to drive me home before eleven or my dad'll get really gross on me, you know?' And she's all, 'I'll be right back'. But then she doesn't come back and doesn't come back and -"
"She hasn't shown up here, either. Did you check for her car?"
"No. You think she'd, you know, actually ditch me at the mall like that?"
"No. I just want to make sure she's still in the mall somewhere. Can you check and call me back?"
"Um… Sure. Bye."
They hung up and Garner went back to the group. Nothing he could do till Terry called back. Just get on with the group and try not to think about it. If you freaked out every time your kid misplaced herself for a few minutes, you'd get some kind of chronic stress syndrome.
Group was in the living room. It smelled of stale coffee and cigarettes. It went on for ten minutes more, with Mrs. Wineblatt wallowing in self pity about her shambling marriage; the others struggling bravely to keep their interest in Mrs. Wineblatt's share, though they'd heard it all a half-dozen times and generally felt she was playing out some heavy denial about a necessary divorce…
Garner shook his head, thinking that his attitude toward Mrs. Wineblatt was slanted by his anxiety about Constance. He'd had a bad feeling about Constance all day and it made Constance's losing touch with Terry at the mall seem more important than it probably was.
The minutes dragged by. Mrs. Wineblatt was snivelling, Harry Dugan seemed an irritating old cynic, James seemed a pouty, self-indulgent college sophomore. Damn Constance. This kind of thing was just not on. She had to be responsible, because he had to be responsible…
Or maybe she…
The doorbell rang. Garner jumped up, announcing the end of group though James wasn't quite done with his share yet. Garner could see the boy's pout deepen, the kid taking it as a personal rejection.
Tough. Garner nearly sprinted to the front door, expecting to find a cop with a long face on his doorstep.
But on his doorstep was a twenty-five-year-old white woman, six months pregnant. Aleutia Berenson. He'd been counselling her for three months, on and off. She was a crack addict.
"Come on in, Aleutia," he forced himself to say. Looking up and down the street, before he closed the front door.
He escorted Aleutia into his study. She smiled at him, her eyes wet, the skin under them looking bruised. She was working up some kind of manipulative addict trip to pull on him. She sat on the sofa.
This wasn't her appointed counselling day, but he made time for pregnant women with drug problems. You help a pregnant drug addict get clean, you've scored a twofer.
His face may have been a little wooden, though. Waiting for the phone to ring. Terry to call back. What was taking so long?
From the Journal of Ephram Pixie, "for 5 January 1987".
… Number Seven is responding more readily than Six did and I am convinced that the difference is in me. Getting free of the Akishra is no doubt part of it. Without their sucking, sucking, sucking at me all the time, my talent flourishes. And Number Six responded more readily than Number Five did.
The Divine Vision is quickening in me. It is emerging and strengthening. Whatever spirit put this Talent in me (I do feel that it is Spiritual Power of some kind, intended to elevate me to the Transcendence I have always known is fated to me, known even when I was bowing and scraping to get tenure as a Professor trying to teach Nietzsche to the television-stunned cattle of this generation). I feel the Spirit is beginning to merge with me, to take part in my celebrations. Without the Akishra to interfere with our communing, I feel the Spirit's enjoyment the way a great solo violinist senses the rapt attention of the audience at a recital. Indeed, I can feel The Spirit participating, sharing with me all that I experience when I employ this Celestial Gift. Although I have never seen this Presence with my physical eyes, I felt it sharply last night as I used Seven on the deserted pebble beach and, in the course of things, I looked up at the stars and saw the unseen stars between the bright ones, the Negative constellation, the secret Zodiac that guides the lives of the world's secret masters… Zodiac signs no one but me and, perhaps, a few others, have seen… The Sign of the Lamprey. The Sign of the Cobra. The Sign of the Judge. The Sign of the Spider. The Sign of Kali. The Sign of the Sow. The Sign of the Hangman…
"I mean, if you really wanted to help me," Aleutia was saying, with elaborate innocence, you'd give me maybe fifty or a hundred in cash so I can get a room for a couple days -"
"So that's it. I can arrange shelter," Garner said wearily. "I can arrange a hotel room. I can arrange food. But no way do I give crack poofers a dime. I know better."
"You're a minister. Liberal Methodist or whatever, it don't matter, you're just another Minister, Rev Garner, and I should know you can't trust ministers anymore than cops!"
"So don't trust me. I don't give a fuck. Trust God, and that's enough."
"I just don't see how you can expect me to believe in God, with all this shit coming down on me in the world," Aleutia said. She was thinner, except for the pooch of her swollen stomach – and there were bruised hollows under her eyes. The backs of her hands were flecked with small, crusted sores; more of them scored her cheeks.
"You've been using again," Garner said.
She said, "Uh…" as she tried to decide whether it was worth the effort to deny it.
He went on, "You've got tweakin sores on your arms and face. You've been picking at cocaine bugs."
She started to cry, with a ratchety sound in her throat, and a bubble of phlegm appeared at a nostril. He gave her a tissue from the box on his desk, and she wiped her nose awkwardly, her fingernails getting in the way. They were six-inches long, painted gold, curling like the nails of a tree-sloth. Her brown hair was razor cut into wave patterns along the sides. She was a white girl, but these were the emblems of ghetto culture, Garner knew, which probably meant that she was living with Donald again. He decided to ask her point blank. Theological issues were for later. (Why didn't Terry call?)
"You're back with Donald, aren't you?"
"And you think that's bad, right, because he's a black man."
"Hell no, not because he's a black man, because he's a fucking crack addict, Aleutia, and he's got you back on the shit."
She broke down, then, and he put his arm around her and patted her. She said she was sorry, she knew it was hurting the baby, but she just found herself at the rock-house at five in morning, looking for Donald.
"You were looking for the cocaine, girl, you know? At least as much as Donald."
"So I'm a fucking addict. I didn't ask to be no addict."
I hear you. I was – I'm an addict too." He hadn't done dope of any kind in years but you were supposed to never talk about being an addict in the past tense, because that led to complacency, and somewhere inside, the addict was waiting for complacency. "I've been there. People who say, 'It's your fault because you started and you should have known better', those people are full of shit. We all had a direction in our life, a momentum, see, that carried us into addiction. Your stepdad raping you, your Mom beating you up because your stepdad raped you – the shit you went through goes on and on. You felt like you had to hit the streets. I can see that. But once we know what's happening, we can take responsibility and get the fuck off the streets, Aleutia. You know?"
She shook her head. Shivering. She was having a strong craving now, he knew. A spooncall. Or, in her case, a pipecall. She put her hand to her mouth and he could imagine a crack stem, the glass coke-smoking pipe, in her fingers.
Looking at her, he saw a little girl. Not much older than his own kid. It made him ache with worry about Constance. He thought: I'd better call the cops, tell them Constance is missing…
No. He knew what they'd say: It hadn't been long enough. Give her time. And if they picked her up when nothing was wrong she'd be so mad at him…
He forced himself to concentrate on Aleutia. "Look, Aleutia – you had a cocaine relapse, that's all. It's easy to do. We haven't h
ad a chance to talk much and there's some stuff – Listen, Crack gets you two ways. One, getting off is a way of escaping from all the shit, right? Addictive personalities. We've talked about that. Second – and this is important, Aleutia – it gets to you neurologically. Meaning it messes with your brain chemistry. It pushes your brain-buttons, so to speak. You ever see that film of the white rat that's got a wire running into its brain? The rat pushes a button to stimulate the pleasure centre of the brain and it becomes this little furry button pushin' machine. That's all it can do, it doesn't eat or sleep, it just pushes that fucking button till it dies, girl. It reprogrammed itself that way."
"Oh God, that's fucked up." Her face crumpling. "What're you saying, we're like robots? Programming and shit?" Tears streaking her makeup.
"Only up to a point. You get trapped. Neurologically trapped."
"It's like a fucking roach motel," she said miserably, reaching for a clean tissue.
He nodded, thinking about the baby in her belly: trapped in the trapped. He took a deep breath. "But if you get off the shit, and give yourself a whole new system of rewards, well, eventually, you can get free. It takes time for the brain to get normal. And holding on till then takes help from outside the trap. What you need to do, maybe, is think about going to a halfway house. Inpatient recovery home. For six months, say…"
Aleutia just shook her head. After a moment she said, "Can I smoke a cigarette?"
Before he could answer, the phone rang. Aleutia was startled as he lunged at it. "Yeah?"
"Mr. Garner? This is Terry. Um – her car's there. But I swear – Constance's just not at this mall. And all the stores are closed now…"
Ephram was sitting in his living room at the desk, writing in his journal. The old fashioned rolltop was the only piece of furniture in the room, except for the LA-Z-Boy recliner by the CD player. He was listening to Franz Schubert.
