Grey

by Jon Armstrong

  "It was my plan!" I told him. "I did it."

  "Dick-tastic!" he sneered as he rubbed his hand, as if now he felt the impact of his punch. "You're like the worse son in the history of the universe."

  "Just leave her alone!"

  "Hiro!" said Xavid as he approached, "look what you've done to your 'fro!" With three long, hornbeam chopsticks, he began to fluff Father's Afro back into shape.

  "They saw Nora!" Father whined. "It's a betrayal of everything RiverGroup. Most of all it's a big fat slap in my face."

  "You need to control this," said his hairdresser, quietly yet sternly, as he chopsticked Father's Afro.

  "I won't do anything if you fire Joelene," I threatened.

  With his hands on his hips, Father glared at me. "You're no help anyway!"

  "Hiro," said Xavid, "remember what I said. We need him. You need to use him."

  "He just mocks me or makes me look like an idiot!"

  "Joelene didn't do any of this. It was my plan," I said, ignoring his ridiculous hairdresser.

  "Michael," Joelene said, "maybe it's time that I should—"

  "No!" I told her, hating even the suggestion that she should quit. The thing was, she didn't look so much angry or hurt, but resolute.

  "She can't leave me!" I said to both Father and her. Looking her in the eye, I said, "I need her. She's like my real family."

  Joelene suppressed a smile, and then patted the back of my hand.

  "Butt vomit!" said Father. "What is the matter with you? She's your damn tutor! Not your family. Don't you know anything?"

  "Well," I asked, thumbing toward Xavid, "who is he?"

  "A damn good and loyal RiverGroup officer!" A drop of sweat rolled down Father's forehead. When he wiped it with the sleeve of his jacket, it left a green smear.

  "Now look what you did!" said Xavid, scolding him like a little boy. As he got out a silky cloth and wiped Father's forehead, he leaned in and said, "I think you need to make it very clear to them what you expect."

  "Yeah!" agreed Father. A beat later, he asked, "How do you think?"

  "What about your friend in Europa-13?"

  Father narrowed his eyes at his hairdresser. "Great idea. A threat!"

  "Exactly!"

  "Let us go back to the compound," I told Father.

  "Don't think so! We're taking a drive." With a wink toward Xavid, he added, "I've got a rotten, horrible, stinking, evil bastard I'd like you to meet."

  Nine

  From the outside, our Loop cars were identical orange-and-blue-painted teardrops, with a tilted glass all around. Inside, his was not surprisingly a design catastrophe.

  Every surface was upholstered with a different material so it looked like a cheap fabric sampler. Unlike the muted, indirect lighting in my car, here a hundred blue and orange pinpoint lasers scribbled Ültra lyrics everywhere at high speed. While it covered everything in a senseless, vibrating surface, occasionally a phrase lingered in the eye. Unite our diseases . . . Engage booster fuck . . . My tender gender fatality.

  When I stepped in, I found that the floor was covered with an unpleasant super-shag rug that crunched like dried leaves. Scattered among the yarns was a vast assortment of garbage, including empty carrot liquor bottles, star-shaped pills, phallus-shaped pills, fist-shaped pills, skull-shaped pills, red and black dildos, some of which were twitching like dying insects, and several bits of what looked like bloody fur. I figured it was the debris of a debauched car-party while he watched the promotion date.

  My car had only four seats with consoles; his had a dozen chairs all the way around. He and Xavid sat on the far side, the film crew set up in back, and Joelene and I were closest to the side door.

  Once we were on the Loop, Father opened a bottle and poured glasses of carrot.

  "Some rotten garden juice?" he asked us.

  "Thank you, no," said Joelene.

  Once he and Xavid had made a toast, he turned his glass upside down over his mouth and let the goop slowly drop in. "Thick!" he said, once he had finally swallowed it. For a while he turned on some painfully loud Ültra song and sang along. Joelene and I covered our ears. The phrase Snuff Your Mind flashed onto my leg. Instinctively, I swatted my hand at it as though it were a mosquito.

  Then the music was off. "We have to start having rages again," said Father. "Dance parties every night! That's what we did when we were number one." As quickly as he had been excited, he slumped, and said, "Our clients all hate me," and stared at the black residue in his glass.

  "They don't hate you," said Xavid. "You're a tough businessman. They admire you and fear you."

  Father laughed. "They hate me because I'm a terrible businessman. They think I'm so stupid they can take me down. But I'm not going to let them." One of the lasers etched Behold . . . The Immaculate Bruise across his face.

  The car exited the Loop, and after we traveled down the deceleration ramp, we were on local roads passing low buildings and wide avenues. I wasn't sure where we were, but it had to be somewhere in Europa-12, where there wasn't much of anything good. The streets became more narrow and bumpy. I saw stretches of abandoned buildings and junk everywhere. We came to a checkpoint; Father stepped out into the stink of the night and negotiated our passage with blue slub satins.

  "Joelene," I whispered urgently, "what's going on?"

  She just said, "Shh."

  "No, sir," intoned one of the blue satins outside. "Off-limits to the families."

  A moment later, Father was giving them bottles of carrot liquor and patting them on the back; soon we continued into the slubs.

  Outside it was mostly just black. Only the occasional reddish electric light or fire illuminated anything. Along one road, I thought I saw what looked like thousands of broken and bent bikes. Down another were piles of garbage, with women and children picking through it.

  Father was going to leave me out here, I figured. My only chance was to keep away from the slubbers until morning and then try and find my way back to the cities. Before, my mistake had been talking to them. This time I'd hide. I'd stay quiet.

  The truth was, I doubted I would survive the night, so I said goodbye to Mr. Cedar, to Pure H, Joelene, and most of all, to Nora. I hated that I'd never see her again, but at least she would know that I would rather die than surrender my love.

  The car made another turn; I saw people huddling around a bonfire. In the orange light, a naked girl danced. Farther along, I saw men fighting. One was hit in the face with a rock or a bottle. It knocked his head back with such force that I was sure his neck was broken. He dropped to the ground.

  For several minutes I could see nothing. We made three more turns and then the car came to a stop. The engines whirred as they slowed. The laser lights stopped scribbling their madness all over us and, for an instant, the world was still and peaceful. The side door slid open, and in the faint moonlight, I saw dilapidated two-story cinderblock buildings.

  "We're off the map," said Father. "Way off the map. So don't make a wrong turn 'cause there's no security, or satins, or anything. There's nothing here but bad, bad shit."

  "The odor is unbearable," said Xavid.

  "I've smelled worse!" said Father, as though it were a joke.

  We stepped out onto gravel. The humid air reeked of manure and rotting flesh.

  "Sir," said Joelene, covering her mouth as if she were about to gag, "this is already a stern and frightening warning. I'll take Michael back to the compound, and we'll work on an apology press release."

  "Shut your holes!" he barked. "Come on." In the distance I heard screams like someone was being torn in two. His film crew wheeled around to try and find its source. I didn't want to see, and pulled the lapels of my jacket up over my neck. Farther away glass broke, and I heard a crazy laugh.

  Father stopped before a black door and knocked. While we waited, he said, "Creepy, huh?"

  Three knocks came from the other side. Father adjusted his jacket on his neck, then his sleeve, like a hack magician ab
out to perform, then knocked seven times.

  The door opened an inch.

  "I am Melina Gwendalarra," said Father.

  "You mean Kristina Suggs?" asked a groaning voice from inside.

  Father winked at his camera. "No, I'm Osmond Miditulip."

  The door opened and we entered a pitch-black space.

  "Follow me," said a dark shape.

  Father started forward. I held onto Joelene's shoulder as we shuffled into oblivion with the film crew lagging behind. It was so dark inside, my eyes began producing spirals and checkerboards as if I were asleep or had been plunged into an ocean of ink. The floor turned sandy and wet. Then, we were walking through several inches of water and the sound of the splashes reverberated as though we were in a stadium-sized space. We made a turn to the right, the floor became firm and dry, and we began up an incline.

  "Where are we going?" I asked.

  "Shh!" hissed Father.

  "The humidity," complained his hairdresser, "it's too much."

  Father shushed him, too.

  Finally, we turned a corner and entered a small room. A single fluttering candle illuminated the space. The walls glistened with condensation. The air smelled of wet dirt and algae. Across the floor were curled wood shavings and what looked like the bones of small birds. I saw a waterbug three inches long dart away. And in the middle of the room on a wooden stool sat a man in a white loincloth.

  He appeared to be a burn victim. His skin looked like poorly cast rubber cement and had the flat tone of flesh-colored paint. His mouth was little more than a lipless hole, and instead of a nose, he had only one oblong black nostril. His eyes were green, bloodshot, and angry. I glanced away in disgust.

  This is what he wanted me to see—a victim of torture. I heard stories about employees who had been punished with needles, fire, and poisonous fruit. Is that what he was going to do to me? I hated to think so.

  "He's got no name," said Father. "No house. No family. No job, no numbers, no papers. He doesn't even have a bellybutton. Nothing!" To his crew he said, "Get a shot of his belly. It's as smooth as his back."

  As they did, Xavid leaned in and said, "I feel sorry for him."

  "Don't!" said Father, sharply. "He's a freeboot. As free and as boot as they come. And he's pure evil." Father folded his arms and gazed at the man proudly. "Didn't think I knew any freeboots, did you? Officially, these things are the enemy. And they really are. We work against them every day. But, if you're selling a solution," he puffed out his chest and smiled at his camera, "you gotta make sure there's plenty of problems to go with it."

  Although the freeboot scared me, this was about RiverGroup. It was about how Father made sure the families needed the security we sold. I asked, "Can we go now?"

  "Go?" asked Father, unfolding his arms. "Fuck pudding! We just got here. Why don't you ask him a question?"

  After glancing at the man's sorry, distorted face, I said, "I don't want to."

  "You should." He grinned. "He's real important to you. He's your motivation."

  I probably should have understood, but didn't. My advisor held her head down as if frightened. "Meaning what?"

  "Look at him," said Father, all smiles. "He's just waiting for my order."

  "To shoot me?"

  "No!" said Father, rolling his eyes. "From now on, if you see Nora, if you talk to her, or even think about her, then I give the order, and he finds her, and he kills her!"

  In the next instant, two things happened. I felt a cold, black hate pour over me like subzero tar, and then I lunged at Father with the idea of shoving his Adam's apple through the back of his neck. After I had started forward just a foot or two, the freeboot leapt in front of me and grabbed my throat with his moist, iron-strong hands.

  "Careful," he whispered, in an oddly high-pitched voice. "Please do not do that."

  Up close, I could see just how gnarled and distorted was his face. It was like he had been sliced into a hundred pieces, sewn back together, and then covered with a clear salve. I got a whiff of sweat and feces. And when he smiled, he exposed his tiny sharp teeth and the bloody bits of flesh and veins stuck between them.

  "Get away from me!" I said. Recoiling, I fell backward and knocked into Joelene. We both toppled to the floor.

  Father laughed and pointed at us like we were two silly children who had fallen from a seesaw. "Sorry," he said, dabbing the corner of his eyes, "but that was funny. You should have seen your look!"

  Xavid smiled sadly and said, "Comedic!"

  Joelene stood and gave me a hand.

  "Did you see those reflexes?" Father asked Xavid. "Did you get that?" he asked the film crew. They confirmed that they had. "He's boiled," said Father. "He's boiled down to the real shit."

  "You can't," I told him.

  "Oh, yes I can." Father snapped his fingers. "Like that he could have her tied up and ready for torture." The candle flame danced in his pupils. "So, now do you get it? You marry Elle and everything's lard. If you don't, he goes after your little puss ball. And believe me, he gets her. No question about it."

  "That would be awful!" exclaimed Xavid.

  "Right!" said Father. "Because he's good. He's so good, he's like the black plague injected in your eye. This guy can crack systems. He can scale walls. And no medicated bullets. No medicated anything." Turning to the freeboot, Father said, "Right? No medicated shit."

  The freeboot, who like a trained but diseased hawk was perched back on his stool, said, "You are correct." His voice was soft and quiet, as if counterpoint to the grisly fury of his being. "The lovely Miss Nora Gonzalez-Matsu will feel every terrible, painful thing I do to her."

  A hateful raging fire. That's what I felt as I sat in the car while we headed back to civilization. Joelene sat beside me, patting me, and whispered soothing words, but I felt alone and broken. Somehow, I was going to kill Father.

  Back in Kobehaba, before we parted, Father said, "Listen, I don't want that hunk of gristle to tear Nora in half. The truth is, the guy scares me! Freeboots are usually pretty disgusting, but that one's completely evil. I'm telling you, you should see the fucker eat a jar of mayonnaise. It'll make you sick!" He snorted a laugh. Meanwhile, Xavid got out his chopsticks and began fluffing Father's hair again. "Nora's really nothing in the whole scheme of things. I know you like her and everything, but let's just do what we have to do and nothing bad will happen."

  "You leave us little choice," said Joelene.

  "That's the idea!" Father forced a laugh. Then to Xavid, he said, "Don't make it too perfect. I'd like to look like we went at it a little, you know?" Xavid pulled a corkscrew-looking thing and a spray bottle from a pocket and kept working.

  "Look," continued Father, "the numbers from his date with Elle are just what we needed. We'll have the audience. We'll introduce our new partner, we'll demo their crap, and hopefully we'll be lard." He smiled and asked, "okay?"

  I didn't answer.

  "I know you don't like this, but every day, every hour, every minute, I do things I don't want to do. But I do them. I do them for the company."

  Patting my shoulder, Joelene said, "He's very tired and upset, sir."

  Father let out a big sigh. "Fine! Take him home. Wipe his ass with a silk doily, or whatever it is you do. Just get him ready for the show."

  Ten

  My sleep was distressed and filled with nightmare. At one point, I was on a rooftop in an unrecognizable city. In the distance, I saw a green and gold mkg train that I knew had only one passenger—her. I watched it slowly pull out of a station. When it came to a curve, it was like some strange momentum took over, and the train barreled forward, derailed, and crashed.

  Frantic to get to her, I was climbing down an endless set of polished wooden stairs. At first, the stairs were normal and I could move fast, but as I continued, they got steeper, until I could no longer step up, but had to climb. Soon I was scaling a sheer wooden cliff. Then I was clinging with my fingernails onto tiny cracks.

  I lost my g
rip and plunged down.

  With a start, I woke sweaty and anxious, but determined to get a message to Nora about the freeboot.

  "This isn't yours!" I heard Joelene say on the other side of the room. "I don't give a fuck about you. I repeat, just leave him the fuck alone!"

  Peering toward my desk, I saw her profile in the blue light of her screens.

  "Listen to me," she repeated, "stay away or I'll kill you!"

  In all the years she had been with me, I think I had heard her swear once when she'd badly stubbed a toe. And she had never used this harsh tone, nor threatened anyone. Shutting my eyes, I put my head back onto my pillow, and pretended to be asleep. She spoke again, but not loud enough for me to hear.