Grey

by Jon Armstrong

  Leaning in, he smiled. "The aru takes all pain away."

  "You better go see one of the hospitality girls."

  "Michael," said the director, sitting on the edge of Father's chair, "you look fantastic in your suit. Love it!" As he spoke, he peered all around, as if pleased with his work. With a nod, he added, "Come with me. It's time."

  Father was on stage still hugging and shaking hands with Anüs. And after I told Walter to have his nose checked again, I followed the director as we headed to the black door at the side of the stage.

  Taped-down wires covered the floor. Assistants shouted orders and questions and ran in all directions. "Damn it! I'll be right there!" replied the director to his screen. "Back in a second!" he told me, before he dashed off.

  A woman almost ran into me. Then two men carrying a big metal drum rushed by. Afraid of being blown up, I stepped beside the clear sound baffles that lined the stage.

  "And now," I heard the announcer intone, "please stand, scream, and join me in welcoming the implausible host of the best and most popular celebrity interview channel show—with a very naughty and nautical theme—yes, it's Milo Holly from Celebrity Research Yacht!"

  Across the shiny icelike stage, Milo in his whites and captain's hat skipped down the far stairs. He looked like he was trying to imitate a carefree boy returning home after the last day of school. When he came to the front of the stage, he grasped the large silver mike and screamed, as if he had just lost his mind, "We're charting a course for even more implausible Ültra!"

  Behind the baffles, the crowd roared like a huge passing Bee Train. After Milo droned on about himself and RiverGroup, he introduced the next band. "With implausible pleasure, implausible pain, and implausible implausibility, I give you the greatest Ültra band since the last one on this very stage, the stark-raving hot Dark Cästle of Poünd!"

  From all three staircases came the members of the band, wearing the same sort of bizarre pirate costume as Father, with short-sleeve jackets, shirts with big flopping orange sleeves, and overstuffed codpieces. Instead of Father's wooden sandals, though, they wore huge, black rubber boots that were a half-foot thick and made them waddle like ducks. A man with a bumpy, misshapen skull wheeled in an enormous, black harp with a human skull atop the column. Another man had a metallic electric cello strapped to his chest and played the strings with a blowtorch. Still another held a pneumatic saxophone that vibrated in his arms like a jackhammer. The rest played rocket and mortar drums. The last to come on stage—the leader, I guessed—who looked like he had just come from an emergency room, with tubes running from his mouth and nose, wore a curved, florescent green keyboard around his waist, like a peplum. As he screeched lyrics, the giant video screen lifted away to reveal the jet-powered organ I had seen them constructing before. When the leader began playing runs on his keyboard, fifty-foot flames shot from the pipes.

  They were loud, but not unbearable behind the baffles. When I turned to see if I could find the director, fifteen feet back, in the shadows beside a stack of blinking electronics, stood a man in a black suit and glasses.

  I started toward him and the closer I got, the more I was sure that it was Father's freeboot. His gristly skin was the same. So was his hole of a mouth and his single nostril.

  "You damned bastard," I said, "I hate you." He didn't move a molecule. Behind his dark glasses, I couldn't even tell if he was looking at me. "You hear me? Get out." He still didn't move, and it was like the arteries in my body weren't filled with blood anymore but gasoline. I pulled my arm back to whip it at him.

  "Michael!" said the director, grasping my arm just before I brought it forward. "What's going on?" His breath was salty and sour, his eyes, wide and concerned.

  The anger I had felt slowly became dismay and horror. I had just about blown myself up. It was the same madness I had felt when I'd screamed at father minutes before. The freeboot was gone. I worried that father had brought him here to kill me.

  "Hair and makeup," enthused the director, as if he were afraid something was wrong with me. "We're ready for you! You all right?"

  "Yes," I said, stepping back. "Sorry. I—I was confused."

  "Drink too much carrot?" he asked, with a nervous smile.

  "None," I said as I glanced about, wondering where the freeboot had gone.

  The director led me behind the stage were it was quieter and fewer people ran around. Crates of machines, amps maybe, sat humming, their green power lights throbbing to the distant beat. Then he stopped suddenly and I bumped into his back.

  "Oh no!" he said. "We're not supposed to see you!"

  Before him, stood Elle. Her face was again pink, her nose black. Her hair was the same white-blonde seafoam and protruding from it were two rounded pink ears—maybe pig or raccoon. The material of her huge, white wedding gown was shiny, stiff, and awful, like polyurethane. On it hung a dozen glassy, undulating red and orange spots, each five inches wide. Her eyes were big with surprise. "Oh, look at you," she said, her voice squeaking, "you're the bestest of the bestest!" After one of her tittering jungle-bird giggles, she grabbed one of the polka dots from the front of her gown, held it up, and said, "Look, my cervix agrees!"

  As the director dragged me away, while telling a gaggle of assistants to get her back to wardrobe, I decided that those polka dots had been camera views of her insides. I felt nauseated and wanted to go wash my hands a dozen times. We came to a row of black fabric tents not much bigger than outhouses.

  "Could be bad luck, that," chuckled the director, as he turned to me. "They say it's a bad omen to see your bride before the ceremony." Opening the door to one of the tents, he said, "Go on in. Take a seat. Relax and refrigerate! Someone will be with you."

  The room was five-foot-square. In the middle, an inflatable orange chair sat before a navy stand where I saw a multitude of hair products, makeup, and various face and neck stretchers. On top of the stand was a large square mirror with red, blue, and violet vanity lights all around.

  For a minute, I stood looking down at my nitrocellulose suit. Like I had done before, I ran my hands over the material and watched it fluoresce, like instantly rusting and unrusting metal.

  Sitting, I closed my eyes and thought of Nora, her dark eyes and her full lips. I imagined her in her dressing room getting ready. She would be watching the show on a small screen while her coiffeur, makeup artist, and fashion consultants helped her dress. They probably assumed she was going out. Maybe she told them she was having a cream coffee at the SunEcho, or attending a silence concert of Love Emitting Diode.

  No, I decided, she was not watching. She would be keeping an eye on the clock and at maybe two in the morning, she would ask her people to go. Sitting alone before her black and white iMirror, she would take a tiny sip of poison from a black goblet. She'd only have to wait for a few beats before the chemicals stopped her heart, and like a powerless space capsule, she would drift forever into the cold and black.

  Taking the vial from my pocket, I held it to my chest. Please, Nora, I thought, reconsider. Go on and forget about me. Live another life.

  A shiver of recognition shook me. Father's voice was nearby and his tone was urgent and pleading. Standing, I pushed open the door and peeked out. Five feet away, he stood before green-face Jun, the aluminum-shirted lettt brothers, the Om Om president of iip-2, and the aneurysm ceo of slt.

  "Come on!" he said to them, as he combed his awful stringy, marshmallow-filled wig from his face. "We're about to announce the secret secret! And I know it's what you all really want!"

  Putting his hands on his hips, Jun asked, "What is it?"

  "Go on back to your seats," coaxed Father. "You're gonna be shocked."

  "Just tell us," said Jun, his tone as bored as his expression.

  "It's a surprise, but you'll like it. I promise."

  "I have no patience," said Aneurysm.

  "If I just tell you, that'll ruin the secret!" He paused as if sure they would change their minds. "Fucker cakes!" he said.
"Fine! I'll spoil it for you—Xavid is going to be the next RiverGroup ceo."

  Xavid? That creepy idiot? I couldn't believe Father was making him ceo. Besides that, Xavid was a fake, he didn't have anything to do with the family.

  "Your hairdresser?" asked one of the lettt brothers, stunned.

  "He's a damn good hairdresser!" said father, with a laugh. "And he's been our coo and cfo for the last couple of days. Yeah, I know he's not a Rivers, but the guy can work the code! Besides, my son can't do it. He's useless."

  While the clients eyed one another, as if not sure what to think, I felt stung. Father had said as much to my face, but it felt worse that he had told all of them.

  "I don't like it," said the Om Om lady.

  "Why not?" asked Father. "Xavid's lard. He's Ültra. He loves all the great bands and everything."

  "I was hoping for real news," said Jun.

  "We got that, too! We're going to demo the Ribo-Kool stuff."

  "From what I've seen, they're garbage," said one of the lettt brothers as he folded his arms over his aluminum chest. "I'm not interested."

  "Don't be ridiculous!" said Father, wiping his temple with one of his sleeves. "Ribo-Kool is lard! I checked them out. Their stuff is amazing."

  "Hiro," said the Om Om lady, shaking her head slowly, "don't patronize me."

  "I'm not! Not at all!" His tone was pinched and uncomfortable. After he managed to swallow, he laughed. "See! You do hate me. That's why I'm making Xavid ceo. You can still hate me, but I'm not RiverGroup." His eyes darted at their unhappy faces. "Don't you guys get it? It's like a switch-a-roo!" As he mimed some fast-handed magic trick, he got his big sleeves tangled.

  "We don't hate you," said the Om Om woman, primping her too-tight brown suit.

  "You keep promising," complained the other lettt brother, "but you never deliver." The brothers turned to go.

  Father jumped in their way. "Wait! Guys! We're in the middle of the big show. Go on back to your seats. Enjoy yourselves. There's lots of lard surprises."

  "The freeboot shooting was too much," said the first brother.

  "That old news?" asked Father with a laugh. "We're way beyond that."

  "You have never explained how the freeboot got a certified RiverGroup identity. Forget the other crazy shit. It got the one thing in the world it shouldn't have."

  "It was those mkg puds!" he fired back. "They shot Michael. Everyone knows it!"

  "No one knows it!" corrected Jun.

  "Do you have proof?" asked the Om Om lady.

  "Almost," he said, his voice small.

  "We need proof," she said.

  "Prove it, Hiro," echoed one of the lettt brothers.

  Pointing his fat index finger he said, "Believe me. I'll prove it." Then his hand fell to his side. "I just need more time. A couple of weeks. Maybe a month . . . "

  The lettt brothers glared at him as if they'd had it. After they eyed each other, they stepped around him and walked away.

  "You butt bombs!" he said after them. "Go on! Get out of here. And those shirts are like so last year! Guess you bombastic butter creams didn't notice, but Anüs doesn't wear them anymore!"

  The Om Om ceo wiped her bloody lips. She looked annoyed and frustrated. "When you have proof, talk to me." With a frown, she added, "I'm sorry," and followed the brothers.

  Father tightened his lips like he was holding in a convoy of profanities.

  Jun said, "mkg's new product is quite compelling."

  I was stunned to hear Jun mention Nora's company. It felt like he was cutting Father's heart in two with a scalpel.

  Father's face turned pink. "And after all I did for you . . . you plastic pussy! You rotten brain cake!" he said, regurgitating Erik Heimlick's curses. Flinging his arms he added, "Go on! Go kiss Gonzalez-Matsu's stinking ass!"

  "Hiro," shot back Jun, "I kept telling you to explain what happened. Give me a plausible answer! Give me anything! You never gave me bug fuck!"

  I thought Father was going to up the screaming ante, but then a small, sickly smile appeared on his face. Dropping to his knees, he said, "Please, you have to stay with us! I'm begging you here."

  "Hiro!" said Jun, grimacing as though his face underneath might be the same green as his makeup. "Get up! You're being disgusting."

  "Listen," he continued from the floor, "we're gonna rage all night! Alüminüm Anüs is staying. And dj Furious Molester is back! Remember him from the old days? He's got a new ass!" Father's laugh was like the squeak from a balloon. "I'm telling you, the guy's undomesticated! He's shitting everywhere!"

  I felt ashamed. And as Jun and Aneurysm eyed each other, then bid Father good luck and headed off, I, too, had to turn away. Only minutes before I had thought him happier than I had seen him in years; now, when I heard a dozen fleshy thuds, I knew he was beating the floor with his fists.

  For a minute, he lay there, berating the clients, their companies, their favorite bands, and Ültra songs. Finally, he got up and aimed his remaining wrath at his documentary cameraman who had been filming the whole time. "Turn that off!" he screamed. "Get out! I never want to see you or that film of my fucking life again!"

  The silver-hair director stepped before him. "Hiro," he said, "get it together. The show is still going! Poünd is about to finish, and you're on for the crowning ceremony."

  "Go away!"

  "Look at me," said the director, grasping Father's shoulders. "Take a deep breath. Come on now. Exhale the bad . . . " He blew out. "And inhale the good."

  Ignoring him, Father dug into his shorts and pulled out a handful of hay from his codpiece. "God, my balls itch. I think there's fleas in this shit!"

  "Come on . . . breathe the good in . . . and the bad goes away . . . "

  Pushing open the door, I stepped out.

  Father jerked backward, as if frightened. "What do you want?"

  "In . . . " continued the director, " . . . and the bad goes out . . . "

  Before we were both dead, I wanted to tell him what I knew. "You stole Maricell's jawbone."

  "Who?"

  "In good . . . out bad." The director smiled and glanced back and forth, as though trying to get both of us on his breathing schedule.

  "She's part of Tanoshi No Wah!"

  "Tanoshi no shit!" Father's face went lax. "Who cares?" He spread his pumpkin arms and shouted, "You just missed it, but RiverGroup has died a glorious, lousy, stinking, miserable, rotten death!"

  "You stole bones and organs from my brothers and sisters!" I said.

  "Yeah?" he asked, waving his handful of codpiece stuffing about. "So?"

  "It's illegal, wrong, and awful. You did it because you wanted me to be some perfect Ültra dancer, like you could never be!"

  "What rancid lard are you talking about?"

  "Mother told me you did it to make me perfect."

  "That's your mom again. A trillion percent wrong!"

  "Then why did you do it?"

  For a second, he stared at me. Then whipping the hay in the direction the clients had gone, he shrieked, "Because of those stupid assholes!"

  His skin was blotchy, and his eyes, wild. I glanced where Jun, the lettt brothers, and the rest had gone. "Because of them? What's that mean?"

  As though imitating a cockatoo, he said, "Hiro, we want you to have a son who can take over in case you fall over dead, you stupid bastard!" Glaring at me, he snarled, "You were supposed to be the succession plan! But a fat log of good you did me!"

  I wasn't even supposed to be a dancer. Instead, I was like the buildings, furniture, or machinery that made RiverGroup work. I told him, "I'm sorry I didn't make you all the profits you wanted. But why did you maim my brothers and sisters?"

  "Maim!" he sneered. "All aboard the exaggeration train!"

  "It was worse than that! Why did you do it?" I demanded.

  "You want to know?" He stepped closer. "You really want to know?" Just as he seemed about to bellow, his lips trembled. His eyes watered. He turned away, and seemed to be strug
gling not to melt into a full-out sob.

  This had happened before at the club in Kobehaba and the time I had fallen from the Loop. I couldn't recall what had triggered it then, but this time, he looked like he was truly on the edge of collapse. Not sure I wanted to know, I asked, "What's the matter?"

  "Nothing!" he snapped. "You're so ignorant, you probably don't even know about the war with those pharmaceutical slubber bastards! But I fought them."

  "I do, and congratulations," I said flatly. Half the family members had been affected by the biological toxins released in the cities, although now no one admitted it. "What does that have to do with me and my half brothers and sisters?"