Borderlands 2

by Unknown

  “I’m not having a good day. The bitch’s at it again.”

  “I understand.”

  “Anything that needs my attention over there?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.”

  “Good. I’ll see you first thing in the morning.”

  “Hang in there, Tony,” Rosalyn says. “Remember: it’s always darkest before dawn.”

  Tony hangs up and takes the phone off the hook. No interruptions today, which is barely eight hours old and already momentous beyond all contemplation. He looks over at Sweetie. Is it his imagination or has she shifted position? Not halfway across the couch or anything dramatic like that, but maybe a teensy-weensy inch or two? As if she were trying to get into the kitchen? As if she might be hungry?

  Of course you’re hungry, he thinks. I’d be hungry, too, Sweetie, if I’d been lying in the middle of a road like that.

  Tony rummages through his cabinets, but the best he can find is instant oatmeal. It’s cinnamon and spice, one of the bitch’s favorites. It’ll have to do. Tony mixes up a bowl and as it sits on the stove, cooling to baby temperature, he wonders how he will feed her.

  But he doesn’t wonder for long.

  He’s remembering Louise. For years, the bitch had tried to get pregnant. They’d gone to fertility specialists, even tried a treatment in Acapulco, all without luck. Artificial insemination had worked. On the first try, the bitch had gotten pregnant. All the way into the third trimester, there were no complications. The Simeones could breathe easier. At least easy enough to buy a crib, a highchair, sleepers and bonnets in pink and blue. They’d painted the spare bedroom. They’d put up curtains. And in her eighth month, Louise Simeone had miscarried. Miscarried and blamed it on his Xanax, which he’d only ever taken once or twice years and years ago, he swore. Six months later, she’d filed for divorce.

  Well! So the bitch was good for something, after all. The crib and high chair are still down cellar. He saw them just last week, when he stowed away the assault rifle and ammunition he procured in case things turn too crazy. Tony gets the chair, brings it into the kitchen, and settles Sweetie into it.

  “There, now,” he says, bending her knees. It’s not easy, bending her knees. Like all her joints, they are very stiff. It’s never good, Tony thinks, for babies to lie in the road.

  “For you, Sweetie,” he says. “Have to have your nourishment if you want to grow up big and strong.”

  He tries spooning some oatmeal into her mouth. But Sweetie doesn’t eat.

  “Sweetie’s probably tired,” he said. “Sweetie needs her rest. You wait here while Daddy sets up your crib.”

  The crib is still in its box but it goes together without a hitch. Tony’s always been a handy sort of guy. He hangs the Fisher-Price mobile the bitch got during her shower. He slips a sheet over the mattress. He shakes the dust out of the curtains and sprays a generous amount of Lysol. You never can tell about germs. Never can be too careful.

  Every hour, Tony checks on Sweetie. Crib death, he thinks, is such a tragic thing. Sweetie sleeps, even if Tony can’t. At midnight, when he’s sure she’s down for the night, he leaves in his Hyundai. He finds a convenience store that’s open and buys Gerber baby food and a box of Pampers and a bottle of fish oil gelatins that are on sale.

  The next morning, Tony tries a bottle of warm milk. Sweetie won’t take it. Sweeties looking under the weather today. No color and very dry lips and skin. Tony gives her her bath. He towels her dry, spreads baby oil all over her body, powders her, and gets her diaper on. He dresses her in pajamas and a pink bonnet.

  “Daddy’s got to go out,” he says. Sweetie’s on the floor in front of the TV. The TV is on Channel 2, public television. Kermit the Frog is singing a funny song.

  “Sweetie be good,” Tony says. “Don’t get into any mischief. Daddy will be home soon.”

  Tony makes an effort at work but he’s only going through the motions. Rosalyn makes a few cracks about the bitch. Tony mentions the fact that it’s the Friday before the long Fourth of July weekend. They laugh. Tony leaves before lunch. Since the stock market crash, things have been marginal at Simeone & Smith. A year ago, Roger Smith left to go sell insurance. Since then, it’s been only Tony and Rosalyn and a part-time clerk.

  By Saturday afternoon, the smell is god-awful. Tony keeps bathing Sweetie, but it isn’t doing any good. Powder’s not helping, either. Tony’s worried. Sweetie seems to have developed some sort of terrible rash. Must be this July weather, so sticky and hot. The skin is broken in several spots and what appear to be blisters have popped up on her ankles, wrists, cheeks, the back of her neck.

  “Poor Sweetie,” he says as he rocks her by the TV. “Poor, poor Sweetie.”

  Tony’s thoughts are racing now. Before Sweetie, the minutes crawled. Now time’s speeded up. Right now, it’s racing like a rocket. Sweetie desperately needs a doctor but Tony doesn’t have one, at least not a G.P. or anyone like that. He’d have to take her to a walk-in clinic or a hospital. Tony knows what they’d do. They’d take Sweetie behind some curtain and then start asking him all sorts of prying questions. They’d want to know who Sweetie’s mother was, the name of her pediatrician, the number of her insurance. And while one of them was getting to the bottom of all that, another of them would be placing a nine-one-one call.

  Tony’s got mammalian diving reflex on his mind.

  Last winter, there were articles about it in the paper. In children, he read, it’s especially well developed. The younger, the better. There are cases on record of kids falling through ice and lasting an hour or more. On kids, cold water seems to have a preservative effect. Why shouldn’t it have curative powers as well? That’s nothing but simple logic. This lousy heat wave they’re in. It just seems to bring everyone down. Fans don’t help and Tony’s central air conditioning is on the blink. Water, he thinks. Cool, clear water. Ice water.

  He’s experiencing divine inspiration.

  “I won’t be gone long,” he says to Sweetie as he pockets his keys. “Daddy’s going to make everything OK.”

  The pet shop is three-quarters of an hour away. Thank God it’s well-stocked. Thank God they take MasterCard and their little telephone verification machine is on the blink. He’d hate to have to use heavy force, although a man like him must be prepared for anything, and he is. Tony buys their biggest pump, their biggest filter, a fancy hood, 200 feet of clear plastic tubing, and their biggest tank, a 100-gallon job. The tank barely fits in the car. Tony has to move the front seats all the way forward to get it in.

  It’s almost dark by the time he gets back. Sweetie’s where he left her, in front of a fan.

  “Daddy won’t be long now, Sweetie,” he says.

  Tony goes down cellar. He has a workshop down there. He has a second refrigerator. He moves a sturdy old dresser next to it. He puts the aquarium on the dresser and hooks up the filter and pump. With his half-inch Black and Decker he drills a series of holes through the refrigerator walls. He threads several lengths of tubing through the holes and connects the ends to the pump to complete the circuit. He seals the holes with silicone adhesive and gets a garden hose ready.

  “That’s my Sweetie.” he says when he places her inside the tank. She fits easily.

  Tony starts filling the tank. There’s only one problem.

  The water’s rising and she’s going up with it. That’ll never do. Sweetie has to be submerged. With his hand, he holds her under. Her lips flutter and air bubbles come out of her mouth. Tony lets go. Sweetie bobs to the surface. Boy, is this ever tough. Tony shuts off the hose and ponders the situation. Soon, it dawns on him. Hammers. That’s what, he needs, hammers to weigh her down. And he has hammers. Hammers galore! He gets his three heaviest. They do the trick. Sweetie’s underwater now. He fills to the top and starts the pump. He checks for leaks. There are none. Yes, Tony’s always been handy. Tony was an Eagle Scout. Tony’s father was an automobile mechanic, the best there was.

  “Such a beautiful ba
by,” he says as he looks into the tank. “Such a beautiful Sweetie. Daddy’s taking good care of you now. Nothing in the world to worry about now.”

  That night, he takes his bed apart. He reassembles it next to Sweetie’s tank. He puts the overhead light on. It casts a purplish tint. Very flattering to Sweetie. The sound of the pump lulls Tony to sleep. For the first time in weeks, he doesn’t wake until well after dawn.

  Sunday is such a pleasant day. Just relaxed and quiet and finally cool. For breakfast, he has his usual V-8 juice, oat bran, lecithin, and fourteen vitamin pills. He spends a couple of hours oiling his assault rifle and resharpening his survival knives. Then he takes Sweetie out, but she’s still not interested in a bottle. That’s OK. Whatever Sweetie wants.

  On Monday, Tony’s up at six. The temperature inside Sweetie’s tank is thirty-eight degrees. Perfect. Sweetie’s doing just fine. Everything’s going to work out all right, after all. Tony is in a celebratory mood. It’s the Fourth of July and Daddy’s with his little girl. This calls for champagne. He buys a bottle when the store opens at eight. He chases each glass with a 1,000-mg. Vitamin C pill. By eleven, the bottle’s gone. He buys another.

  When Sweetie graduates from high school, he thinks, I’ll give her a bottle of her own. That, and a brand-new car. A red Miata would be nice, if they’re still making them.

  On Tuesday he stops by the office. Nothing much is doing. He leaves before noon. When he gets home, there’s a car in the drive. A fancy blue Saab. Jesus fuck Mary! It’s her! The bitch! What the hell’s she want? Why didn’t she call? And where is she, anyway? She’s not in her car. She’s not in the yard. She must be inside. Tony runs to the door and goes in.

  Louise is in the kitchen. The phone is still in her hand. She looks like she’s suddenly taken ill. Her face is ashen and she is shaking so badly Tony can feel it through the soles of his feet, halfway across the floor.

  “The police are on their way,” is all she says.

  What does that mean, Tony wonders. Then it hits him. Oh Jesus. She’s found Sweetie. Must have been rummaging around down cellar for some of her old clothes or the TV she left behind. Must have let herself in with her key. Why didn’t he have the locks changed, the way he kept intending to? Why has he been so stupid? Why didn’t he know the bitch was bound to mess things up? How could he have been so careless?

  Instinctively, his right hand creeps under his jacket. Thank God he’s packing his pistol. This could get nasty.

  “You didn’t … touch her, did you?” Tony says. His voice is hysterical. He’s all tight again. “You didn’t break the glass, did you? Answer me, Louise. Answer me!”

  He steps toward her. She screams. She brushes past him. She runs out the door. He doesn’t care. His only concern is Sweetie. The harm that bitch might have done. An image of Sweetie on the concrete floor explodes across his mind he sees broken glass and a giant pool of water. How that would hurt! What shape that would leave his dear Sweetie in!

  But nothing’s been touched. The pump’s still running. The tank’s intact. Sweetie’s happy and content, just like when he left her. He pries the hood off and reaches in for her.

  “Oh, Sweetie,” he says.

  He starts to cry. Everything suddenly has changed. Tony understands that. Tony’s very sensitive like that.

  Funny, isn’t it. The way the mind works?

  You’d think a guy would have blotted almost everything about his ex from the old memory bank, but quite the opposite’s been true for Tony. He remembers every little detail, the clothes she wore on such and such an evening, the salad dressing she prefers, her Social Security number, the name of her hairdresser, the inscription on her engagement ring, her favorite characters on her favorite show, Saturday Night Live. He remembers the perfume she was wearing the night they met. He remembers their first phone conversation, their first date, the name of the place where they spent their honeymoon: Dante’s Retreat, located in one of the prettiest, most out-of -the-way parts of the whole Northeast.

  “Pocono Pines,” he says to the long-distance information operator. “Dante’s Retreat.”

  He listens, hangs up, dials.

  “And do you still have water beds?” he says. “Good. What about air conditioning? Super! Great! One more question: is it central air or individual units? Outstanding!”

  The individual units, he thinks. I could loop a coil through it and back to Sweetie as easy as pie.

  “Yes, I would like to reserve a room,” he says. “Near an ice machine, if possible, please. The name’s Smith. Mr. and Mrs. Warren Smith. We’ll be staying at least a week.”

  Before he closes the trunk, he opens the lid of the cooler. The ice is packed carefully around Sweetie. She’s got her Raggedy Ann. She’s got her blankie.

  “We can’t stay,” he says, “because mean and nasty people are coming to try and take you away. Daddy could never allow that to happen to his precious Sweetie. Not in a million years.”

  It’s not only Sweetie who’s in the trunk. He’s got his power drill and toolbox and some leftover plastic tubing and his assault rifle and knives and ammunition. He smiles, thinking about how he bought the rifle hot and purchased the ammunition a little here, a little there, to make it all but impossible to trace back to him. Those bastards with their computers—Tony Simeone can play their game! Yessiree Bob!

  He closes the trunk. He gets in his car. He double-checks his wallet to make sure he has the MasterCard. He double-checks his revolver. He starts the engine. He backs out of the drive. He turns left on River Road. As he starts over the crest of the hill, he hears sirens. In his rearview, he catches a glimpse of flashing red lights. Cruisers. There must be six or seven of them. They’re all turning into his drive.

  “You just close your eyes now and rest, Sweetie,” he says. “We’ve got a very long drive ahead of us.”

  ROMANCE UNLIMITED

  James S. Dorr

  The next story, by James S. Dorr, has a bit of an odd history. I originally received “Romance Unlimited” as a submission for the initial volume of Borderlands. I read it, liked it, but wasn’t sure it was appropriate for the anthology series. I put it in the “maybe” stack—which represented less than 10% of the submissions I receive (2% are selected, the other 88% are sent back immediately after reading them)—and let it sit around for months. As my deadline approached, I received several stories which demanded inclusion in Volume 1, thereby ruling out most of my “maybe” submissions. I sent back “Romance Unlimited” along with the rest, but something interesting happened: I couldn’t get the damned story out of my mind. Months went by, more than a year, and I was reading for Borderlands 2, when I received another story from James S. Dorr. I rejected it, but I somehow remembered/connected his name to the “maybe” story. I scribbled a note on the bottom of the rejection slip, telling him his previous submission was so memorable that I should buy it after all. Surprisingly, it was still available (well, perhaps not so surprising—most editors lack the perspicacity of the not-so-humble writer of this intro) and here it is. Dorr has sold to many SF, fantasy, and horror markets and is also a semi-pro musician, playing in a recorder consort called Aufblitzentanzetruppe. Play on, Jim.

  “Ugh!” Karen thought, half out loud. She almost dropped the latest issue of Romance Unlimited in her haste to turn to a new page. The article’s title, “How I Wormed My Way into My Man’s Heart by Taking Him Fishing,” had started out on a promising tone, but she had not expected that it would turn out to be about real worms. The thought of actually picking up one of the slimy things, even if it was the hook of one’s lover-to-be that one was baiting, was enough to give any slightly … um … large-boned, independent, twenty-six-year-old redhead the shivers.

  In Karen MacIver’s case, in fact, that was putting it mildly. She still remembered the summer her brother had terrorized her, when she was little, by putting the filthy things in her bed. She placed the magazine carefully on her bedside table, her hand still trembling, and went to the kitchene
tte to make cocoa. She told herself the pungent, hot liquid would calm her nerves, but in her heart she knew the real reason she wanted to fix it. She loved the flavor.

  But did she love cocoa more than she burned for the love of a man?

  She had to chuckle. Romance Unlimited was always asking its readers questions of that sort. But it did more than just ask questions—it also gave answers. In this case she knew from a previous issue that it was not the cocoa itself that was at fault. At least not exactly. The magazine told her that she could have anything she wanted, and have love as well, provided only that she shed the extra pounds eating and drinking would put on her figure.

  Put that way, the course of her life always seemed SO simple. That was one reason Romance Unlimited was her favorite publication

  And yet it was always coming up with nasty surprises—like this month’s article on fishing.

  That was like life, though. Nasty surprises. The bad with the good. The whistle of steam told Karen her water had started to boil She tore open a packet of instant Swiss Miss, the kind with the little marshmallow pieces already added, and shook it into her favorite mug. After a quick stir, she took the aromatic mixture with her to her bedroom and picked up the magazine again.

  It never really occurred to Karen that she might be lonely—after all, vicarious love can sometimes be better than even the real thing—until she arrived at work the next morning. She took off her coat and hung it as usual, then went to her desk to see what needed immediate typing. She kept her mind on her work until it was nearly coffee break time, then looked up to see Sherri, one of her best friends at the office, standing over her.

  “Have you heard about the new man yet?” Sherri asked her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’ve got a new executive in the department upstairs. One of those on-the-way-up Yuppie types from what I hear. The gossip has it he’s fresh out of business school—and a real hunk. Used to play football.”