But some things were far easier said than done.
There was a dull-eyed girl behind the counter, sitting on a stool. She was jamming a Tastykake into her mouth as she rang up a PTL housewife with a pile of fudge brownies stacked like poker chips before her. Pat, the girl’s tacky plastic name tag read. Hi! My name is Pat.
For a moment, in the flat, fluorescent glare, Pat’s puffed fishbelly features seemed to somehow white out and magically transform: the rounded shoulders and rippling buttocks melding into the stool, erasing her identity entirely, until she became one great, pale, lumpen pyramid of consumption incarnate.
And for that moment of fancy, Deitz stared in mock horror as he pictured her: a gruesome Eating Machine, the cake disappearing down her champing maw like a log feeding into a tree shredder.
And, of course, the fact that it wasn’t just any Tastykake, but a Kreme-Filled Krummy Kake, only made things better. That way, on top of everything else, Pat was sure to get her minimum daily adult requirements of monocalcium phosphate, mono and diglycerides, calcium lactate and propylene glycol monostearate. To name only a few.
A complete and balanced breakfast.
For a dumb and dying race.
“Blech,” he muttered, forcing himself to look away. It was impolite to stare, but he couldn’t always help it. It was just so hard to believe that people were so oblivious. It had been ages since he’d allowed himself such luxurious ignorance.
In a world of shit, it was tough to remain untainted, but Austin Deitz did what he could. He disdained BHA and BHT, propyl gallate and yellow 5, which put the nix on everything from Snickers bars to Starburst fruit chews. He steered clear of sodium benzoate, which effectively ruled out virtually every quaff in the establishment, from orange drink and iced tea all the way to Mountain Dew. He didn’t even want to think about the secret ingredients left unlabeled on their lunch-meat subs and ballpark franks.
The Yummy Potato Chip folks were another story: a local outfit, which made big book on ladling out fewer preservatives than their nationally known competitors. All the same, when it came down to the taste buds, they were still drawing from the same old bag of tricks: a little calcium silicate, monosodium glutamate, sodium acetate, and fumaric acid to suggest salt ‘n’ vinegar or bring out the zing in those “natural smoke flavors.”
Which pretty much left him with the unsalted peanuts and imported mountain spring water, both packaged in nonrecyclable plastic that was destined to outlast his great-grandchildren’s grandchildren. That is, assuming that he ever had kids.
Which was completely out of the question.
And this was where he was constantly forced to defend himself: from his parents, from the women who loved him, from the guys he grew up with who constantly tried to steer him toward a Normal Life. It wasn’t that Deitz was just some random, paranoid pain-in-the-ass; that he didn’t like Christians, or snack cakes, or kids. The truth was both simpler and harder to swallow.
Austin Deitz worked the Hazardous Materials squad.
And he had seen too much.
Normally, HazMat was a younger man’s work, but to Deitz it was his mission and the meaning of his life. He had started out years ago, a simple fireman wanting to save lives and be challenged, fighting the often cruel caprices of nature. The drift to HazMat was a slow but inexorable one, like getting crushed by a train that takes ten years to get there. And yet he never felt that he had any other choice.
Because if you were privileged to see the slow, insidious poisoning of the planet, you did what you could to stop it. Even if it wasn’t enough—even if nothing could ever be enough—you did what you could, because what else could you do?
Once you knew, there was no unknowing.
Once you’d seen, there was no turning back.
The drift was inevitable, as was its price. It had cost him two wives, much of his peace of mind, and most of his hope for the future. Deitz felt like he was on the ugly front lines of mankind’s last battle: the fight for survival against our own stupidity.
He really thought he’d seen it all, and in one sense he had. But the fact remained that most people hadn’t seen it, hadn’t smelled it, hadn’t had their faces ground in it like he had. And with any luck, they never would.
That was why they could still eat and drink this crap. That was how they could keep on bringing children into the world. They understood intellectually—if they thought about it at all—but they didn’t really connect emotionally or experientially.
They didn’t know it in their guts.
And that, it seemed, made all the difference…
The EMPLOYEES ONLY door slid open at last, and Jennie’s sneakers smacked the tiles behind him. He half-turned toward her, felt her arms snake around his waist, giving him a python-squeeze of love.
“Mmmm,” she purred, and pecked him on the back of the neck. At five-foot-four, it was a stretch. “Good news.”
“Do tell.” He turned in her embrace, smiled down upon her.
“I called everyone on the list,” she continued, “at least a dozen times, before I finally got through to Babs. But she says she can definitely come in at three.”
“Three?” Deitz lamented, the smile disappearing, the disappointment clear in his voice. The Aquarium closed at five; and with an hour to get down and another twenty minutes to park, that gave them a little over an hour to take in the sights…
“Sorry,” she said, and meant it. “Best I can do. Unless you want to just take a rain check or…”
“Nuh-uh-uh. No way.” He reversed his spirits, tried to send his smile all the way down to her toes. “On this point, I’m afraid that I’ll have to insist.”
“Okay,” she smiled back, just as hard. “Then don’t be afraid. We’re gonna have a wonderful time.”
She punctuated the vow with another squeeze and smile, and damned if he didn’t believe her. There was just something about her: an indefatigable buoyancy of spirit that snuck through every chink in his defenses, like a spring breeze blowing through the rusty armor around his soul.
One look at her, and Deitz believed.
“This power,” he murmured, low in his throat, “must only be used for good.”
She laughed. “So you’ll be here at three?”
“At least.”
“At most.” She made big pleading black velvet eyes at him. “You’re my ride, remember?”
“Mmm-hmmm.” They kissed: a quick whisper of tongue, lest God’s little consumers saw fit to complain. “I’ll be here before three.”
“But not too early…”
“At exactly two minutes to three, I’ll be here.” It was a deadpan, solemn vow. “I swear upon my soul.”
“It’s a deal.” Jennie smiled and disengaged, then moved across the bustling room and slid behind the counter. Deitz watched as she passed the microwave and lunch meats, a regular smorgasboard of nitrates and low-level radiation.
“Thanks so much for staying on, Patty,” he heard Jennie say. “I’m real sorry ‘bout that.”
“S’okay.” Patty smiled, her dull stare brightening by several degrees. “It’s not like it’s your fault or anything.”
And suddenly, Pat the Eating Machine magically transformed back into a real flesh-and-bone person. By the simple miracle of Jennie’s kindness, Pat became Patty: a tired girl who’d thoughtfully, responsibly stayed an hour and a half past her normal graveyard shift, all because of some irresponsible jerkoff named Ozzie. Pat, the odious Monster From Hell, became a very nice and extremely relieved young woman named Patty, who at long last could finally go home.
Deitz saw the unabashed gratitude on Patty’s face as she handed over the reins to Jennie, who’d left breakfast in bed and a half-read Sunday Baltimore Sun to come in and save the day. And who hadn’t bitched or pissed and moaned about it, either, but had simply taken it all in stride.
Yep, he mused. No doubt about it. Jennie Quirez could change your whole outlook on life…
The front door opened. He
paid it no mind. His eyes were on Jennie’s lips, which were puckering up for his benefit from halfway across the room. He smiled, catching the flurry of black-and-white movement in his farthest peripheral range.
It caught him. He started to turn. A wild shock of bone-white hair appeared, framing a pale, broad, deathlike face. It belonged to a punked-out teenage girl with deep flaming green eyes and thin lips etched in darkness.
She was, of course, dressed entirely in black: black shirt, black leggings, and those clunky black shitkicker jump boots. At first, he hadn’t realized what a tiny thing she was: the hair gave her an easy five inches of height, which only placed her eye level with Deitz’s breastbone. There was a little downy stubble at her close-shaved temples. The stubble was white as well.
Deitz caught himself staring, looked away sharply, wasn’t all that surprised to discover that everyone else was doing it, too. She certainly didn’t look like she was heading for Sunday services. Every gaze in the place dragged with her as she crossed the room, face groggy with unrequited need for sleep. Or maybe drugs. Or maybe both.
He looked to Jennie, who was grinning broadly. Check her out, Jennie mouthed, drawing it out for comprehension’s sake. She’s ree-lee strange. Deitz nodded, grinning as well, and turned back to watch the girl advance toward him.
She stopped at the coffee station and proceeded to fill up a thirty-two-ounce Big Gulp with steamin’ joe. Yikes, he thought. Thank God she’s not going to church. She’d be bouncing off the pews. He observed discreetly as she dumped about four packets of sugar into the cup and swirled it around, then reached for the little nondairy-creamer units.
And then, to his astonishment, she paused to read the label.
Deitz was stunned. Even his internal dialogue dried up for a moment. Not another single person, in the whole time he’d been waiting, had bothered to so much as think about what they were putting in their mouths. It privately pleased him, surprisingly so, that the black sheep would prove to be the only one aware.
For a second, he entertained the notion that she was just reading the brand name. But no. She twisted the thing slowly between her fingers, like a volume knob, while her lips silently moved in accordance with the list of ingredients ribboned around the label’s edge: contains water, salt, partially hydrogenated soybean oil…
When she smiled and struggled with the pronunciation of sodium stearoyl lactylate, he could restrain himself no longer.
“It’s poison,” he said, stepping a little closer.
She looked up, annoyed; and her sneer instantaneously sucked wind from his cheerful sails. “What…?” she said. The addendum you cretin was unspoken.
“Um…” Feeling suddenly, horribly foolish. “All that stuff. Sodium stearoyl lactylate. Monoglycerides. Dipotassium phosphate.” He shrugged. Her gaze upon him was utterly frank, not giving him an inch.
“You know…” he concluded, and let his voice trail off.
“Yeah, well.” For a moment, she seemed uncertain whether to be civil or not. “Not that it’s really gonna make a fuckin’ bit of difference, right?” Cocking her head and watching his reaction very closely.
“Well, uh…” he began.
And then, just as suddenly, started to laugh.
“Well, actually, no,” he concluded. It was as if some tiny but significant weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “Not even a little.”
She smiled, then; and in that moment, their shared awareness made them members of a very exclusive club.
In that moment, they understood each other completely.
Then she set the nondairy creamer aside, picked up her cup, and headed back to take her place in line.
Deitz watched her go, and thought of Jennie. Would she have understood? He suspected she would have, but he couldn’t be sure; you never knew what was under that kind of an optimistic demeanor. A lot of insecurities and unvoiced fears could thrive, hidden, beneath that kind of warmth; a lot of stubborn refusal to acknowledge the ugly facts of life…
“Wait a second,” he scolded, catching himself for the second time today. “You promised, remember? Today, nothing gets to you.
“Today, you’re the happiest man on earth.”
And, of course, it was true.
But some things were far easier said than done.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ah, the power of faith.
Werner Blake loved his front-row seat at Trinity Lutheran Church. It was a great place for people-watching, and Blake was a people person. He’d held this pew every Sunday for ten years running, watching the sacramental conveyor belt deliver its wine-and-wafer fix to the herd.
So far as he was concerned, there was no finer place on Earth.
Take this ritual, for example, and the principle that powered it. Transubstantiation, they called it, though he doubted if more than three people in the entire synod could spell the word, much less grasp an inkling of its actual intent.
Transubstantiation was really quite the little miracle: the mystical transformation of flour and grape juice into not just symbols of the Eucharist, but the actual flesh and blood itself. Eternal Life, breathed into inanimate glop by the kiss of God. Kinda like the ultimate parlor trick.
There was something perversely cannibalistic about the whole thing, too; but then, what did you expect from the world’s most successful, longest-running blood cult?
What the hell, Blake mused, nodding and smiling as the parishioners filed past. Name of the game. Keeps ‘em comin’ back for more.
Werner Blake was a dapper, distinguished man, in his fifties and his prime. He was head of the Paradise Industrial Development Authority, pointman for Paradise Emergency Management Agency, general solid citizen, and all-around pillar of the community. He was directly responsible for courting out-of-state industry to move into the area, thus bringing jobs and opportunity to thousands across the county. His connections were many. He belonged to the Chamber of Commerce and the Jaycees, had a wife and son and a house in Wyndham Hills, and kept a sophomore ski bunny in a condo at Cedar Village. He played tennis for fitness, piloted light aircraft and skied for fun. He ate well, drank in moderation, and slept soundly at night.
And every Sunday—without fail—he donned the wool and grazed with the flock, holding his wife’s hand and staring with clear-eyed purpose into the vaulted chapel arches. That he looked at the huge suspended cross and saw only sticks and brass and plaster mattered not at all.
Because they saw something. They believed it, even if they didn’t see it. And even if they didn’t see it or believe it, they came anyway. That was the real beauty of the game. They came for the same reasons they believed.
Because they were supposed to.
Nodding and smiling, as the parishioners filed past…
There was power here, Werner knew, in all that blind faith and obedience. It could be harnessed, like any other natural resource. To Blake’s way of thinking, that’s what it was there for. And Trinity Lutheran was a money congregation, a fount for the local Brahmins, which meant that seeds planted on Sunday often bore fruit before the end of business Friday next.
That was miracle enough for him.
Still, by the end of services, Werner Blake had probed the outer limits of his civility. You could only graze so long with sheep, after all, before the clothing became oppressive, the smile a bit cramped and the eyes a bit too hard.
So when Leonard leaned over from the next pew back, Blake almost welcomed the diversion.
“Mornin’, Harry,” he whispered. “What’s up?”
“Well, uh,” Harold began and then stalled, eyes searching the shadows in the far corners of the chapel. Up close now, Blake could smell the tang of his sweat.
“Is there a problem?” Blake’s psyche clicked calmly over to yellow alert.
“I think so. Yes.” Leonard exhaled hard.
“Can it wait?”
A moment of silence.
“Okay.” Blake leaned over, bussed his wife lightly on the cheek. �
�Excuse us,” he whispered. Carol Blake was attractive, raven-haired and tight, well maintained, thirty-nine and holding. She nodded, disinterested, as Blake slid by. The space next to her that was for their son was conspicuously empty; Blake eased past it and into the aisle with a little grin that was polished and carefully maintained.
Then Blake was up and moving against the worshipful tide, nodding and smiling as he met the gaze of all those eyes, the many faces of the flock, nodding and smiling and slipping through them with practiced grace and predatory ease.
He didn’t look behind to see if Leonard was following. Of course Leonard was following. What else could Leonards do? You rose or fell by your own merits, your own intrinsic worth.
Blake knew what Leonard was made of. Food. But it wasn’t as simple as that. If there was a problem, and Leonard could help, it would be best to hear him out.
In private.
“Now,” Blake said. The chapel burst into muted song. It was quiet in the pastor’s office, and nobody else was there. “You were saying.”
“I got a phone call this morning.” Leonard dry-swallowed as he spoke. “From a man I, um, subcontract.”
Blake nodded.
“And, um, he told me that an accident or something happened.”
Blake waited.
“This morning.” Blake’s silences were frightening. Leonard picked up his pace. “It was something about a truck. These people…uh, their boys, they were disposing of some substances…”
“What kind of substances?”
“Um…” Beat. “Not very good substances.” Leonard let out a short hack of laughter, as if it were funny. “They were disposing of some waste—some overstock—when evidently something went wrong.”
“What kind of waste…?”
“Christ, Werner! I’m not exactly sure! It’s all pretty bad, okay?” Leonard’s face flushed red; and for one split second, it occurred to him that he’d just taken his life in his hands and held it up like a bull’s-eye on a stick.
Then Blake made a sympathetic face, and Leonard resumed.
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