Last Last Chance

by Fiona Maazel

  Sandra had rolled up her pants and lobbed a shank over the arm of my desk chair. She was so much beef, the shank looked edible. Same for Margaret. Her body was impressing a caesura in my mattress, right down the middle. She had her elbows propped, chin in hand. Nothing could touch these women. Nothing at all.

  I asked how they did it.

  Margaret looked me in the eye. What she lacked in anxiety she made up for with compassion. “It’s like this, honey. You can have everything or you can have drugs.”

  I shook my head. I’d heard this before. “That’s not true. It’s just not true! Without drugs, everything is the same as before, only I have no way to cope.”

  Sandra said, “I know you don’t believe us. I didn’t believe it when I came in, either.”

  And there it was again, the language of in and out. It seemed like such an artificial threshold, like the fence between us and the plague bandits. As if some vector rat couldn’t just as easily bypass the fence and kill us all. Like one day you are a fucked-up drug addict and the next you’re seeing God. I knew I was being cynical. But this kind of talk drove me crazy.

  “No one comes in brimming with optimism and love,” Margaret said.

  I smacked my forehead. “Shut up, okay? Just stop saying that stuff. Why does everyone say the same thing? The same words! The same expressions! Does everyone just quote from the same book? I can be here, I can be three thousand miles away and you can be sure someone’s gonna say, How’d you do that? One day at a time. Or: I need you people for me to stay clean. Or: Let go, let God. Turn it over. Don’t think. Fake it till you make it. Does anyone even stop to think what these phrases mean or do you all just toss this shit out like robots?” I was getting so angry, I could almost see my brain wallow in the blood rushing up there. How dare these people have hope for me. “How do you know?” I yelled. “How do you know it’ll get better? Because it’s worked for everyone else who works their program hard? Because I’m not special? Because meeting makers make it? How do you know? And why do you care?”

  By now I was crying. I’d drawn up my legs and pressed my mouth into the flesh of my knee. If I thought there was more out there for me than dispiriting snippets of anti-innuendo with a married man I loved, maybe I’d let Eric go. If I thought there was more out there than nodding out whenever possible for dread of having to experience my life, maybe I’d give up pills. If I believed in God, maybe he’d help. All things consequent on me. It was infuriating, but then this rage was just terror in disguise. There couldn’t be anything good out there for me. I could not believe it. It pained me to believe it for fear of being wrong. Or worse, for fear of being right.

  Margaret drew the blinds. It was after seven a.m., but the sun had only just crested above the horizon; the color was scumbled, muted and sleepy.

  I blinked as the silhouette of a tree gave way to twigs and branch. All things refined in the glare of dawn. And to think it only took a minute.

  I looked at Margaret and Sandra, and opened my mouth to speak. No need, they knew I was sorry. We left my room to see about the dead man. But he was gone, absconded to a better place, or, more likely, to F-7.

  We stood over the site of his death, unsure how to mark the spot but certain we should. A death that goes unnoticed seemed to forfeit more than just custom. Also, if this was going to be it for me, if superplague was going to stampede through Bluebonnet, who knew how many chances were left to be decent?

  “Maybe say a prayer?” I suggested. “I feel bad for him.”

  “Why?” Sandra said. “He sounds like an asshole.”

  “But somebody loved him,” Margaret said.

  “Probably he can hear you,” I said. “Spirits, reincarnation, all that stuff. In fact, if my grandmother were here, she’d say we can even hear him.”

  “Good,” Margaret said, and then, hollering at the sky, “Somebody loved you!”

  Sandra nudged her affectionately. Smiles all around. Laughter, too.

  Thirty-two

  Oh, for the love of Christ. Me, dead, again. Travis goes down again, at a women’s rehab, no less. If we’re supposed to learn from our past lives, how come I haven’t learned shit? It’s a Hegel thing, isn’t it. We learn from history that we never learn anything from history. So be it, I am collateral damage four times over. I am the world’s concession to panic. Panic irradiates.

  Before Travis, I’d been on this earth three times. Let me recap, I have nothing else to do. Life one, let’s call it Unreason of the Masses. It went like this: Turn-of-the-century Denver, and I am a busy woman. Just moved into a Foursquare with eaves and dentils. I have always been partial to a good molding. Harold and I were just finalizing bylaws for the Denver Teachers’ Club. It was, essentially, a union. We did good work, and we worked hard. But who doesn’t crave a respite? Back then, film was a nascent technology. Edison had lost the AC-DC war of attrition; Westinghouse made him a fool. Edison’s talking dolls had even flopped. He was, in a word, passé. Who knew he’d reinvent himself with the birth of film? And who knew I’d be queuing for tickets to see evidence of our nation in bloom? Travel. It was all about travel back then, at a time when many feared for the nation’s self-regard absent a new frontier to conquer. The high-powered locomotive solved that. Every stride made by Union Pacific was cause to consider, with the solemn regard advancement must always inspire, the path of the nation toward greatness.

  Harold and I sat in the front row of the theater next to a couple ranked in our circle as the best accessory to the neighborhood in years. They were Easterners. They had voted McKinley. The lights dimmed. The first film was an advert for Admiral Cigarettes. Quite charming, really. The next was of seminary girls—a rambunctious sextet, pillow-fighting in a dorm—in whose behavior the matron finds cause to intervene, which prompts one of the girls to seek refuge under a bed, only to suffer the ignominy of being retrieved by her ankles. I found the characterization outré, responsive, as it was, to the ubiquity of pornography in my day, as much in the news as in the home. Nevertheless, I was much riled and, perhaps, not of best mind come the beginning of strip three. Five men pounding the rails of a train track at the foot of a hillside. Two porters wielding kerchiefs to signal a train just around the bend. I remember the noise in the theater was boisterous, owing to the phonographic sound effects that accompanied the projection. The train whistling. The timbre ever strident as the vehicle neared.

  Our new Eastern friends sat to my left. Elsa, the lady of the pair, clutched my forearm as the train came into view. What magnificence. My heart thrilled to every churn of the wheel.

  There is, to the best of my knowledge, an unconditioned reflex of the brain known as the looming response. As an image shrinks or grows, it can trigger a reaction, often violent and without prelude. Something in the retina addles our perception so that an enlarging object appears proximate, more so the larger it gets. The response might be layover from more primitive times; it certainly has little value today, which is why, in most people, it is suppressed. Unless, say, you are a woman with what are called “untrained cognitive habits,” who does not frequent the moving pictures, whose imagination knows not the whoosh of a train as it speeds by, in sum an Easterner named Elsa for whom the Black Diamond Express, traveling at seventy miles per hour, rounding the bend, and heading straight for us, initiates panic—a flinch, a cry, a rousing from her chair, a race to the nearest exit—and in whose palsied state arms push when they are to pull, whose fear grows confirmation that the exit is locked, who rushes to the next exit, though her path be obstructed by those of the opinion that there is actually a fire in the building, a gunman in the building, and by at least one audience member, née Louise, née Travis, whose hem is snared underfoot, whose hem is deadly for its robustness, whose hem takes her down so that Louise hits the ground and, for her fall, is winged straight to heaven.

  Panic. It’s all about panic. If I didn’t learn it that first time, surely I got it the second. I must have, no? No.

  Life two, let’
s call it Unreason of the Masses. We had in our midst a man-eating tigress that marauded across Champawat like she owned the place. Seem funny? Not so much. Funny were the white men with their safari suits and E. M. Forster. I know it took a Jim Corbett to vanquish our tiger, but only because it’s easier to gun a thing down than to whisper in its ear.

  It was 1907, at a time when, for me, there was no better gift than the forest. Ours was dense. Very beautiful, where every species of animal made his home. The trick was to stand still, then the animals left you alone. I did not even fear the man-eating tigress, though she had killed more than 430 people by the time someone saw her just outside our village. I remember it was a beautiful day. Many peaks of the Himalayas were visible—Nanda Devi, Trishul, Panchchuli—I never tired of the sight. And the sky. Such a wonderful blue.

  I took a nap. When I awoke, the sun was set. I adjusted immediately, for I was used to work at night, and there she was. So graceful. I think my eyes even watered for her beauty. Three of my family were just down the road—older brother, sister, uncle. I noticed the tiger before they did, but she was many feet away. Even so, my brother was the first to run. Then the others. They ran and screamed and roused the villagers from their meals. Pandemonium set in. No one bothered to see if the tiger gave chase. I am told many were hurt in the process. And the tiger, she had never seen a spectacle more terrifying. What was she to do? I would have done the same. She ran. In her shock, she made to flee the village. To get back to her cubs. What did she want with these maniacs? She was just taking a stroll through the day. But the maniacs, they got her thinking danger was afoot. So off she went with a mind to butchering whatever lay in her path. As it so happened, I was in her path. After, what do you think was left of me? A lock of hair, a trail of tears.

  Do these stories exalt our best faculties? Do these deaths speak to the sagacity of mankind as it’s evolved over time? Nope, they sure don’t. In fact, I even seem to regress with each trial on earth. It’s not right. But what do I know. There’s a sweaty Viking up here who says it’s better not to think too much about it. And a sociopath who keeps beating the crap out of himself. There’s also an old lady and—Good Lord, what the hell is that? Some kind of elf the rest are calling Tard. Want to hear what they’re saying?

  Tard: I look even older than Agneth? Why? How is that possible? Hell is other people.

  Viking: Look, she’s way better than the politico. If I had to see her drowning for one more second, I swear.

  Masochist bloody-mess man: A catechumen! Come sit with me. Better yet, kneel with me! On your knees!

  Old lady in kimono: What pleasure to see the tenets of my life so validated.

  I’ve been in this game long enough to know the more you did in life, the longer you gotta putz around up here, assimilating. That’s why after my third stint, I was here for maybe half an hour tops. I mean, how much was I supposed to learn in seventeen years on earth? I was just a boy in the suburbs stuffed with lust for the rock phenomenon known as The Who. Of my friends, I was the only one who didn’t drop acid, smoke weed, fuck boys, fuck girls, fuck boys who were girls, take it in the ass from John Weismann’s black Lab, who was way into ass; I had no interests, thoughts, or feelings to spare outside the parameters of infatuation with the rock phenomenon known as The Who. They had me entirely. Take my life, my soul, you are the four pillars of my universe, I have prayed and prayed and now it’s happened, you are pledged to revisit the bunghole that is Ohio, and I will be there, in the front row of the Riverfront Coliseum, because I HAVE FAITH IN SOMETHING BIGGER, and, unlike my parents, my teachers, my friends, you understand: My heart is steeped in melancholia, too. It is 1979. I’m not going to college, and my dad wants to get me a job at his bank. Says if I want, he’ll keep the Oldsmobile for when I save up enough money to buy it. Do I want that? Do I want anything? I don’t know myself. So yeah, I could give it a go here. Or, OR, I could skip town after the Coliseum and follow you guys to Buffalo. And back to Cleveland. Then Pontiac. Chicago, Philly, D.C. I hear New Haven’s a pit, but I’ll go! After that, London. And Vienna. And Essen, wherever the hell that is.

  I know exactly what you’re gonna play at the Coliseum. Or mostly, because of the improv stuff. “Substitute,” “I Can’t Explain,” “Baba O’Riley,” “The Punk and the Godfather,” “Boris the Spider,” “My Wife,” “Sister Disco,” “Behind Blue Eyes,” “Music Must Change,” “Drowned,” “Who Are You,” “5:15,” “Pinball Wizard,” “See Me, Feel Me,” “Long Live Rock,” “My Generation,” “I Can See For Miles,” “Sparks,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Magic Bus.” The set is kickass. And I’m going to go nuts when I hear “Drowned.”

  Okay, look: Your Schecter gives me a hard-on.

  I got a ticket to Buffalo and my gear’s in a locker at the station. I been outside the Coliseum since nine. It’s fucking cold. But no one cares. There must be five thousand people behind me. The line travels all the way down the ramp to the wharf, where it looks more carnival than queue. The river’s got ice floes, though it’s so foggy, you can hardly make them out. Guy next to me has a bong. Guy next to him’s reading a biography of Camus. This was all well and good at five, but now it’s almost seven and the doors are still closed. Temperature’s dropped at least ten degrees. Guy with the bong’s out of grass. Guy with the Camus has set it ablaze to keep warm. Everyone likes this idea and soon enough there’s a bonfire going. Someone has a boombox and next we’re doing “5:15” calland-response style. And “Long Live Rock.” “Long Live Rock” fifty minutes before show time. You can feed on the energy. And you can see how friendships born in waiting are dissolving fast. You only have to inch your foot forward to declare war. It is festival seating, first come first serve.

  Forty minutes to go. Why the fuck aren’t the doors open? We’re on the west side, but what’s happening on the east? Maybe the doors over there are open and we’re getting screwed. I will kill myself if I don’t get to the front row. People are starting to get aggressive. We hear glass shatter, which makes everyone a little crazy. Did someone just break into the Coliseum? I can feel the buildup, the pressure of eight thousand at my back. There’s maybe fifty guys ahead of me, I can take them.

  At thirty minutes to go, someone swears he hears music. No one thinks they’re still sound checking, but then what’s with the music? The word spreads: They’ve started the show. A surge jams me against a woman up front, and I am actually lifted off my feet. Over the crowd I see two security guards heading for the west gate, and I make a break for it. Forget the slalom, I start climbing over people, and my footholds are whatever I can find—an arm, a shoulder, a knee. I fight my way forward with the intensity of the moment when a life is cut short, that moment which disturbs nature, for the young are to inherit the earth, but which disturbance invigorates like a drug so that I am able to surf atop the crowd and make it to the door first, just as it opens. The joy in my heart is Pyrrhic, stunning, and the instant I double over from the burn is when the mass of eight thousand breaks over me.

  There are two ways to suffocate. Either you are denied air, or the air in your lungs is forced out, the way a child might stomp on his water wings until they are but two pupal sacs. I went down under a thousand feet. Two thousand. I have the imprint of so many lives on my skin.

  Since then, I’ve learned a few things. Like: Stampede as phenomenon comprises multiple elements, among them herd mentality, the fight-or-flight response, and the architectural dogma of the space assigned to crowd control. The right combination will always result in fatal pressure, which can overrun brick, even steel. In mathematical models of escape panic, you get “interaction forces” that are almost sexy: counteracting body compression; sliding friction. And this makes sense since panic and lust distill to the same brew, which is energy. A surge of energy. Ever wonder why asphyxiation makes you come really hard? It’s not magic, you know.

  Also, escape panic is a contagion that apes the behavior of any pandemic except for its origin. Even a disease bor
n of man usually results from a mutated gene. But escape panic is simply an expression of instinct that keeps with the Darwinian model of survival. As he put it, we, as enlightened creatures, still have no right to expect immunity from the evils consequent on the struggle for existence. At some point, the rush for seats becomes a struggle to live and in that struggle, you might as well be fighting with aliens, such is your regard for their well-being. Walter Cronkite, referring to the stampede, called us a “drug-crazed mob of kids,” but then perhaps Cronkite is not quite as in touch with humanity, or Darwin, as he purports.

  When Roger Daltrey heard the news, he cried. And the next night’s show in Buffalo, it was for us. For me. I had the best seat in the house. They sang “Young Man Blues” and “How Can You Do It Alone.” You really got the feeling they were asking us in earnest, not rhetorical at all, so for what it’s worth, I didn’t do it alone. In life, it was all isolation and I never understood how one day passed into the next with me still in it, but for the trespass to the other side, it was like they were carrying me over. My own experiences, to which I had zero access in life, came forward to show me how it’s done.

  Even so, where is the progress in this? I keep dying for God’s sake. And I’m pissed off. This last time, I did everything right. Life four, let’s call it Unreason of the Kid. Me and my uncle living on the ranch together, where is the harm in that? Poor guy had four children of his own to raise, but still went and took me in after my dad passed and my mom did, too. Over the years, the others got degrees and fanned out across the globe, but I stuck around. Uncle Bill wasn’t much for talk, but I got from him what I needed to know. Even from just watching him live life as a blind man, didn’t piss and moan about his sight being gone, or all the things he couldn’t do. He toughed it out. The ranch got lonely some nights and sure, I thought about the girls in town and wouldn’t it be nice, but I wasn’t gonna leave my uncle. Not for anything. Then this plague thing hits and people start to act a little crazy. Me and Bill decide to sit tight and go about our way, head into town maybe once a week to get supplies. This last week I took him to the bakery because he was having a keening for pecan rolls, while I loaded up on the basics.