Zanesville: A Novel

by Kris Saknussemm

  “What’s your theory about why Clearfather didn’t meet him? I’ve been meaning to ask you, but with so much happening, there hasn’t been time.”

  “How do we know they didn’t meet?” the dwarf asked as he enhanced the image.

  “Well, we don’t. But Clearfather left Pittsburgh pretty quick. You’d think if Dingler was involved, more would’ve come of the meeting.”

  “Dingler’s involved all right—we know that from the datafile. It’s the nature of his involvement that we’re in the dark about. Check this out.”

  While he’d been talking, the dwarf had loaded a full-frontal image of Clearfather with a layered bone scan. Beside it he placed the touched-up and screen-filtered grab of Dingler and equalized the size and image density of both.

  “Pity we didn’t have this image of Dingler before,” said the dwarf.

  “Wow,” said Aretha at last. “There are serious similarities.”

  “You’d say they were family, yes?”

  “They look about the same age. Like brothers.”

  “Except Clearfather’s been dead his whole life, remember.”

  “That would make Dingler . . .”

  “The missing son of Paul Sitio aka Hosanna Freed. And he would be about the same age as when the father was murdered by the Feds.”

  “If that’s true, we ought to be able to track confirming evidence. DNA. Something.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Finderz argued. “Dingler wouldn’t have gotten to where he is without learning a few tricks.”

  “It still doesn’t explain what happened in Pittsburgh—or what didn’t happen. You did send him that coded message alerting him to Clearfather’s arrival?” Aretha asked.

  “And I gave Clearfather the instructions—you saw me!”

  “Just checking.”

  “Well, you don’t need to check on me!” the dwarf whined. “I am a craftsman.”

  “I know,” said Aretha. “What’s the latest on Dr. Z?”

  “We’ll do a final bug run tomorrow, but we’ll need a volunteer. Shall we catch one of the meat-things in the tunnels?”

  “You know I hate that practice!”

  “If someone’s going to end up with an omelet brain we don’t want it to be one of our own people!”

  “I’ll leave it you,” Aretha sniffed. It was hard not to think that Keeperz was the better leader. Intellectually brilliant but also practical.

  “What about THE ENTOMOLOGIST?”

  “What about him?”

  “No sign of trouble?”

  “Have you seen any signs of trouble?” the dwarf asked.

  “No, but I don’t work as closely with him—It—as you do.”

  “Are you saying you think he’s defective?”

  “Well, let’s not mince words: there’s a saboteur among us. We’ve seen what he or she did to Rickerburn—what’s next?”

  The dwarf lowered his voice. “I think I’ve worked out a way to set a trap.”

  “A trap?” Aretha repeated, curiosity piqued.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know the results—but the less you know now, the more naturally you’ll behave. Leave it to me.”

  “I don’t know what we’d do without you, Finderz.”

  “Well, fortunately, you won’t have to find out,” the dwarf grinned. “I’m not running off anywhere.”

  Aretha tried to smile but was afraid the expression turned out more of a frown—and so slunk back to his tent and packed a small bag, and then decided he needed to bring more shoes, and of course matching accessories. Then he sat down to draft his message. He considered copying all the Strategists but then decided against it. The dwarf was his closest confidant and by common agreement the second in command. His mind was filled with anxiety—tortured by misgivings and all too aware of how fragile his situation was, how flimsy his plan—which was no plan at all really. But he couldn’t turn back. Not if there was a chance of seeing his son and regaining his family. Even for just a moment. He put a delay on the hotline to the dwarf and grabbed his bag.

  There was a secret route to the tunnels that his mentor Danny Geneson had showed him. He paused at the entrance. He had no idea what would happen over the next few days, and now that he was about to leave the compound, for the first time he considered the possibility of never making it back. He thought of all the desperate schemes the Satyagrahi had been involved in. This seemed the most desperate thing he’d ever done. He listened hard, wondering if anyone was watching, but all he heard was the creaking of Big Bwoy’s wheels, following crazy Grody.

  What seemed like days later he came up out of a manhole in Riverside Park and saw a torso hauling itself along on an old skateboard. The lights of the city—the smell of the river—the feeling of place was so familiar and yet so dream-like. On the edge of the park he stopped to refresh his makeup and apply more perfume, hoping to neutralize the stench of the tunnels. In the lighted window of a closed hair salon he spruced and primped as best he could. Yet when he caught a proper glimpse of himself in one of the gel mirrors, he was taken aback. All the time in Fort Thoreau he’d thought of himself as an exotic black beauty. Now he saw that he looked like a former linebacker on the way to a Little Richard impersonators’ contest.

  When he finally got up the courage to cruise by his old town house, the problem worsened. Would his wife be home now? And how was he going to get in? How could he get past the security?

  He tried to hide behind the parked cars across the street to scope out the scene. There were Securitors patrolling the opposite sidewalk, but there didn’t appear to be one on duty in his building. He thought there might’ve been, as the town house was part of a complex of similar residences all sharing a common entrance courtyard. But there was an armored entryway—a combination air lock, metal detector, and contamination monitor. Inside the booth was a vidscreen and intercom unit, along with a codeboard and iris recognition screen. The mantrap’s main door would probably let him in if he mentioned his wife’s name. But once inside he’d either have to speak to her there—on screen—or pray that she hadn’t changed the security code. If she hadn’t changed the code, he could let himself in and knock on her own door, a much more private and appropriate place for such a traumatic reunion. Doubts flooded his mind. She could be asleep. She could have a man with her. There were so many things he hadn’t wanted to think about. He sucked in a breath, lifted up his bag, and crossed the street with as womanly a walk as he could achieve. He activated a motion sensor at the threshold and a composite face, ungendered and nonethnic, fractaled up on a fingernail-slim screen over the door.

  “What is your business . . . ?”

  “I’ve come . . . to see Eartha Fiske,” Aretha answered, trying to summon his old legal calm in a feminine timbre.

  “There is no Eartha Fiske here,” the Face replied and disappeared.

  Aretha stood shocked. Not there? All his outrageous plans—or lack of plans—were unraveling. Shit! Then another thought occurred to him. He stepped up to the door and the Face re-formed.

  “I meant Eartha Proud,” he said. “I’m . . . her cousin.”

  “Did she give you her keycode?”

  “Y-yes,” Aretha answered, praying she hadn’t changed it.

  “As an unannounced visitor, not on the approved list, I must inform you that this conversation is being recorded for security evaluation. Once inside you will have two opportunities to enter the correct code. Should you fail, the chamber will be automatically sealed and a disabling spray will be released. Securitors will be alerted and you will be charged with criminal trespass. Do you understand these conditions of entry?”

  “Y-yes,” Aretha replied. Here goes nothing, he thought as the bulletproof doors opened and with clam-like finality closed behind him. The codeboard required him to display his implant ID for scanning. Broadband had long ago tampered with his to clear him in such situations. The contact lens would pass the iris recognition cross-check for the moment, too—but his futu
re now hung in the balance of the keycode. Would his wife have changed it, as she had her name? There was no need for her to. She’d never have to use it herself. With sweating hands he keyed in the letters G-I-V-E U-P T-H-E F-U-N-K. It was the password they’d used what seemed like a lifetime ago, when they were taking an old-time Funk Dancing class together. Aretha waited with stalled heart.

  At last a beep sounded and the inner barrier retracted. He took a giant breath. But now he faced the real test—waking her up in the middle of the night and trying to explain that he wasn’t dead and that he wanted her to help him get out west to watch their son get beaten to a pulp in front of a capacity crowd and two billion viewers via satellite. His heart thundered as he crept through the courtyard.

  Someone was home, there was no question about that. As he got nearer the door, he heard drumming and chanting. He was impressed because the walls were virtually soundproof. The air smelled of incense, maybe marijuana. He could make out several different voices. What in God’s name is going on? he thought. His curiosity grew so strong, when he rang the bell he almost forgot that he’d come out of the closet and dropped out of sight—right out of his wife’s life, presumed dead. He rang the bell again. The drumming grew louder. And something else. It sounded like a chicken. He rang the bell again. What would a chicken be doing in our town house?

  The room on the other side fell silent. He knew the vidcam was trained on him. “Eartha,” he called. “It’s . . . it’s me.” And then he found he couldn’t speak.

  The door at last opened and a dense haze of smoke, gin fumes, and sweat poured out over him. The figure confronting him was his wife—and wasn’t his wife—at least not the senior marketing executive he’d known. She was broader and looser than he recalled—in voluminous skirts of black and lavender, with bright silk scarves wrapped around her head. Beads and shells were draped all over her body. The room—their living room—had been redecorated and now featured a centerpole painted with swirling figures. The room was filled with people dressed in bright dashikis, striped pirate pants, straw hats. On the walls were colorful sequin flags. The expensive wool carpets were gone—the wooden floor was laced with intricate filigrees of flour and cornmeal—and in the middle—a half-naked woman with blood on her face clutched the remains of a chicken.

  “Eartha?” Aretha gasped.

  “Den-zel?” the woman replied. “Alive!”

  “And you . . .”

  “I’m a Mambo.”

  “What?”

  “A Vodou priestess. Denzel? Den-zel . . . ?”

  CHAPTER 9

  Out of the Coffin Endlessly Rocking

  Clearfather was back inside the whirlwind but he wasn’t alone. He thought the figure was the boy in the bathroom then he realized it was a girl, ancient and unborn, changing shape like the dust. Then she was Kokomo. They were together—the tornado running like a tunnel deep into the past and forward into the future. He smelled a mixture of industrial dry-cleaning solvent, pleated satin, and a hint of honeysuckle—and when he opened his eyes, his journey from the highest window of the tornado down into a body was complete. He was dressed in his old clothes and inside a coffin.

  Kokomo was hidden inside the box with him, beneath him. He could feel her presence. Aunt Vivian and Uncle Waldo had given him a tiny coffin once, with a Mexican jumping bean inside so that it appeared that the body was knocking to get out—and of course it was—inside the bean in the little coffin was the larva of a moth struggling to get out. He hadn’t thought of it in years. He couldn’t think when he’d ever thought of it. He listened for Carny’s voice but all he heard was TWIN.

  “Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which was the epicenter of the events two days ago concerning the sexual awakening of Dooley Duck, was rocked again this morning by an announcement of changes within the fledging Professor Chicken empire. Kingland Morris Brand, long-retired former CEO of the struggling American United Steel Corporation and stepfather to the Professor Chicken founder and president, Simon Chupp, currently Simone, appeared in public for the first time in more than ten years at a press conference to announce that his stepson was stepping down from the organization to enjoy a well-earned rest.

  “While refusing to comment on rumors that Simone and her/his two brothers recently suffered psychological breakdowns due to drug abuse, Kingland Brand did indicate that one of the new planks in the Professor Chicken marketing platform will be a greater commitment to the community, particularly in regard to drug treatment facilities, educational programs, and lifestyle adjustment training. Said Mr. Brand, ‘We are going to set a new standard for corporate citizenship.’

  “Mr. Brand, who has on many occasions in the last twenty years had his obituary mistakenly broadcast, also dismissed suggestions that taking the helm at PC was an act of senility or grief at the sudden death of his second son, Ainsley, a lifetime invalid who passed away last night.

  “When asked what specific strategies Professor Chicken would adopt to become a major player in the instant-food market, Mr. Brand said, ‘We’re going to go straight at Chu’s and McTavish’s with innovative and even exotic menu items. We will be introducing bold, cosmopolitan dishes based on frogs, snails, snakes, and squirrels. We will be the first to offer not only Spicy Cajun Frog Legs but Sweet-and-Sour Lungfish. And this is just the beginning.’”

  Someone turned the news off.

  Clearfather was proud of the Man of Steel. Maybe some real good had come out of his visit to Pittsburgh.

  He could feel Kokomo, her mind waking out of the sedative fog. They were linked—by some powerful connection. He didn’t understand it, but it was real. Carny spoke, then Haka. They addressed Martha One Tribe but the Potawatomi woman never replied. The one called Fanny Anny arrived. The voices weren’t clear enough to make out every word. Maybe this is how the dead hear us, he thought. Now he felt Kokomo’s consciousness rising up into his. She was scared.

  The women loaded the coffin. Clearfather heard the door of the hearse slam. A moment later the engine started. Even if he bent his will, all he could do now was cause an accident. He had to wait. Minutes curved and he wondered if he’d been given more drugs than he’d first thought. Suddenly all was blank except for a raging static in his skull.

  The car stopped and Rabies asked Carny something he couldn’t catch. Carny said something—then Rabies yelled. Then the hearse began moving again, faster this time. Then the vehicle stopped and he heard the rear door open. He felt the force of several hands on the coffin, rolling it out on the rails and then lowering it to the ground. The lid eased open and he blinked. He was facing a dour man in a prim black suit with a pink carnation—Carny, in disguise. He swiveled his head. A similarly dressed figure slumped over in the passenger seat of an old Mercedes hearse.

  “She’ll be all right,” Carny said, nodding. “Hurry. The others are close.”

  Clearfather tried to stand, staring at the landscape and the faces. One was a large black man in a robe that couldn’t hide a mass of gang tattoos. Another was a Cuban-Chinese woman, hipless and peroxide blond, who despite her eye glitter looked gaunt and ill behind a gauze face mask. The two others were gay men, one toffee-colored, the other as white as codeine.

  The hearse had pulled over at the perimeter of a Phoenix refinery north of Lick Creek. Smoke rose from the junk fires of a homeless camp. Cardboard boxes had been converted into wigwams, along with several sheets of corrugated iron and a cedar-shingled doghouse filled with mutant children. Beside the hearse was a battered Peterbilt. On its side in muscular gold letters . . . THE CHARISMA TRAIN—THE CELEBRATION CENTER FOR SPIRITUAL COMBAT, HUNTINGTON, WV. On the step, wearing steel-toed boots, foundry pants, and a black leather jacket, sat a black-haired man with a Roman nose.

  Carny peeled out the flooring of the coffin to release a groggy Kokomo wearing a Cleopatra wig, earrings that looked like satellites, and a shiny Pacers jacket over jeans and a broadcloth shirt. The moment the girl spied Clearfather, her lichen-green eyes gleamed into life and she
began making the unmistakable gestures of “Ooby Dooby.”

  The Roman-nosed man scowled and strode over from the truck.

  “This is . . . Kokomo . . . ,” Carny mumbled. “And—”

  “Clearfather,” Clearfather finished for her.

  The man scowled harder. “Jacob,” he said.

  “You’ll take ’em to where they wanna go to in Texas?” Carny asked.

  “If we make it that far,” the man answered in a clipped tone. “Sugar Bear,” he said, addressing the large black man. “Get ’em on board.”

  The thuggish black man gestured for Clearfather and Kokomo to follow.

  “Are—you coming?” Clearfather called to Carny.

  “No.” The wigged redhead in the dark suit shook her head. “My map goes to a different place. You take good care of her.”

  “I will!” Clearfather yelled, Kokomo clutching on to him, kissing him. “Thanks.”

  “Heaven knows what’ll happen to ’em,” Carny fretted once they’d vanished into the belly of the trailer.

  “I’ll get ’em to where they’re goin’,” Jacob said. “You could come.”

  “There’s music I gotta face here.”

  “You’ll be safe? After this?”

  “You really care?”

  “Wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”

  “And you—will you be safe?”

  “You really care?”

  “I always have, Jake.”

  “I’m not coming back.”

  “I know.”

  “You sure . . . you don’t . . . you can’t . . . ?”

  “Jacob, the only thing I’m sure of is that I was wrong to blame you for Miriam’s death. You did what you believed in. All I could see was my own grief. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry!” Jacob sighed. “If I’d let her be treated—she’d be alive. We mightn’t be together but she’d still be alive. I—”

  “You believed God would look after her—and maybe that’s what happened. Her death could’ve brought you and me closer but I used it, Jake. Forgive me.”