by Alan Osi
I answered, “I don’t know, maybe they didn’t take our word for it. The instructions up there aren’t exactly chemistry, you know? Maybe they want me to prove it’s right. Maybe they think it’s bullshit, and they need to beat the truth out of me. Maybe they just don’t like my face. But, whatever they want, I don’t think I can make them go away by hiding. I got to meet this head on. There’s no other way.”
Neither of them had an answer for that. I took out a cigarette and was a little surprised that my hands didn’t shake. You know, adrenaline.
While I lit it and took my first few drags, we were all silent. Then Hailey took one of hers out and joined me.
“You can’t do this alone, Perce.” Hailey said quietly, but with gravity.
“What choice do I have?”
“Us,” said June. “All of us.”
I responded, “Better you stay out of it.”
“Better for whom?” June said.
“You should go home, both of you.”
“What about you?” asked Hailey.
“I don’t have a choice. Remember?”
“What if they have weapons?” I hadn’t really thought about that, I just figured I was going to get my ass kicked, maybe lose a tooth. But, of course, they probably had weapons. “What if they do?” I said. “I don’t see how other people getting shot too is going to help me.”
June turned pale. “You think they have guns?” she asked.
“Who knows? Look, go home, okay?”
“No.”
“Why not?” When she didn’t answer right away, I kept going. “You’re cute and all. But, you barely even know me. Go.”
She still didn’t answer, and I watched indecision dance across her face. And truth be told, I dug her for it.
You didn’t find that in people often: This woman, who was on the petite side, was willing to stand up to armed thugs for a guy who was basically a stranger. Because somehow I knew, though I was pretty sure she liked me, that she wasn’t doing this because she liked me. Maybe she was crazy. I’d probably never know.
But because of her mysterious reasons, I didn’t say another word to either of them. I turned around, dropped my cigarette, and went back into the building to face my fate alone. It was such an abrupt turn, I knew that by the time they’d decided to follow, the crowd inside would have hidden me.
126. YVONETTE
Well,
With my blood dancing drugs and Jack I didn’t feel anything else,
Which was just the way I wanted it.
Filtered reality,
Where I could laugh.
So you see, I was wide open;
Inside the bubble made by my addictions, with all the bad things blocked out.
Here, I was free.
And defenseless, in a way. Open: a chemical child
In electric bliss.
I was dancing with Scott,
Scott was his name.
We danced wild, I couldn’t have said
What dance the song really called for.
Meringue? Salsa? Bankhead Bounce?
It didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered, and so I felt free.
And Scott was hard: his face, his body, his smile.
We danced close,
Our jeans could have caught fire.
Because our genes already had
“You’re gorgeous, what are you drinking?”
Scott asked me, during a lull in the music.
My hands were empty.
I was holding my liquor. But, that was probably the cocaine.
Dizzy. But, the world didn’t spin.
“Jack Daniels,” I said. “Straight.”
“Nice,” he said, and violated my personal space,
So I could feel the heat flowing off him.
“No pretense.” He was staring into my eyes.
Well.
Then the music started again, and Scott was gone,
Vanished into the crowd,
And I danced again, with my arms up,
Danced and danced
Until.
I saw someone. Something.
It was my mother.
Only, it couldn’t have been.
She would never be here, I mean.
A place like this.
It was some kind of ghost.
Maybe just being near moondust
Or maybe it was a punishment.
My drug bubble burst, and I stared at her (or it)
She was across the room, and she was looking back at me
She smiled, and it hurt like stilettos,
And then she disappeared.
A vision, a hallucination, a sign?
Didn’t matter. I couldn’t stay
I went to the bathroom
To take as much coke as I could.
127. WALLY
I was up in the DJ booth, doing what I do. And even though I was killing it, spinning like the best set of my life, the mood in the place started getting weird. People were kind of freaking out. Staring at stuff that wasn’t there, crying, whatever. Kind of like when I was in Cali and someone handed out a bunch of bad acid at one of those deep-woods raves. I tried to play calming grooves. But, it wasn’t really helping. People stopped dancing. So I started stressing: If I was going to get in on that He-Man movie thing Percival and his crew had going, I needed this all to go perfect. So I played peppy happy music. You know, stuff that wasn’t, like, edgy. I even played “Don’t Stop ‘Till You Get Enough,” the Michael Jackson song. Even though it was the worst party cliché in the world. Even that didn’t seem to help.
What the hell was wrong with these people? I guess it was just another scene I was too cool for. Which really sucked.
128. PERCIVAL
Something was up with the party. Even I could tell, and I was severely distracted. I needed to get to the back room before the thug-dudes spotted me. We’d put three baseball bats in the space we used for storage. They were for security, a precaution I didn’t think we’d need, despite everything.
But like I told June, the guys looking for me could have been packing guns. If they were, even with a bat, I’d be seriously outclassed. But, smaller arms gaps were better than bigger ones, and the only plan I had was being armed.
I moved curiously light, as if I were one of the helium balloons we filled earlier.
Entering the party space, looking around me, spun by the spike of adrenaline bursting, I felt unreal. I pushed through a crowd of people who buzzed with anxiety, dubstep soundtrack screaming in my ears.
There was definitely something off about the party. People acted the way you’d expect them to in an earthquake or something. But, I saw nothing for them to fear. It almost seemed like they reflected me. Wally was doing his thing in the booth. But, shaky, which was strange. He usually oozed pure self-confidence that only fools ever find.
I couldn’t worry about that. Besides, I figured I must have been projecting.
No one noticed me. Keeping an eye out for aggressive behavior, I knifed my way through the crowd.
I thought of June. I thought of Hailey, too. There wasn’t a chance she’d left. In fact, I expected her to beat me to the storage room and be waiting with bat in hand.
At the bar, one of the other Disconnect girls, Henri I think, tended. But, no one ordered, and she had the same blank facial expression as half the room.
I thought for a second of stopping to say hello, asking what was wrong. But, I didn’t. Instead, I pushed open the door to the storage space.
Only when I opened the door, my world hit a glitch. It felt like time stopped.
The track Wally played became a single note stretching on and on. And then, instead of being where I was, I was somewhere else entirely. Surrounded by forest, endless trees. A gentle breeze rustled leaves in an otherwise deafening silence. I stood there, trying to figure out what was happening, until I was back where I should be, overwhelmed to dizziness, subwoofers kicking me in the ears.
What the
hell was that? I didn’t have time to think about it: I went on into the storage room, and picked up one of the three bats in the corner. Its weight reassured me, it was easy to swing, and with it I had a chance. Then again, I was bringing a bat to a gun-fight. Still, better than bringing fists.
I quickly became afraid again. I wanted to hide, find a corner and hunker down—wait them out as long as it took.
But, these were the moments that defined us; the ones we would look back on as old folk. I wore the grail tattoo on my neck, because as a child, I’d read legends of knights and wanted to be worthy of something. As a man, I’d found nothing external to be worthy, too, no code, no creed, no government, or no religion. But, you could be worthy of life itself.
Lifeways all you had, and there was nothing to measure up to. But, the moment that surrounds us. I needed to always be worthy of it, and I could only be worthy of it now by facing this. Scared as I was, I opened the door, and walked back out there.
129. MAXWELL
The cabbie drove me to the middle of nowhere, dark buildings around that no one lived in. Wasn’t even sure what part of town this was.
“Where are we?” I said.
“Where you ask me to go.” The cabbie said, in a middle-eastern accent. Was this some sort of terrorist kidnapping thing?
He pulled to a stop, and I braced myself to fight back if the guys with black masks came for me. But, none did. Instead I became aware of an insistent ambient noise. Low and rumbling. Kind of like the earthquake I survived as a little kid.
Bass. It was bass.
Bass, like at parties. I was looking for a party. I was probably safe. Suddenly I felt bad for suspecting the taxi-driver of being a terrorist. Instead of stiffing him, I gave him a tip before I stumbled out of the cab. He sped away without showing any gratitude, asshole-terrorist-fuck.
Funny thing about standing up, when you’re drunk, it makes you feel it. The world wasn’t steady under my feet. It rolled all around. I almost fell over.
I wanted to be in bed. But, instead, I was here.
I felt angry, suddenly. I’d lost everything.
Where was I? Somewhere in the Bronx, the middle of nowhere, deep in a warren of buildings and streetlights, in too deep to ever get out. There were lights inside the building I stood in front of, bass flowed out and mixed with the feeling of darkness on the street.
I had to pee.
No one was around. A few girls stood in front of the building. But, I was down the block and out of the way, so I went and stood next to a parked car and unzipped my fly. As long as I stood next to a car, the piss would flow from the car to the gutter, and no one would be the wiser.
Once I got the flow going, I sighed and leaned back so far I had to fight to keep my balance. Then I heard a window roll down, and a girl’s voice said, “What the hell, asshole?”
She looked at me out of the passenger side window of the car I was peeing on.
I swore, and I fumbled, and I tried to stop the flow, while I put my dick back in my pants. Only it’s impossible to stop peeing once you’ve started. So I peed on myself. Both of my hands were covered in piss and so were my pants and legs.
“Oh no,” I said.
“Smith?” The woman said, using my last name. And I stumbled a few steps back. She knew me.
From inside the car, I heard a man’s voice say, “No fucking way.”
“It’s him,” the girl said.
Everything was quiet, and I looked down at the ruined lower half of me. Then the woman said, “You mind putting it back in your pants, pee-wee?”
I put myself back in my pants and zipped up. The guy in the car said something to the girl. She responded, “No way, boss. He’s covered in piss.” He said something else, and she swore.
“I just got her detailed,” she said, as she reached behind herself to open the back-seat door. “Why’d we take my car again?” With the back seat door open I could hear the guy’s response, in a familiar voice. “Because on stake-outs shit happens, and I out-rank you.”
“Then I’m driving next time,” she said. Then to me, “Get in, dipshit. And try not to get piss all over everything.”
It was a small and cramped backseat, and I almost fell on the ground trying to get in, because the world wouldn’t stay level. And even though I threw up already, my stomach wouldn’t stay still, either. In fact, vomit surged up my throat and burned as I swallowed it back down, and I started hacking.
“Smith, if you puke in here, I swear to God, I’ll shoot you in the kneecap,” said the woman.
“Come on now,” the guy said to her, “No threatening the drunk.”
I looked at him then, and when my eyes focused, I realized I knew him. He was Detective Greene.
He was the one that put me in the mess in the first place, the man responsible for my life spinning so far out of control.
As I hocked a loogie, I flashed back to being a child, never good at spitting. So I thought it strange that I chose to spit in Detective Greene’s face. But, that’s what I did, I spit perfectly for once in my life. Greene’s shocked face got a nice coating of saliva and phlegm.
The woman cop said, “Oh, my God.”
Greene’s face morphed from shock to pure rage, and he lunged at me, punching me in the temple before wrapping sausage-like fingers around my neck and squeezing. He pushed my Adam’s apple into my windpipe, and nothing ever hurt more, nothing ever felt more right.
“Detective! Detective!” The woman said. “Lenny!”
He let go. I leaned over, coughed, wretched, coughed some more. I was crying too. And with the tears, caused by choking, came such painful emotion. As I sat there and cried, I could hear Greene panting, and occasional static voices coming through their police radio. His heavy breath, filling the void.
“What the fuck?” said the woman. But, Greene didn’t respond.
My whole life.
“Get him the fuck out of here,” Greene finally said. “Before I break his face.”
“You heard him,” the lady cop said to me.
I opened the door and stumbled out again.
130. LEONARD
He lurched away from the car. The smell of his piss lingered, fading as slowly as my rage. I could still feel the wet heat of his spit on my face, and my hands were still in fists.
“You were going to kill him,” said Shelly.
“Yeah, I still might, the fuck.”
She didn’t answer.
I could read her though; she thought I needed to calm the hell down. Problem was, I got my grandfather’s temper. In fact, Greene men since the days of stone tools had a tendency to fly off the handle, and the one thing you didn’t do was spit in our goddamn faces.
What a week. Attacked by one asshole, spit on by another. This fucking drug.
After a while, Shelly cleared her throat.
“You done contemplating murder, detective?”
“Just about.”
“Wilson and Shultz are in position. How many more do we need?”
“About five or six.”
“Trouble is, there’s a hold-up in progress over on Flushing.”
“Shit,” I said.
“Good news is it’ll give you time to get your head back on.”
I dug in and prepared myself for more waiting. I wanted it to be now. But, that’s life. You don’t get what you want.
Smith wandered aimlessly outside of the place like a zombie. He stumbled, fell, and hit his head on a fire hydrant, then sat on the curb, sad, desolate, and injured. A small consolation.
131. HAILEY
After Percival left to face his enemies, June stood still and stared at the door through which he left, like some ridiculous girl in an action movie or something. Pretty sickening.
Sure, I admired his guts. But, the way that he did it was stupid. With no one to watch his back, literally outgunned.
I was a tough chick. But, I also knew my limitations. No way could he beat those guys with brawn. I had planned to help P
ercival outthink them, which shouldn’t have been tough. But, the presence of his damsel here made the guy devolve into some hairy Neanderthal version of himself. And so he went in half-cocked.
What to do, now? I took quick stock of the situation: On me, I had only the little remote control thingy, which would set off the moondust balloons, a lighter, and a pack of cigarettes with one joint in it, which I couldn’t see being any help at all. Well, maybe later.
The remote, however, effectively was a kind of kill switch, because when I hit it, fans would go on, the balloons would burst, and moondust would fly into everyone’s eyes, at which point they wouldn’t be able to beat the crap out of each other anymore. Sure, Nico never intended it to be used for the purposes of peacekeeping. Even so, I was really glad he insisted on rigging this thingy up, and spending the time it took to test it, and make sure everything would go to plan. Without realizing it, he may have saved Percival’s behind. Because if I needed to, I could bring everything to a grinding halt.
June was still here next to me, not speaking, just staring at the door. I had no idea what went through her head.
Thing was, to use my trump card, I needed to go in, find Percival, and watch his back. Hard to do in a crowded room: I’d need help.
So I said to June, “You okay there, girl?”
“What? Oh, yeah,” she said, obviously distracted.
“Good, because our guy Percival needs help.”
She looked at me more closely now, actually focused on my face, what I said. I continued, “Look, I know he doesn’t think it’s safe for us to go in there and help, and you probably don’t think it’s safe, either. But, did you know that I have this?” And I showed her the remote. “When I turn this on, the whole downstairs area’s going to be flooded in moondust, and that will knock out anybody down there. With this, we can save Percival’s ass. But, only if we use it at the right time. We do it too early, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
I looked at her really closely, because I wasn’t sure where her head was. “You following me?” I said.
