by Arthur Slade
"Thank you," I whispered.
"What?" she said. "Come on."
As we strolled to the river, flames from the fires licked the sky, lighting everyone's faces. Sparks scattered through the air as the wood crackled. Teens gyrated, hypnotized by the blaze. One Grunge Tribe member sucked in smoke from a joint and gazed at the moon with rapture. Was he a shaman divining the inner workings of the universe? About to announce the ultimate human dream quest? He coughed, releasing a smoggy cloud. Then he pressed one nostril closed and blew onto the ground, giggling.
"This is kind of amazing," Elissa said as we meandered through the crowd, the tribes dancing around us in a majestic celebration. All differences were forgotten, boundaries erased; tonight they were one, on the edge of their new lives.
Music pounded out of hidden speakers, rhythmic chanting against the beating of drums. My father had once penetrated the deepest, darkest heart of the jungle and discovered two tribes dancing and singing together. They stopped their celebration to gape at him, believing he was a god.
So many stories. Night after night, by my bedside. Then he was gone, never to be seen again.
My eyes ached. I stumbled over a broken branch, nearly fell.
"You okay, Percy?" Elissa asked.
"The smoke. It stings."
She took my hand and led me away from the fire. There were other tribes occupying the hinterland, hiding from the light: the Necking Tribe, the Smoker Tribe, the Cool and Detached Tribe. We stepped around abandoned blankets and zigzagged between overturned lawn chairs and entwined bodies. We found a spot where we could be alone and stared back at the distant flames.
What was it like that first time a human saw fire? Were we mesmerized by the power inside that flickering?
"It's all too weird," Elissa said. "Like they're dancing while the world ends."
There was a clink. A pop. Then she pushed a cold bottle into my hand.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Beer. It was sitting right here. A gift from the gods, obviously."
"But I can't consume beer."
"Why?"
I squinted at the bottle. "It will affect my judgment."
"It'll loosen you up. Don't tell me you still haven't tried it."
"I won't."
She chuckled. "Not even a sip? Aren't you curious?"
"No."
"Think of it as a tribal potion," she whispered, so close her breath tickled my ear hairs. "You can't experience the tribe's inner world without this elixir. Just a swig. Besides, you need to relax."
She drank from hers, so I followed suit, feeling the cool glass on my lips and swallowing quickly. The beer was cold; the liquid entered my stomach with gusto. I had the momentary feeling it would all come gurgling back up my esophagus. Coughing, sputtering, I said, "People enjoy this? It's like ginger ale and vinegar."
"They adapt to it—that's what humans do. Adapt. It gets better."
Elissa swigged from her bottle; I mimicked her. The odor was putrid. Which tribesperson had mixed water with rotted grains and risked a sip? And then convinced other unsuspecting hominids to partake? I took another long gulp.
"You like it." She handed me another. "It's my new job to get you to loosen up. I'm the leopard queen of the Loosen-Up Tribe."
We sat on a big log, a good decision because I felt dizzy. The potion's essence was bringing out my inner Cro-Magnon. The pounding music. The smoke. I had established a link with my past. There was a driving force pushing all organisms forward, out of the water, always ahead, compelling us to survive, to become stronger, faster, better able to conquer our environment. I was channeling it now.
Elissa patted my knee. "You're pretty quiet. What are you thinking?"
"About everything." The words slid out. "About you. Me. Everything."
She took this as an invitation to move closer. I hadn't noticed how cool it had become. The heat of her body: comforting.
"I really do care about you," she said.
My arm was around her, though I couldn't recall positioning it there. My mind went blank. She turned toward me and I mirrored her. Her breath was tainted with beer, but it wasn't nauseating. We were from the same tribe, watching our ancestors dance.
She leaned forward and we pressed our lips together.
I had never kissed before. This seemed fated: From the moment my cells formed, they'd been programmed to find her lips and kiss them.
She slid her tongue into my mouth. An ancient feeling: our tongues moving in a warm, moist place like the pool in which life first formed.
Elissa sighed. "That's nice," she whispered. I kissed her again and my hand explored her back, tracing each vertebra. It felt absolutely natural. To caress. Explore. I slid my hand under the front of her shirt and cupped my fingers over her left breast, using my opposable thumb to squeeze. She pressed closer.
I sighed, then spoke gently into her ear. "So this is what the female mammae feel like."
Elissa jerked as if she'd been stung. "What?"
My hand was frozen.
"What?" she repeated, sitting back. My hand slipped from her, fell onto my lap. "Is that all I am? An experiment? Another study?"
I opened my mouth: no words. My thoughts were caught in amber. Finally I blurted out, "I was just remarking on the experience."
"Oh, Jesus!"
"Oh, Jesus what?" I asked.
"Is that what you were doing? Just observing my mammae? My mammae!" She crossed her arms, covering Mother Nature's gift. Her face was a pattern of shadows. The firelight glinted in her eyes. "You don't live, do you, Percy. You just record."
"I...I do my job."
"Your job? It was your job to feel me up?"
"I...I don't know."
"You don't live!"
"I do so!"
"You don't live. There's a big difference. God, I shouldn't have to explain it. I don't want you to touch me for the first time and just think how you'll write it in your stupid journal. I want you to be here."
"I...I was..."
"I'm tired of doing what we do. All the fake studies. The staring. It's not normal."
Elissa stood and looked down at me. "Your father didn't die in the Congo, Percy. Why can't you tell the truth?"
"I did tell the truth! A tsetse fly bit him. He died of black Azazel sickness."
"I don't believe you."
"He did. I swear it's the truth." I could remember the National Geographic reporter coming to our door bawling her eyes out, her long blond hair undone. Mom not letting her in. It had happened.
Elissa glared. "I'm going home." Her tone was cool. "I'll give you a ride."
I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I shook my head.
"Fine, then. And I won't be going to Grad with you. I might not go at all." She paused for a microsecond. "Goodbye, Percy."
fifteen
SAME TREE
Temporal confusion.
Time had passed.
Amount: unknown.
One hour? Two?
I clutched a bottle. Empty. I opened my hand. The bottle floated down, crashed in slo-mo against its brothers. The bonfires raged, sparks shot into the sky—flaming moths. Dying galaxies. Shadows danced madly to a bass beat. Distorted guitars grinding like tectonic plates.
The fire beckoned. I stood, took a step, stumbled, fell. The contents of my stomach lurched, so I clamped my mouth shut, used a tree to pull myself up. What had happened to my feet? It felt as though I were walking through clay. Would future anthropologists gaze in wonder at my hardened footprints? I staggered past prone hominids, some with faces pressed together. Others sat cross-legged, mesmerized by the fire. The flames were higher than before, their heat making my cells dance.
I tried to enter the crowd that surrounded one of the bonfires. I wanted to see the center of the circle of flames. The core. An evolutionary secret I had been denied was there. Maybe the teachings the Ndebele youth learned during their manhood rites.
I fell, putting my hands out too late. M
y jaw struck the ground. Time oozed. Then the pain hit; my eyes watered. I got up, wiping my face.
I tried to break through at a different place. A male pushed me away, his face blurry. The square jaw and short hair reminded me of Justin. It had to be him, or one of his brethen.
"Gigantopithecus blacki," I slurred. "Species died out. They did."
"Bug off, Einstein!"
"I'm Darwin!" I insisted. "Darwin!"
"Okay, Darwin! Go puke somewhere else."
Vomiting? The mere mention of it awakened gastrointestinal turmoil. I stumbled, turned away from the flame and bent over a log, and my digestive system flowed backward.
"Hey, whazzat," the log said, despite its lack of a larynx. "Oh, Jesus, get away!" Something flew out of the dark, a foot, a fist, a bottle, striking me in the chest.
My eyes stung. I weaved toward the circle of bodies. They were hominids. I was a hominid. We had the same number of fingers, the same number of chromosomes. They would let me enter the inner circle. I wanted to see the flames close up.
I tripped and fell into a group of shadows.
"Aw, back off!" one said, shoving me away. "He's coated in puke." I was pushed again, so that I rolled over into a puddle of mud.
In the past now. Long ago.
Three First Nations males looked down at me. Two large. One bald and thin as a colt. Flickering flames sharpened their features.
Was this pre-Columbian times? Had I crossed the Bering Strait?
The thin one kicked the ground, and dirt clumps smacked the side of my face. "Get out of here—go on."
I held up my hands. "The buffalo are all gone—the bison, I mean."
"What?" a larger lump barked. "What did you say?"
"I didn't kill them," I explained quickly. "The slaughter wasn't my fault. And the Beothuks, I understand how they felt."
"Understand this!" the thin one hissed. "Shove off, whitey!" He stepped toward me.
"Wait," the third one said. He moved into the light. "That you, Percy?" A familiar visage. Young face. Ancient eyes. Delmar Brass.
"Yes. Yes. It is I."
"What are you doing?"
"Elissa left. She left. Left. Left."
They stared quizzically at me.
"You know this guy?" The thin one pointed.
"Yeah," Delmar answered, "I do."
I needed to explain the link between us. "We come from the same tree," I began. "All of us climbed down from the same tree. All skin colors are mutations of our original color. Australopithecus is inside everyone. Witness Lucy. We come from the same tree."
Delmar chuckled. "Yeah, we come from the same tree. That's right, buddy. Don't get yourself all riled up. I see."
"You see what?" the skinny one said. "He's drunk."
"How much did you drink?" Delmar asked.
"A vast quality. Quantity. Five beers."
"Five beers?" The thin one again. "That's all it took to get you to barf? What kind of..."
I blacked out. When I opened my eyes again, I was on my back, squinting up, and Delmar was hovering over me, laughing. I giggled. Maybe this was a vision quest. I'd need to find an animal spirit. I thought of an owl, but its large eyes only reminded me of Elissa.
"She went away," I announced. "She left. Left. Left me here. Flew away."
Oh, wait. I'd said that already.
"I'll give you a ride home," Delmar said.
"Just let him sleep it off here," whined the thin one. "He'll be fine."
"No. I have to." Delmar paused, scratched his chin and chuckled. "We come from the same tree."
He helped me up and guided my unresponsive body to an old, dented truck. The interior smelled of sweet grass. Or maybe the scent emanated from the Marilyn Monroe deodorizer on the rearview mirror. Her shape drew my attention, her dress blown up to reveal her famous limbs. So smooth. The engine roared. Delmar jammed the truck into gear. Marilyn wiggled.
Beauty. Beauty and evolution. A connection. Somehow.
I pressed my face against the window. The coolness felt good. The bonfires disappeared. Delmar cranked the radio and a rock song about love tumbled out.
"You play a mean bagpipe," I said.
"Thanks. Always did like the sound. Gets my heart pumping."
We are one, I thought. We are all one. I closed my eyes. When I opened them, we were home.
"You ever get that article published?" he asked.
"Still trying." Both words were a struggle. "National Geographic next. Or Modern Science. Someone will take it."
"Keep on keeping on."
I have to, I wanted to say. We all must keep on. Then I leaned on the heavy door and stumbled out, and he sped off. I slouched across the lawn and crawled through my window, shedding mud all over my bedroom.
sixteen
NDEBELE RETURNS
My bladder was a giant, expanding Zeppelin.
I woke up in the middle of the night with one desperate need. I blink-walked to the bathroom, relieved myself, then cranked open the sink tap. The first blast of H2O was rust-stained, but I didn't hesitate. I drank deeply. A lost desert nomad at the oasis.
My brain expanded/contracted/expanded. Painfully. Some scientists say that if the spaces between everything were collapsed, the universe could be condensed into a cantaloupe-sized object. Not a grand watermelon or royal pumpkin: a measly cantaloupe. They suggest that was the dimension of the universe before the Big Bang. Well, another universe was inside my skull, rushing to obliterate the present.
I put my lips to the tap and gulped again. Looked into the mirror. Mud stained my face, a charcoal streak blackened my brow. Australo-ugly-Percy-ithecus. Sobering up stripped layers from my humanity. De-sapienization. Soon I would be reduced to grunting.
Elissa didn't want to go to Grad with me.
We hate you, Percival.
I had clouded my anthropological eyes with alcohol and succumbed to imitating their behavior. I did not need a mate. I did not need them. I had to stay pure and prepare for the next great revelation. The Yanomamo call themselves waiteri. It means fierce. From now on I'd be waiteri in the pursuit of my goal.
I doused my face. My mind remained foggy. Embrangled. I needed something else. I thought of the Ndebele rite of passage. I dug in the drawer, grasped a pair of scissors. I clipped and cut, dropping hair into the sink.
I reached for the razor.
seventeen
REBORN
Mom examined me from her side of the breakfast table. When I'd first sat down she'd displayed shock, but like a stone dropped in the ocean, that shock sank below the surface. Placidity ruled.
She set down her tea. "So this is your last day as a high school student."
"Yes."
"And you've chosen rebirth?"
I spread almond butter across my toast. The pungent scent drifted up and my stomach tightened. I forced a bite. Masticated. "I am not sure what you mean, Mom."
"Why did you shave your head?"
I palmed my smooth skull. It was hot. The coils of my brain blazed and every razor nick tingled. My fingers were cool, which was comforting because my head ached. My first hangover; I would make notes later.
"I...uh..."The reasons had been lucid last night. Now: vague. Something to do with the Ndebele manhood rites. Krep. Krep. My thoughts conglomerated slowly. "It. Was. A. Dare," I said finally. "A dare."
"Who dared you?"
"Elissa."
A frown flickered across my mother's lips. Disbelief and anger nearly gained a foothold, but the placid look won.
She stared at me. I ate. A memory spilled out my lips. "Did Cindy Mozkowski come to our door?"
Mom turned pale. "When?"
"Three years ago. To tell us...about Dad. Was she here? Crying?"
"I've only seen her once. At the airport. Why are you asking this?"
"I. Just. I seem to have mixed up a memory of her. That's all. Nothing." I looked down at my toast.
"Your father is coming tonight."
I shiv
ered. "Oh," I said. "Oh." I hadn't committed to an emotion. Then I felt it. Impossible. The genitor—father—would not be there. His body had been reduced to its basic elements. "Will he float down from heaven, Mom? Rise up from the Netherworld? Reincarnate as a butterfly and flip-flap through the ceremony? Will I wear him as a brooch?"
"Why are you so mad, Perk?"
A primordial anger soup boiled inside my skull. "We go back to the earth. That's the way of things."
"What are you talking about?"
I stood up. "Why do people keep asking that? No one ever knows what I'm talking about. What it means. No one! Stupid, stupid hominids."
"Percy, what is it?"
I shook my head. How could I explain everything from Australopithecus afarensis to modern man? "It's nothing. Absolutely nothing."
Then I pulled my backpack off its hook on the wall and banged the door shut behind me.
eighteen
LITTLE BANG
Let's begin at the beginning. The real beginning. The early universe had ten billion and one protons created for every ten billion antiprotons. What's the big deal about that extra proton? Simple. Without it, matter and antimatter would have destroyed each other and there wouldn't have been a universe.
After the Big Bang there had to be exactly enough matter to clump into planets and stars, but not so much that it would all be pulled back together by gravity into the cantaloupe. The sun had to burn at least three and a half billion years to aid the creation of life. The earth had to rotate the perfect number of degrees from the sun, have enough gravity to hold an atmosphere, and the proper conditions to produce water. Only then could life begin. Without any of these factors, you get nada. Nil. Zero. No sane sentient being would bet on life forming on the third planet.
Which made it a miracle that I was at the front doors of Groverly High for my final day of Grade Twelve. I strode inside, head erect, eyes darting back and forth, eager to capture every significant event. A few students stared at my new visage—a Back-to-Buddha look. Most ignored me, including Elissa, whom I twice glimpsed in the hallway. She didn't even glance in my direction.
There were no classes, only a final goodbye from each teacher. Some classmates exchanged gifts or cards with each other, but I didn't receive anything. I report this to keep the facts straight. I felt no envy.
