In a horrible instant, I realize what he was implying by “imagined.” He’s never seen me before. There are no cameras in the hallway or the rooms.
What he’s telling me is that he doesn’t need to watch me. He presses his buttons. Flips his switches. He gets off on knowing that he doesn’t have to see my obedience, because he has full confidence that I’ll do as I’m told.
And he’s right.
“You might find this hard to believe,” he says, after swallowing. “But you’re my retirement gift.”
My body lurches forward at a speed that surprises me. I feel like my skin would split open and my bones would come spilling out if I tried to stop now.
The dog gallops at me. In a moment, I’m sure he’ll chomp on my crotch. Instead, I kick him hard in the face. The Senator laughs. Giggles.
I turn around and watch him exit the room. I watch the door close and I hear the lock lock.
All night, or at least what I decide is night due to the lack of work, the dog lies on the floor, trembling, whimpering.
I sit at the table, but I don’t feel like eating.
*
Someone in some philosophy book somewhere once said that expectations are a bitch. Not in those words exactly, but you get the idea. If you don’t expect things to get any better, then even the worst situations can feel tolerable.
Stop believing in heroes, and you won’t feel like such a victim.
Forget the police, forget the FBI. Forget your family. Your friends. Forget the comics you’ve read, and the movies you’ve seen. You’re trapped here. This is your life. Accept it.
And then one day you’re busy stuffing a dead cow with light bulbs when the door opens. A girl walks in.
She’s wearing a shirt with flowers on it.
Daisies. At a time like this.
I want to kiss her.
“Jesus,” she says. “What the fuck is this?”
“You have to get help. I…” There’s more to say, obviously, but I’m busy sobbing. Heaving.
“Are you alright?”
“No.” I shake my head, as if the act will help me stop crying. It sort of works. “Some sick fuck Senator is keeping me here. I’ve been here for months.” Maybe a year, though I can’t stand to say it.
“That sick fuck is my father,” she says.
“Oh.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
“I can’t. He put something inside me. I don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll get help. Don’t worry. I won’t let him get away with this.”
“Thank you.”
“Granola granola.”
“What?”
“Granola granola granola granola granola granola.”
“What?”
She’s out the door. “Granola.” It closes behind her.
“Oh fuck,” I say. Heaving.
The speaker activates with a staticky cough.
I hear him laughing. Giggling.
You’re trapped here.
This is your life.
Accept it.
*
Years pass.
When I think the word decade, I slap my face.
A day doesn’t go by that I don’t open the door to Room 1, and look at those stairs that could lead me to liberty above.
Maybe this is heaven.
Maybe this is hell.
Maybe the Senator’s heaven is my hell. And maybe when you realize that, the meaning of life doesn’t matter anymore. Maybe you can stop thinking and just do your fucking job.
“Apothegm #1,” the Senator says. “There was never any device inside you. All you ever had to do was enter Room 1, and you could have left. I would have let you go.” He’s quiet for a moment, then says, “Go now.”
The door opens.
I’m free.
But I don’t feel like liberating myself.
I want to go to bed.
Inside
Through the corner of my eye, Lucian looks something like a scarecrow with his arms outstretched, crows scratching and nibbling at loose shoulder hay. Head on, he looks more like me five or so hours ago. Only the little machines hacked out chunks of my remaining calf muscle, not my shoulder. I still own my shoulders.
Lucian shivers because he hasn’t learned to smile on his own yet.
“Is he cold?” the little girl outside says.
“No, he’s fine,” her mother says, or her nanny, or whoever’s job it is to lie to her at the moment.
I think of mother first since my mother told me at least twice a day that she wasn’t going to die, even though the letter I found in the trash said she was a “DEAD BITCH.” My mother also told me on numerous occasions that my father was a good man. What she didn’t tell me was that he kept sticking his nose in other people’s (important people’s) business. This was back when he had a nose to speak of.
The smallest of the machines carries the hunk of Lucian in its tiny pincers and deposits the flesh into the open slot.
Lucian waves goodbye, trembling, then the glass darkens.
As soon as the machines release him, he thrashes at them with his good arm and leg. They don’t put up a fight. Lucian manages to break off one of the protruding eye sensors from the machine that stuck the needle in the back of his head. He laughs like this is some sort of victory. I don’t watch the machines rolling through their mouse hole exits, but I know they are.
“You’re going to pay for that,” I say.
“With what?” he says, and laughs again.
The answer’s obviously pain, because what else could it be here? Still, I don’t tell him. If he wants my help, he can stop laughing at me.
Rea takes a break from her throaty mumbling. She says, “You still haven’t told us why you’re here. What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” Lucian says.
“Of course you did,” she says. “Maybe you don’t know what you did, but you did something.”
“No. Jesus. You don’t understand. I’m not one of you. I have a soul.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh.
*
I remember the fields of my childhood because I still own my memories. For now.
For now I remember my father’s dirty hands and the way he’d chase after me, declaring himself a zombie farmer each and every time, as if I’d somehow forget the game. I would escape the fields into our home and the moment I stepped through that threshold, I was safe. As soon as the killer zombie walked through the doorway, he was my father again. And my mother, she would call me her Little Dinner Bell. Then we would eat.
Once I spied on my father during one of his secret meetings in the barn. I couldn’t hear what he said to those dozen or so people, but the force of his words and gestures frightened me. They wounded me, much more than the slap across the face after he discovered me outside. It wasn’t difficult to find me. After the meeting ended, I just sat there by my peephole, shaking and needing to cry.
Later that night, I wandered in the dark, into the fields, and pissed on as many vegetables as I could. I thought about all those people swallowing their meals, the residue of this night invading their bodies. It wouldn’t matter how much they washed the greens beforehand. It’s never enough.
The next day my father apologized. Then he told me something ridiculous like, “When I slapped you, Terrance, I was really slapping myself.” He also told me, “I hate myself for bringing you into this world. You’re too good for all this. I’ll try to make things better.”
Maybe he did. Just not for me.
I remember the fields of my childhood because I don’t want to watch the grinning faces outside.
I can’t look down to see the machines carving up the nub that was once my left leg, but I know they are. I know the blades excrete a trail of bright green ooze in their wake. I know I won’t bleed. And I know that I’ll wave goodbye to that piece of me when it leaves, and I’ll smile, because I’m supposed to enjoy this.
*
“I heard s
omething interesting this morning,” Rea says.
“Oh yeah, where?” Lucian says. “The news?” He snorts.
“I heard it from some teenagers talking on the street. You can learn a lot about the world if you just listen.”
Lucian scoffs a scoff that probably means, “Why should I listen to them if they won’t listen to me?”
“Anyway,” Rea says. “I heard there’s an organization called HARM that’s been freeing people like us all over the country. I don’t know what HARM stands for.”
“So what?” Lucian says. “You think they’re going to free us?”
“They probably won’t,” she says. “I just thought it was interesting. That’s all.”
“Right.”
I hate the way he talks to her. It’s as if he doesn’t see the power erupting from her eyes. It’s as if he’s not afraid.
I am. It’s the force of her words and gestures. They wound me like a memory.
“It had to be a computer error,” Lucian says. “They’ll figure it out soon. When they set me free, there’ll be hell to pay.”
I was freed once.
I was freed from the orphanage with all the other soulless children. You see, God would never kill both parents of a child with a soul. He would never allow real children to live seven to a room. He would never allow the beatings or words like Little Fuckers to violate their ears.
Father Sherman, he blessed me once with his metal switch, and from that point on I decided to do everything right. I decided to eat right, sleep right, walk right, shit right. I decided to be the best Little Fucker I could be.
And so, when I looked at the cuts and bruises and black eyes on the other children, and looked at my own flawless body in the mirror, I almost felt free.
The organization that broke us out weren’t called HARM, but ANGEL. I never learned what it stood for. I never asked.
None of the safe houses were safe enough, so I moved around until I couldn’t anymore. Until I was stuck.
It didn’t matter how much they saved me.
It’s never enough.
*
The three of us stand side by side by side, and Lucian trembles, because he still hasn’t learned how to smile right.
I don’t watch the teenage boy selecting Rea’s breasts on the electronic panel outside, but I know he is. Rea knows too.
The boy comes here every Friday afternoon for the same thing.
I don’t own my legs anymore, so one of the machines has to hold me up as I face the glass and spread what’s left of my arms and smile like a good Little Fucker.
The machine with the blades carves out another slice of Rea’s left breast.
When the machine with the pincers carries the slice away, the glass darkens and we’re released.
I use my good arm to pull me to my bench, and Lucian goes on another pointless rampage.
The people outside, they can’t see inside right now, but we can see out. We can always see out.
The boy must know this.
He stands by the glass, this time and every other time, and he chews the sliver of Rea. Probably twenty dollars worth. It’s small. But it’s more than enough to get the job done. You can see it on his face.
Rea doesn’t have to watch him, but she does. She watches him, with the eye sensor that Lucian broke off the machine in her one good hand, stroking it, turning it counter-clockwise, murmuring something about treacherous mouths and lying tongues.
“What are you saying?” Lucian says, after the machines go away.
“A psalm,” Rea says.
“Great,” Lucian says. “I’m sure that’s going to save us.”
“No one’s going to save us.”
Lucian approaches Rea, and for a second or two I’m afraid he’s going to hurt her. Instead, he collapses on the floor and cries. Through the corner of my eye, he looks something like a scared little boy.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” I say. “When the red light goes on, you can stand and hold out your arms yourself and wave when you’re supposed to. If you do that, the machine won’t have to force you. You don’t have to be controlled. And if you smile on your own, they’ll take away the pain during the processing. The needles they stick in our heads can do that. Just smile.”
It’s almost like freedom.
The teenage boy heads home to his family.
“I’ll never smile for them,” Lucian says, through his tears. “I don’t care what they do to me.”
“There are reasons to smile,” Rea says. “Do you want to know mine?”
Lucian says no by curling up in silence. Head on, he looks like me in the orphanage, years ago. The day I gave up.
“I want to know,” I say.
Rea places the eye sensor in her mouth and swallows. “I’ve cursed my flesh hundreds, maybe thousands of times since I’ve been here. These are powerful hexes, and anyone who eats me will learn that I’m not a piece of meat. They’ll taste the power of my soul.”
Lucian rolls on his back and says, “You’re a deluded bitch.” Then he tells her, “I can tell you’re one of them. You have no soul.”
“Everyone has a soul,” Rea says.
That’s why she’s here, of course. She told me. She told me that she opened up in a public forum, and told them what she believes. Someone recorded her, sent the recording to the government, and that was enough to get her thrown in here.
Anyone who says that everyone has a soul obviously doesn’t have one herself.
“I need to get out of here,” Lucian says. “This is a mistake.”
I’m scared, but I drag myself over to Rea’s bench and sit beside her.
She’s whispering sharp words with her hand on what’s left of her breast.
Ever since I was a good Little Fucker, I didn’t believe in souls. I didn’t care what my parents taught me. I thought it didn’t matter what I did, because it’s never enough. I can’t save anything.
But maybe I’m wrong.
So I say, “Can you curse me too?”
She opens her eyes and nods. She places her hand on me, as if I’m more than a piece of meat. She closes her eyes again. She grumbles ancient curses.
I’m shaking and needing to cry. Then I do.
“What about the children?” I say. “Sometimes parents feed us to their children.”
“Them too,” Rea says. “Everyone who eats us will be affected. This isn’t about revenge, Terrence. This is about making things better.”
“Will it? Will it be better?”
“Maybe.”
Just not for us.
No one will save me, but maybe when I’m gone, I’ll still own something that no one can buy.
The red light goes on.
And it’s my turn to smile.
The Hole
If you haven’t seen a 50,000 ton earthmover lately, look it up online, or stand here with me by the Plasma Shack display window, sucking on your filter, and watch our government blast one of these rabid puppies toward the moon.
“It’s wrong,” my sister would say. Along with all her nail-biting cohorts around the globe, of course. They have a problem with the fact that the Secretary of Defense once owned the company that’s paying for this multi-billion-dollar operation. I say, they’re getting the job done, so who gives a shit?
Washington the Earthmover funnels into the Hole, atom by atom. The process will take about three days, but I’m only willing to devote three more minutes.
After about two and a half, crimson sparks gush out of the Hole. For a moment, I’m afraid this is It. The end. But no, it’s only static.
Still, this could be the Enemy’s work.
Like the girl beside me says, “Fucking Ens.”
The Enemy usually sticks to poking at the big fish, like the stock market, government agency networks, and resource distribution super computers. But sometimes, they practice on us. They experiment.
I bet the little Enemies-in-training sit in their air-conditioned classrooms and
molest our TV screens, our homes, our lives, and they laugh at us. Then after a blackout or a car crash, they give each other high fives. Or sixes. Whatever.
“Fucking Ens,” I say.
And I repeat this phrase, mindlessly, after the clown in a pink tutu pulls a knife on me in the parking lot.
“What did you call me?” he says, and drops the knife.
I could probably kick his head when he bends down to retrieve his weapon, but I don’t.
Instead, I say, “Nothing.”
“Give me your wallet and your jewelry.”
I hand over my wallet. “I don’t have any jewelry.”
“Your watch.”
I’m not sure if that counts as jewelry. I don’t say so.
Even now, with hot urine slithering down my leg, I don’t blame the clown. He’s a victim of the Enemy, just like you and me and everyone we know. If the government didn’t have to spend so much on the war, maybe this guy would get a fair piece. Maybe then his smile would be real, instead of two painted on purple slugs.
“I should cut you for calling me a faggot,” he says.
“I didn’t,” I say.
He goes on to say more, and I think I catch the word diatribe, but I’m not really listening at this point. The knife creeps closer.
When he loses his grip again, the weapon doesn’t fall to the cement. For a moment, the blade sits in the air. Then it flips. Then it jitters its way to the clown’s eye. The contorting metal wiggles inside the flesh, and blood soon replaces the tears painted on the man’s cheeks.
You might imagine a sizzling energy spewing from my fingertips or my third eye, and you might imagine my brow furrowed in dense concentration. But that’s not how it is.
I’m standing here shuddering in the cold with my forehead baking in fear, and all I’m really thinking about is how I need to get Einstein to his novelty pork chop shaped heat rock.
The clown gurgles.
As soon as I see a message of blood forming on his puffy orange shirt, I know it’s time to go. I read, “My father is,” before managing to turn around.
Someone will call the police. Not me.
Maybe he’ll live.
I slide into my car, and suffice it to say, I’m more than a little surprised.
I haven’t done anything like this since I was a kid.
Sheep and Wolves Page 9
