SWAGAZINE ISSN: 1522-7707 Issue Four, Summer 1997 Black and White An attempt to recapture the flavor of print. http://www.swagazine.com/ Edited by Zeylan. ----- In this issue... POETRY. Dead Man Train A tale about the end of the line. Zeylan a little reading nietzsche story Don't let what you read get away from you. Ricky Garni Agent Orange Nothing stays the same forever. Bryant Stith Shh! Marilyn, Marilyn, where are you? Swagman Cloudy Days A quiet observation. Jillian Firth Douglas City Garage Trinity County, Northern California. Michael Hoerman Another Spring "a time I called you 'baby'..." Airalin Juice Dreams The juice is loose. Swagman Obey You are powerless after all. Bryant Stith Last Lie Sometimes it is hard to say goodbye. Zeylan Innocence It's not always easy to hold on to. Airalin Dust in my eye Rainy day, dream away... Swagman The Wind An ode to the everlasting breeze. Jillian Firth Don't ask me The magic of ordinary experience. Lawrence Norton Soft Kiss Do you dream in color? Ricky Garni an untitled poem An encounter to remember. Bryant Stith The Other Night Doors of perception slam shut (in your face). Swagman PROSE. The Carpenter Not everything is as it seems. Bryant Stith One Way Trip Blast off on a relative star voyage. Zepp Night of the Living Old A horror story of geriatric proportions. Mr. Pube Shopping Scenes from the upcoming play. Bryant Stith The Appointment Eavesdrop on a fateful conversation. Zeylan "I killed my god," said the child Beware the man in the black mask. Mordrak The Girl of the Month Club Good things come in big packages. Colin Campbell SWAG. Contributors Meet the personalities in this issue. Submission Info How to submit your work in the next issue. ----- Dead Man Train by Zeylan old leather seats, with velvet drapes and dirty windows steady rhythm of the wheels as they struck the tracks "attack... attack... attack..." cigar exhaust hanging below the dim cabin light and ashes in the aisle Outside the window, the world ran away from me while the horizon decided to stay at my side, and the sun was indifferent. I had the seat all to myself. Four rows away, a dead man sat peacefully, as dead men tend to do. His shoulders sagged slightly and his head drooped to the left a little, and his body gently swayed with the movement of our car. "attack, attack, attack" I slipped silently into a memory of the glass lake, with the glass fish, and the floating petals of evening flowers that she so carelessly tossed away; her gentle, red hair pranced at her shoulders as she laughed and danced, while the night wind closed the door to the west world; and angels, gracing us in silent poses, whispered a laugh to the whirling lady as she sang and weaved; her arms outstretched, her head back, feet gliding past the others who only watched; stones beneath her dance cried out in a gravelly breath as she twirled and sighed, and her shoulders rose and fell with the squeals of youth to which she clung; and the moon above her gave no notice. "Tickets, please." suitcases with dangling straps hung from netted racks above the dingy pane of the sealed window that displayed the fleeting terrain and my cracked hands, dry from labor and lost love had stopped bleeding for a while I looked up and saw the dead man sitting in front of me now. His dusty black suit displayed a solitary white carnation that mocked his dark disposition. His curled lips had rotted back, displaying white gums over yellow serrated teeth that grinded as he spoke. "This train only stops for the dead," he mused. I thought back to her, and her silent whisper of apathy, as she danced by the shore of the lake, adorned with light, with a summer dress and crimson lace, in long hair and afternoon smiles worn as a murmur of mysteries; and the day embraced her quietly; and I could not help but to feel bound by the sway of her fragrance against the handkerchief I carried; by the echoing sound of her laughter at something said tenderly; by the way she would look to me with solace I could not disavow. "attacker, attacker, attacker," the train reminded me. tattered seat of worn leather, frayed rests beneath my arms and notched floorboards that felt coarse beneath the thin soles of my feet Freshly dug earth clung to his sleeve as Cadaver Man raised his bony arm to the window. His long fingernail lightly scratched the glass, and I watched a tear protrude from his empty sockets and run down his cheek, carrying with it tiny bits of fragmented flesh that decayed in the dank heat of our confined car. A slow, soft moan was all I heard as I followed his vacant gaze out the dreary window and into the escaping sky. "She'll never come back, you know," he sighed. "This train only stops for the dead." broken tin of the dirty ashtray, and a travel magazine on the withered leather seat coarse knuckles of my empty hands and a dead man to keep me company. ----- a little reading nietche nietsche nietzsche story by Ricky Garni tim thought about reading nietzsche, and as he thought he thought that it would be a fine thing to do. "It would be fine," tim said, "super fine!" he said again, looking out the window at the bay as he woke up in the morning. now he did not do this, or say this, every day: he just said it one day. it was a beautiful day. tim knew that reading nietzsche would be like falling in love. "only it wouldn't be with a girl," tim said, as he put on his slick black leather boots and bell helmet, "it would be with nietzsche." and it would be with nietzsche, he heard, as though a distant echo from the sea, which glittered so in the morning light. "it would glitter so," tim said, in the morning light which was so much like nietzsche. tim started with a book about nietzsche. he opened it up and admired the crisp, white vellum. "it is as beautiful as the ocean," he thought to himself. "I should be on a motorcycle," he said dreamily, adjusting his bell. "and the ink is as dark as the crowded streets of malta" "and the words are harmonious and euphonious and multi-faceted" "and the ink seems to be darker, blacker, each time I look at it" tim looked at the glittering sea "so unlike the sea" he mused "so unlike lakes and summer showers and puddles" "it's more like malta" "but inland malta" "and malta filled with girls" "I would like to be in malta, riding a motorcycle with a girl" lost in thought, tim thought of nietzsche. he smiled to himself and then laughed and then frowned and then wept and then smiled a little and then opened up the book ever so slightly and then opened it up completely and then slammed it shut and then wondered and then smiled "I wonder what wissenschaft means" he said quietly and to himself just then a shadowy figure pressed its face against the window, obscuring the view of the sea. as the shadow past tim's figure against the bed he became startled and dropped his book which was filled with wissenschaft and caput mortuum and untergang and terrible terrible things the figure passed, but it was too late tim knew that by dropping the book, all those words that he had stored so carefully therein were gone forever tim knew that it was especially bad. not only could he ever have those words again, but right now they might be doing anything, anywhere, and he would never know it tim was particularly concerned with untergang and tim knew for certain that the shadowy figure that had passed by his window that opened to the glittering sea was a woman, or a girl, and that he would never ride a motorcycle again at least with that particular girl, now she was doing something else "something terrible, I reckon," said tim, "something absolutely terrible and there is nothing that I can do..." a thousand miles away, that very girl lay in bed, soft and warm but still evil, inspecting her blue nails and wondering if she had done the right thing, but she hadn't, and only fleetingly she wondered this, for the sky was filled with menacing clouds that she knew that she was at least partially responsible for, which added to the depth of this nietzsche next to her lay untergang he was asleep but he wasn't a very sound sleeper. next to untergang a hand of blue nails were extended fully, reaching towards the window which opened up not to a sea but probably something less impressive and immortal like a warehouse and then the hand extended reached towards itself while a thousand miles away a window opened to a glittering sea but yoo hoo nobody was home and twenty miles from that tim stood in line at the express check-in at the airport looking as though he was neither in a hurry nor not in a hurry "your name is tim?" the flight attendant asked, "how do you spell that?" there was a long silence the silence reminded tim of reading which he loved to do and people who sometimes filled him with fear but whom he loved usually and airports which were too crowded which was exactly what bothered him and himself for the things that bothered him and the other things that bothered him that he didn't think did but did anyway and the crisp white vellum which was his heart or at least he liked to think so like he liked to think about riding a motorcycle although he didn't know why and the glittering sea even though he didn't own it or understand it just like a motorcycle which was mysterious in exactly both those two ways and the shadowy figure which was somewhere else as far as he was concerned he hoped although almost anything could be in your heart and usually was, not always but once in a while and eventually if you lived long enough he was afraid that he wouldn't, while at the same time he could feel a hand close which was closing which made him feel queer but fearless which is half good and half good in a different way, but beyond both somehow and in doing so he couldn't help but wish him the best of luck he wished him the best of luck and she smiled "t-i-m-e, I think," said tim, nervously adjusting his boots and his bag, "but you must never pronounce the silent letters -- I don't." ----- Agent Orange by Bryant Stith That one street changed so much, from the usual humid glove, the wretched wetsuit-summer, thirsty bandages mopping up syrup from crisp sharp wounds blindfolds over things that never could see. The winter, the winter neurotically dissolving then re-blooming its blinding colorless shock, the heaving cold, the painful cold, then a tease, maybe, of approaching spring, or just a sense of lost sleep. That one street hasn't moved in my head, and I'm still on it. There's no other street and no other city: I take snow with me to deserts to sprinkle, and haul that fly-paper atmosphere to the cool shifting moments in bed with people I've since met. They look at me in those moments, sharing their senses and secrets While I sit on the curb, holding my own remains. ----- Shh! by Swagman Nip me softly in the silent flesh In that secret hollow Where I savor your pleasures Where you in red spike heel Pumps and billowy pleated Skirts stand akimbo Over subway grates On hot August nights with A case of the seven year Itch just begging to be scratched And in the morning When this wetness bakes dry Sunlit and harsh Where crow and buzzard await their turn After you toss aside my spent carcass I will remember you and call it love ----- Cloudy Days by Jillian Firth Here I sit doing little else than producing carbon dioxide; I have found on cloudy days if I sit here long enough the trees will turn their leaves towards me ----- Douglas City Garage by Michael Hoerman "That's a helluva wrecker," I says to the man who owns the place. "It gets the job done," he spits, then adds, "If it can't pull somethin' out, it'll pull it plum in two." I nod. "That's for damn sure." A man on crutches walks out into the snow. He looks into the snowy, gray sky. After a moment his eyes fall to the ground. He looks over his shoulder, through the open door, into the garage. He sighs deeply and pivots back inside. A bright disk of sunshine tries to burn through the clouds. A few minutes later he reappears, gazing up at the sky from one of the bays of the garage, caverns of petroleum and Snap-On tools. He's only poking his head out this time. Snow has already filled up his first set of tracks. Later that night, lying in bed. As the fire dies down I think about the men at the garage. I see the lines in their faces. Each line is a word or a phrase. The arc of tobacco spit is punctuation. It falls like a comma onto a fresh page. There was something left unsaid. Wood shifts in the stove. New flames rasp and draw breath. ----- Another Spring by Airalin the tears have gone by like the days that have passed; i guess this is what life becomes in those nights hovering between grief and submission i'm not sure what this town is anymore just a lot of people passing by and a perfect blue ocean and a perfect blue sky; i'm not sure who i am anymore but i rememer some other spring, a time i called you "baby" now i'm sure there's nothing and i'm insane so many boys with their pretty blue eyes and all my windy cliffs; the whole world is full of people's problems; there aren't enough words to soothe the beast; civilization is motivated by emptiness. daddy, could you get me a sharper knife? 'cause this one isn't working too many lost souls for me to collect my arms just aren't that strong do you have to keep trying? because life is about walking through that "damned-if-you-DO" door it's all about flesh and sweat and pain and heartbreak and the moments of human connection that string it all together and make it all worthwhile because perfection is gained from what you take why are so many people dying? i wade thru their blank eyes every day. a devout christian says to me that the bible says god will never give you what you can't handle. he says he thinks this time god made a mistake. there must be a way through this garden the gate is black and the lights are out but i swear there must be a way through all this savageness and time to die in blood, and drink your life; ah, my son, the lambs lie down only then to sacrifice themselves to the lion. there was a time when i called you "baby" before the world blew up in our hands baby, hold your head high and your heart in your hands, my mind in your dreams i'm so thirsty i know you're hungry for me i need to be in your skin you beg to be on your knees we're all in front of the gun, he thinks he needs that trigger but it goes off anyway. angels aren't supposed to hide their wings and run. i don't even know if the old man cares; tired eyes that have seen so much sin and, oh baby, we're all dying again i don't want to walk away i don't want to leave this perfect boy fallen leaves in big skies, so many tall buildings so many intense things i tried i knew it all once, sitting on top of the world and now i just turn myself in shame because now i have nothing to blame lie on a bed, beneath this empty sky dream a little child take me home with you because, baby, i'm scared to die ----- Juice Dreams by Swagman I dreamt I saw O.J. dreaming he was killing his wife after chipping a bucket of balls with arthritic crippled hands then somehow holding a knife with fingers too deformed to grip the handle, wearing a blood resistant jumpsuit emblazoned L A P D across the back in spray painted 5 inch stencil letters he calls in his final reservation confirming his flight to Chicago just before the evil detective drips blood on his hidden socks at the corner of his bed all the while his ex wife and her ex waiter lie dead in pools of blood too small to confirm their deaths beyond a reasonable doubt. ----- Obey by Bryant Stith The tombstone, the granite slab inscribed with wisdom and bold memories drifts like another skin against my hands, sorrowful water pounding it into clay, softening wider, flowingly soft, mud slipping against my nails, mashed potatoes starving in my wrinkling palm. The Great One, limp as grass, mowed short as a crew-cut, smooth against the razor slashing hot and bright -- the elusive slick metal slipping away, the Powerless Mortal growing cold and bent and unattached. ----- Last Lie by Zeylan it is hard to say when the lie brings in the new day when a little bit is too much and still not enough and worse than nothing at all when a mirror of distant voices and a blend of agonies steal the truth from my breast and lie all the same, in time it is hard to say where the line is drawn in the tall grass when all I hear is the clicking of her falsetto heels strumming the rhythm in a song of goodbyes, click - click - click it is all I can do to remain in an errand of mysterious smiles when the grin is a lie, and the new day never comes it is hard to say when empathy becomes mercy and mercy grows numb when there are no limits in a confinement of faint memories that stroll through the grainy photograph of my sleepless nights when dry heaves and an angry, bitter moon are all that accompany me as she melts away it is hard to say what images are painted between the black and the white when all I read is the fiction written by an angry moment in time for a dawn that promises never to come, and pays no attention to my lies it is hard to say how the next act will play when my voice is lost in feverish gasps of midnight air that swallow the lie into a radiant dream of paralyzed goodbyes it is hard to say what will become of this. it is hard to say anything at all. ----- Innocence by Airalin there's nothing in front of me I can attack there's nothing I can do i'm so caught up in you i just want to shove a needle in your arm anything to drug you i'm breathing on your words hot and cold and sweat and desire blood and flesh and pain and fire why'd you have to be temptation? damn you, fuck you get thee behind me, satan i just want to rip myself apart for you i want you in me i want you to be hard to me i want you to force me use your will and make me i want too much too bad you know what i'd do you're after me now your head in the lights coming down hard god, you put up a fight struggle for you in these bonds of my sin your body is open i'm bleeding right in there's nothing i am that isn't you i've forgotten everything but your teeth and your skin wet, naked, stained with blood don't you know how i'd drown for this world? there is no rest in this fervent life no sleep, no thought, no "my" my name is "yours," my flesh is free come on in, you're taking me ----- Dust in my eye by Swagman presume it is raining consider simply a rain-drop's genesis might well be a dust mote falling with a true, full voice naturally speaking some careful thunder from the larger memory of monsoon's inexorable cycle choosing this world into which to sing the casual harmonics of water wearing away stone ----- The Wind by Jillian Firth I sing aloud to call the wind the very one that scatters leaves in places I have never been and picture dampened fingers lifted high to seek direction from an ancient and confiding friend I envision that this breeze has cooled the brow of Michelangelo and lifted scents of sassafras and stirred the chimes that grace a thousand balconies and patios as I lay reflecting on the grass And when it comes I close my eyes while breathing in the fragrances of other worlds and other lives and on its tail I think I hear the gently cradled murmurs of a hundred mothers' lullabies ----- Untitled by Bryant Stith The horizon plunges into a city square of breezes, pigeons, and bookstores wrapped in a blanket of summer mist. Two eyes emerge from a shaded brick alley, warm and flickering, telling stories and secrets. Her face mirrors the sky, echoes the earth, and reflects the waves of the sea. Clouds stay at arm's length; shadows kneel on the ground; machines lose their power and choke -- but I share as much as I can. I don't want to scare her away, but nothing she'd say could scare me. We are from a common stream, we reciprocate half of our histories -- the days of sunshine and paranoia, playing and fleeing in offices and deserts. Romance planted at birth begins to unfold when we meet -- it bears feathers, hands, and crowns, it brings moisture to the ground. Shapes and designs for the heart constructed within the mind, structures of wood and words to find oneness between two worlds. ----- Don't ask me by Lawrence Norton girls run along the avenues juggling hindrances like spoiled eggs cracking each against the rental car green and mossy like water eyes tears and gratitude first to last born rabbit eared vase written solely to shock the socks into the river veins shooting, shooting forth onto black panther gaze frozen in a thousand lovers embrace fallen angels crossed at the hip salute the one who watches operas heave onto the blessed canvas shot into the bin behind by heavy gutted gremlins grieving over youth's narrow serpent faces. ----- Soft Kiss by Ricky Garni Taking the cap off of a pen is almost precisely the same as taking the cap off of a syringe. In dreams, you can access ability. It's always the same sensation: suddenly you can speak French, you can fly, or you can play the guitar like Andre Segovia did before he died. All dreams have water in them if you look hard enough. There are good composers and bad composers. Good composers have names that are beautiful to hear: Elgar, Chopin, Fauré, etc. And it is just the opposite with bad composers in that you want to jump through a glass rooftop (as in a poorly-made action-adventure movie) when you hear their names: Schostakovich, etc. In dreams, anyone can play any instrument but everyone should play the flute. It's easy to carry, and it's silver. Most men, eventually, find a tube of lipstick in their bed before they die, regardless of whether or not they die in bed. I think it's called a "tube." If you can't fall asleep, try saying the word "Krypton." While making love, say the word "kryptonite." The reason that everyone has nightmares in the 20th century is that, at some point, they watched and listened as "Shine On Harvest Moon" played on a player piano. In dreams, bourbon is nectar. When, in the Bible, they speak of "manna," they actually mean "bourbon." The last word to escape Pandora was "bourbon." When, in France, they say "Je t'aime" it actually means "I love bourbon." Charles Foster Kane's last words were: "I think I could go for a bourbon" and then "Rosebud." There isn't a man alive who would take a bus ride and walk a mile or more in order to see the handwriting of James Joyce, as I did in my dream. Love letters, I discovered in a dream, burn at the same temperature as standard notarized documents or legal statements or even notarized love letters, of which there are a few, although they tend to be rare. Marching music should never be played at all, not even loudly. Soldiers are fine, though, and do a very good job. At some point, everyone quits their jobs in their dreams. There will come a time when you, the reader, will cover your mouth in surprise as you read the paper and say: "But he was so young!" and think of all the dreams that you have lived through in your life. Exactly half of them were beautiful, exactly half of them were not. ----- The Other Night by Swagman The other night my imaginary wings broke free of my shoulders not so much wings as just no more shoulders my floating consciousness slipped the mooring of my body and we took the show on the road feeling like a puff of wind filling in and lifting Above me, what another person might call a flying saucer what some might call a mandala what, in fact, might simply be the porchlight at the door left on to keep you from stumbling the first time I saw it I went through the door effortlessly the other side was soupy dark My invisible guide told me be careful with my imagination as what I would imagine will come into being I thought I was being careful but I soon found myself about to mount a woman, fully aroused in earthbound passion "No! Not here," giggled my guide as I fell back into the darkness being taken from this place "How shall I be more careful?" I asked "Be more as a dolphin," replied my guide next instant I was back in my body back in my bed, struggling to move to force myself awake. I asked, struggled wrenched my voice free to beg my sleeping wife to hold me to tell me I was awake she spoke and I opened my eyes glanced at the clock it was midnight. I got up went into the bathroom looked at myself in the mirror as if to verify I was really me wondering what does a dolphin say to a naked lady ----- The Carpenter by Bryant Stith IN THE TIME SLOT between when school got out -- two-thirty -- and when the first worthwhile reruns came on -- four o'clock -- Aaron had nothing to do. Since his mother had been hospitalized -- the term his father used was "destructively bi-polar" -- the the house was empty. The eerie, sometimes pounding silence of the house drove Aaron into the woods. The woods were alive. They changed visibly; they evolved, unlike the perfectly static world of television reruns. This was exciting, yet also slightly haunting; Aaron sometimes found signs of creatures -- gnawed bark, footprints, broken branches -- but would never actually see animals, aside from squirrels, birds, occasional snakes and toads. Despite occasionally feeling apprehensive in the woods, Aaron also felt an impulse to explore them more deeply. He would walk for what seemed like hours, straying from what few paths there were, racing through little swarms of gnats, trampling along the mossy, mud-slick shores of motionless streams, battling through tangles of thornbushes. The woods seemed to go nowhere. They just existed. The urge Aaron had to purposefully explore them -- to find something, to get somewhere -- was constantly defeated. That's when he began building forts. In his garage he found old boards of various sizes, in various stages of decay. Some had clearly been used before, but when, or for what purpose was unclear. Aaron nailed these together to create private dwellings for himself. One was a floorless, box-shaped structure with no actual entrance: to get inside, he'd lift it up, crawl underneath, then let it slam down over him. And sit in darkness. Self-imprisoned. Secure. One afternoon he lifted up the structure to squeeze himself under it, when, in the dark shadows, he saw motion: a shiny, black creature slamming against the back interior wall, apparently trying to escape. Leaping back, Aaron dropped the edge of the fort. He slipped on pine needles and fell into a sitting position, staring. He decided it must have been a skunk. Had it tunnelled into his fort? Do skunks tunnel? There was no way it could have lifted open the fort. Aaron didn't know what to do. He knew that skunks could bite; that they sometimes carried rabies. Moreover, they sprayed foul-smelling liquid that was nearly impossible to wash off. Frustrated, Aaron picked up a heavy pine branch and hurled it at the side of his fort. He found a rock; it fractured against one of the boards with a hollow pop. For nearly an hour Aaron bombed his fort with branches and rocks. Eventually one of the sides split open. The damage spread quickly. When several of the boards on one side of the fort had been demolished, Aaron -- his breathing quick, tense -- stepped up to the side of the structure. The breaks allowed ample sunlight to penetrate the fort. Peering in, Aaron looked for the skunk. There was nothing inside the fort but rocks and bits of wood. Walking back to the house to watch television, Aaron tried to shake his sense of self-doubt. It must have been a trick of the light: the utter darkness of the fort clashing with the vivid sunlight creating a sort of moving mirage. His senses had been thrown off. He accepted this explanation -- it seemed scientific -- yet he was bitterly angry at himself for having destroyed his work. Aaron's immersion in television was particularly deep that afternoon. He found some of the commercials almost painfully funny. One of them advertised paper towels while simultaneously discouraging pollution: after one actor lauded the absorbant capacity of the towels, another tossed a crumpled up bunch of them into the Pacific Ocean, which several hours later went dry, becoming a plane of cracked earth scattered with countless aquatic skeletons. Skunks and other creatures invading one's fort: that must be one reason why people make tree-houses, Aaron concluded the next day. He retrieved a new mess of boards from the garage and began designing a tree-house. He found that none of the trees in the forest near his house were very well-suited for tree-house building because of their branch structure. None of the branches were horizontal enough, and almost all of them were uneven. Aaron had to nail supports into branches before he could begin laying down the actual floorboards. Once he managed to nail in place a series of floorboards, he found building walls onto them almost impossibly difficult. Ultimately, Aaron ended up with a dangerously tilting two-walled structure. He felt the birds in the forest laughing at him. Resigned, he walked back to his house to watch television. "Where the heck have you been? I told you we were going to visit your mother today." "Jeez, I forgot." "You know how important it is for her to see you." "I know. I forgot." Aaron hated visiting his mother. Generally they visited her every week, and each time he found her more difficult to recognize. She aged astonishingly quickly in the hospital. It was as almost unbearable environment. Aaron felt like something forced him to stare at the other patients, while forcibly preventing him from looking directly at his mother. His mother's ward was crowded with troubled adults -- some walking extremely slowly, mummbling to themselves, their hair like exploding squirrel's nests, their eyes foggy; some of them sat catatonically, staring at plants, or at unopened books on their laps; some argued with ridiculous levels of emotion over board games, or TV channels; some did weird aerobic exercises, as if trying to strengthen the muscles of limbs they did not actually have. Every time he was there someone seemed to be weeping loudly, but he could never find the source of the voice. There were foul stenches circulating through the air, like olfactory weather-patterns adrift on the currents of the two old rotating fans occupying opposite corners of the room. Aaron occasionally saw pills, capsules, and enema bottles on the floor. "He's begun building tree-houses." "Oh? Tree-houses? Tree-houses..." "Dad..." "They're excellent. He's a regular Frank Lloyd Wright." "Jeez. Oh, come on, Dad." His mother stared at him. She rocked slightly. Her facial muscles twitched irregularly. Usually she appeared tranquilized; verging on sleep. He had never seen her this uptight before. He had no idea what had caused the change. "Did they teach you that in school, Robert?" She spoke in a quick spurt. "It's Aaron, Mom. My uncle's name is Robert. Your brother." Her embarrassment was pronounced, and he immediately regretted correcting her. Her face grew dark; she frowned, her lips quivering. He could see tears gleam in her eyes. "It's okay, Mom. Really." "You were always so strong. Active. Active. It's good. It's good. Keep active, Aaron. Aaron?" "Yeah," he said, looking at a huge, blurry painting of black and white cows across the room. "Yeah, it's Aaron." The next afternoon he couldn't find the tree-house he had begun constructing the day before. It was gone. He found the tree, and he climbed it: there were nail marks, but the tree-house was gone. His first thought was that for some reason his father had torn it down. Maybe he had actually been saving the wood for something, and dismantled Aaron's tree-house to get it back. But Aaron checked: the wood had not been returned to the garage. Aaron returned to the tree. Again he climbed it. If someone had maliciously destroyed the tree-house, why would they bother carrying off the wood? Aaron scanned the forest for signs of the boards. About a quarter of a mile away -- about as deep into the forest as one can see before everything fades into the mass of branches -- Aaron perceived an unusual shape amidst the trees. Unable to wrench his eyes away from it, he leaped to the ground and began running. From the ground, he gazed up at it. He recognized many of the boards; they had not been changed. But the structure of this tree-house was flawless; it had four walls, a doorway in one of them, and a slanted roof. Climbing up the tree, Aaron tried to remember what his father had done the previous night: after they had returned from the hospital, his father had sat in front of the television drinking scotch until the news came on. There's no way he could've built this during the night. And that morning, Aaron remembered, his father left the house before he did. Aaron spent the afternoon inhabiting the mystery of the tree-house. There were no readable signs on the structure itself that explained its origins. Whoever had built him the tree-house was a very skilled builder, and off the top of his head, Aaron could not think of anyone like that. His father owned tools, but never managed to make anything useful. Walking home that afternoon, Aaron expected to see his uncle's car in the driveway. Robert must have come at some point in the morning, observed the clutter Aaron had nailed up on the tree, and decided to make Aaron the house as a gift -- maybe to console him during this difficult period of his mother's troubles. But Aaron called his uncle's home, which was in another state, and his aunt told him that he had been at work all day; they had even had lunch together. No, she was sure he had not visited Aaron. "Dad, were you at work all day?" "Uh huh." "All day?" "Uh huh." "All day?" "Look, I even ate lunch in my office. Why?" The next morning was Saturday. Before the cartoons came on, Aaron -- rushing to put on his shoes -- strode into the forest. He ate two chocolate-chip granola bars while he walked. When he got within sight of the tree, he froze. It was gone. Dropping the granola bar, he ran to the trunk of the tree. He stared up into the branches. The tree-house had vanished. For several moments he felt dizzy. The contents of his stomach seemed to come to life: the grains in the granola seemed to germinate and grow into stalks -- burgeoning tangles of coiling plant-stems, writhing in his gut, poking against his stomach walls. Aaron fell to his knees. He thought of the skunk -- the trick his senses had played on him. Aaron thought of the crazy people in his mother's hospital, their bizarre behavior, their inability to perceive reality. He thought of his mother, and what he overheard his father and her doctor saying about illnesses being "passed on." Aaron's mind went blank. It was a psychological defense mechanism he had used in the past -- during fights between his parents, the early but horrifying stages of his mother's illness. He set his mind on a blank channel, and rose to his feet. In order to get air-time on this channel, thoughts had to be inoffensive. Constructive and health-oriented. The tree-house must have simply been a harmless trick his senses had played on him. Or perhaps he had actually fallen asleep in the woods, and had dreamed that he saw the tree-house. This he found the most comforting hypothesis; he accepted this. Straining slightly, Aaron smiled. His mind was a warm, blank channel. He stared up at the tree one more time. The tree was a blank channel. Lowering his gaze, about to turn and leave, something in his field of vision jumped out at him like a bullet. In the distant trees -- about a quarter of a mile deeper in the forest -- he saw a familiar Problem. A familiar Irregularity.This time he didn't run. This time he half-expected it. As he came closer, he saw that this was not the same tree-house that he had seen the day before. It was quite similar, but this one had a pointed roof; two sloping sides, rather than one. This one seemed considerably larger. This one had more symmetrical boards. Climbing up the tree, Aaron noticed that the wood seemed sanded; almost perfectly smooth. Inside, Aaron found that the floorboards were richly oiled. There were several horizontal slots under the roof which allowed in light. Aaron remembered the time. It was morning. He had left the forest just before sundown the night before. Someone had built this tree-house -- this flawless construction -- during the night. Aaron returned home in a state of profound excitement. The depth of the mystery was swallowing him, consuming him like a dark night. But he was convinced that this was happening for him; someone was doing this for his benefit. He felt no fear. He returned to the tree-house around midday. He spent an afternoon trying to think of a letter to write and leave in the tree-house for the person who was building them. Finally, he wrote "Who are you?" then signed it, "Aaron." On each of the five subsequent days, Aaron found new tree-houses. Each one was larger, more complex, and more stylish than its precursor, and each one was deeper in the forest. The next tree-house Aaron found -- the third -- had a hinged door, a shingled roof, and a small glass window. The fourth had three small rooms, rather than one large one. One of the rooms, which seemed physically lower than the others, had a medum-sized bay window. The fifth tree-house had two stories. The lower room had a brick fireplace. There was a small table and a chair in the upper room. The sixth tree-house had several skylights on its upper floor, contained a total of nine small rooms, and an empty bathtub that had both a drain and a pipe leading to the roof that would channel rainwater into it. And the seventh? The last tree-house? Aaron decided that he would enter the woods at night and catch the carpenter at work. The carpenter had never written notes back to Aaron explaining his identity or his purpose, though Aaron left new notes in each tree-house. Aaron knew there was a danger that the tree-houses might stop coming; that their builder would simply get bored, and leave Aaron's life. It would be horrible to never understand why this was happening. Aaron resolved to go into the woods that evening. As usual, when his father drank himself to sleep, Aaron turned off the television. Had he awoken when the set clicked off, he would have seen his son wearing a coat and holding a long, black flashlight. The flashlight began fading after Aaron travelled two miles into the woods. Aaron worried; without a flashlight, and with the moonlight thoroughly blocked out by the trees, it would be nearly impossible to see in the forest. It wasn't until the light died completely about half an hour later that Aaron spotted the bizarre light ahead of him. The trunk of a huge tree -- about a half miles away -- was emitting a strange, hazy glow. Aaron stopped walking. For several minutes he stared at the tree, focusing and re-focusing his eyes. Then he began walking toward it. As Aaron approached the tree, he saw that the massive trunk supported a gigantic tree-house that was perhaps as large as any terrestrial home he had seen. It was strangely shaped -- its roof was considerably wider than its base -- with odd, angular protrusions, like compact rooms thrusting out of the main contours of the building. As he neared, Aaron saw that the glow was coming from a string of small white bulbs, like Christmas lights, leading up the trunk. Dropping his flashlight, Aaron began climbing the trunk. There was no formal doorway to the gigantic tree-house; the only possible entrance Aaron found was a window. Aaron opened it, and climbed into what felt like a very large room; Aaron could not see the walls or the ceiling. The space seemed to contain a limitless emptiness; every noise seemed amplified and sustained: Aaron's footsteps, his breathing. "Hello?" Aaron called out. The sound of his voice seemed suspended in the air of the room for nearly a minute -- its tone losing definition, becoming a sonic blur -- but only very, very slowly losing amplitude. Walking slowly, with his arms extended, Aaron reached a door. Opening it, Aaron found that the door was only slightly taller than his head; the corridor the door opened to was roughly the same height. After taking roughly twelve steps, Aaron found that the corridor was not straight; there were unpredictable turns, and even slopes, as well as occasional steps up, then steps down, and several doors -- some as few as three feet apart -- not leading to other rooms, but simply to more of the same corridor. At one point Aaron found a hammer on the floor, along with several nails. Finally, after what seemed like two miles of corridor, Aaron discovered a door on the wall. Straight ahead, the corridor continued up a low flight of concrete stairs. Several inches of soft orange light spilled from under the door. Aaron knocked, waited for about ten seconds, then opened the door. The room reminded Aaron -- in its size, and in its barren, block-like shape -- of the gymnasium at his school. There were more than a hundred lit candles spread out over the floor. They weren't arranged in any particular order -- neither in rows, nor in fancy diagrams. Some seemed on the verge of burning out, their flames flickering and struggling; some had already gone out, and were nothing more than puddles of steaming wax, cooling, solidifying. Others were bright flames as high as two feet above the floor. But even this many candles could not fully illuminate the immense room. Shadows of amazing complexity seemed to bounce, vibrate, or swerve across the floor and the walls. Patches of the room were still quite dark. Gazing around bemused, Aaron began walking, directionlessly, away from the door. His eyes swept the room. At first it appeared to him that all of the candles were cream-colored. Then he began spotting blue ones, and then red ones, black, green, and multi-colored ones. At first he believed that they were all unscented, but then he began to smell pine, sandalwood, frankincense, and a variety of scents that were foreign -- and some repugnant -- to him. After walking around in the room for about fifteen minutes, finding no doors, no objects aside from candles, Aaron decided to pick up a candle from the floor, re-enter the corridor, and follow it further. As he reached down to get a candle, he heard someone clear his throat -- accusingly, as if to suggest that Aaron was breaking a rule. Aaron looked up, and saw a figure slumped against a wall, half concealed by shadow. Aaron stared, speechless, for several seconds. "Are you the carpenter?" he almost whispered. "The...well, the builder, yeah. Uh, you..." "Why do you build these tree-houses? Why are you doing it?" "Uh...yeah, I'm the carpenter. Carpenter. But I'm also the guy who takes care of your mother." Aaron's eyes seemed to stop reflecting the candlelight. "My mother..." "You asked...why I did this. You want to know? Let's..." He rose from the corner, slowly, then began walking toward Aaron. "Let me show you. Or, explain. But I have to show you. You see, there's--" As he stepped to avoid a puddle of wax, the man planted his foot on a very weak board. It snapped under him, and he fell forward. Apparently the support for that section of the floor was also flawed; when his body hit the the floor, several more boards snapped, and he fell, entirely, through the floor. Aaron heard a prolonged yell. He rushed toward the gaping hole in the floor. Peering down into it, Aaron could faintly see -- perhaps illuminated by the lights on the trunk of the tree -- what appeared to be a swamp. There was movement: Aaron could see an object splashing. It began thrashing violently. There was a brief scream, which terminated in a muffled, gurgling sound. His eyes adjusting, Aaron could see the man being devoured by some sort of huge, shiny, fish-like creature. Then silence, broken only by several flaps of the creature's tail against the surface of the water. Aaron rushed away from the hole in the floor. He raced back to the door -- having to turn frequently to avoid stepping on candles -- then entered the hall. He shut the door of the candle room behind him, then raced in the direction of the entrance. Racing through the lightless corridor, Aaron bumped into several doors. Finally he bumped into one that was locked. Aaron threw himself against it. He pounded it with his fists until he was certain that he had smashed the bones in his hand. Finally, he retreated in the other direction. He remembered that the hallway had, beyond the entrance to the candle room, turned into a concrete staircase. Perhaps that would lead to an exit. Before Aaron reached the entrance of the candle room again, however, he bumped into another door. This one was locked as well.He was trapped in a stretch of corridor. He slammed his shoulder against the door until he felt his skin tear open. He screamed -- the echoes taunted him. Finally he collapsed on the floor. He told himself to shut his mind off. Tune to a blank channel. He began crying. Every channel was filled with panic or despair. When the pain in his hand and his shoulder subsided, he fell asleep. Aaron's father appeared at the hospital alone. "He's gone, isn't he?" his wife asked, "Something's happened to him...?" He was speechless. "I'm right. I can tell from your face." "He's...no! He's on break -- it's his spring break -- and he's visiting with my sister." She shook her head. "No," she said. "Look, Martha, you need to relax. Aaron's fine." "You'd've made him come if you knew where he was." "Martha--" "I don't care. It's good. They'll never find him. He was always so active. They'll never be able to get him. Not like they got me. Not like they got me." ----- One Way Trip by Zepp TIMIDLY, THE SCIENTICS APPROACHED the leadroids and said, "The prototype ship is ready. We can leave for the stars as soon as a person is selected to fly it." The leadroids sat back in their collective chairs and smiled. Things had not gone well over the past century. Food was short, as were tempers, and crime was high, as were taxes. The promise of unlimited visas would mollify the pipples. New worlds, new land, trade, foodstuffs. They looked down at the scientics and said, "Get us a hero to fly this ship. Make him strong and brave and handsome and young. You know what demographics we want to hook." And so Tom Bold (original name Sydney Krevich) was chosen. Tom had a square jaw and a flat stomach, with clear eyes filled with the vision of the future, and his voice rang with the morality of his convictions. And smart? Tom was so smart he never let the leadroids know how smart he really was, so they didn't fear him. The great day came, and to the cheers of the hopeful and anguished multitudes, Tom lifted off in the shuttle to the great ship that circled the earth. At the portal to the Star Discovery (which is what the leadroids named the ship, even though the star it was going to had been discovered thousands of years ago), Tom paused for one last interview. "The ship is so huge!" the commentator gushed. And so it was. Five miles long and two wide and one deep, it was the greatest human project ever made, a giant fuel tank with five big engines, and 180 cubic feet in a pimple on the top for Tom to live. "Won't it be difficult for just one man to fly?" "The ship nearly flies itself," Tom answered, with his square chin thrust out in a friendly manner. "To go down to the planet itself, I ride in a little ship that is attached to the control cabin." "Well, gee," the commentator said. "You think they would at least put some side view mirrors on it or something." Tom smiled at the commentator, young and strong eyes filled with visions of the future, and stomach carefully flat. Then it was time to leave. In a fanfare of jubilant, patriotic colors, a holy man blessed the ship, even though the ship was not particularly religious, and Tom was off to conquer brave new worlds. The scientics had explained and explained how, even though it would take 25 years for Tom to get to the star and come back, he would only be six weeks older. "Relativity," they said, and the leadroids smiled and nodded their heads wisely and said, "Ah, yes. Relativity." And so the pipples smiled and nodded their heads wisely and said, "Relativity. Of course!" But nobody really got it. Two weeks later, his time, Tom pulled up alongside the planet. (He actually just dropped in to orbit around the planet, but he thought the phrase looked better in his personal diary, which would net him millions upon his return). The planet lay below (actually above) him, fresh and verdant and unspoiled (or at least, not visibly poisonous from 250 miles up). Tom landed, and found that all the dreams of humanity had come true. The air was perfect, the gravity just right, the animals edible. Fresh water gushed and gurgled copiously past vivid and lush plants, and past Tom's square chin to his flat stomach, tasting sweet and pure. Tom grinned at the majestic mountains and sylvan plains, and knew it would take at least 150 years for the pipples and scientics and leadroids to totally fuck this place up. By which time, Tom would have been rich, and then dead, hopefully in that order. After two weeks of testing and sampling, and drinking pure fresh water, and eating friendly, fuzzy creatures that bounded right up to him trustingly, Tom climbed aboard his shuttle and returned to the Star Discovery. Tom fired up the mighty engines of Star Discovery, and prepared for two weeks of frantic writing in his diary and contract signing that had to be done before he landed on earth. He had just gotten to a very promising passage in his diary about making love to a beautiful native girl (he thought it might be female... beggars couldn't be choosers, and whatever it was, it didn't complain) under the moonlight, and then frowned, trying to remember if the planet had a moon or not. He glanced out the port, feeling a bit foolish as he did so. Because he was five days out, he was too far to possibly see the planet. But the planet was still there, and yes, Tom could see it had a moon. Something was wrong. Tom should be near the speed of light, and many light-hours away by now. He tapped at various meters, even though they were electronic and tapping them did no good, and asked the ship's computer many pointed questions, to which he received blunt answers. Tom's chin felt flat, and his stomach felt square. He might as well rip up his diary and write a real one. He wasn't going home . . . * * * THE LEADROIDS, ALWAYS FEARFUL, nearly blew the ship out of the sky before they realized what it was. "But!" they protested to the scientics, "the Star Discovery wasn't due back for another 12 years!" "Something's wrong," the scientics guessed. "What?" demanded the leadroids. And so the scientics found out. They opened up Tom's cabin to an appalling smell, and after they scooped out the remains of Tom and gave him a hero's burial, they went over all the records and charts, and Tom's diary. "Relativity," they explained to the leadroids. "Ah, relativity!" replied the leadroids. "Now what the hell does that mean?" And the scientics tried to explain. Time compression worked the way they thought it would. It took Tom twelve years to reach the planet, but for Tom only two weeks seemed to pass. However, you can't have two different sets of time in the same place, so whatever happened going away from earth, the opposite would happen coming back. It only took Tom two weeks to come back -- but for Tom, it was twelve years. Tom only had supplies for two months. He must have found it terribly confusing. "Well, fix it!" grumbled the leadroids, and went back to irritably shaking the pipples for more taxes. The scientics went back to their labs, and asked many pointed questions, and got some blunt answers. Their faces turned gray. "We can't fix it," they told the leadroids. "Why not?" demanded the leadroids, shaking irritably. "Relativity." "Ah. Relativity." The leadroids mused over this. "Now what the hell does that mean?" And so the scientics explained again about how you couldn't have two sets of time in the same place, and when the two objects returned together, they had to match. "Well, so what? The pipples know it's going to be a one-way trip. It means we get the ships back sooner, too!" The scientics, by now trembling as well as gray, explained that it didn't work that way. "Sometimes time moves slower on the ship, sometimes on the earth. Because you can say that either one is accelerating away from the other, there's even odds of it going one way or the other." "What," purred the leadroids menacingly, "does that mean?" "It means half the trips out will take two weeks. . . " "And?" "Half the trips out will take twelve years!" "Well, fix it!" "We can't!" "Then we'll fix you!" So the leadroids had all the scientics put to death, and six months later, the society collapsed. It would be another six hundred years before anyone said 'relativity' again. ----- Night of the Living Old by Mr. Pube THERE WAS ONLY ONE road running through Pinion Hills and that was Route 138. A few unpaved trails branched off from the highway, extending far into the desert and toward the mountains. Small businesses were placed sporadically along old 138, the majority of them video stores, and several up them boarded up. The Pinion Hills Gas Depot, whose fiftieth anniversary had come and passed without celebration, stood on the edge of town. It was the only building in Pinion Hills where tourists ever stopped, keeping its founder and current owner pleased. A white sign leaned against the pumps, declaring the price of unleaded as $1.19. The toothless attendant thought that he was taking advantage of desperate travelers, unaware of the higher prices that had become the norm. It was summer, the slow season for the station as the majority of travelers were trying to avoid the hot desert completely. Zeke was sitting in his chair outside of the station that July morning, looking down old 138 as a brown station wagon approached. Car probably headed toward Vegas. Too caught up with thoughts of sin and gambling to fill up on gas here. To Zekes surprise, however, the wagon flashed its right blinker, indicating the drivers intention of entering the depots driveway. Better not be asking for directions. The car pulled up next to the pumps, and a short middle aged woman emerged. "What can I do for you this morning sweetheart?" the man asked. The woman swallowed hard when she heard the word "sweetheart". Was this hick really worth getting upset about? The mention of sexism would probably excite him. Probably better off just asking for gas and getting out of here. "Just some gas, thanks," Marcy said, walking away from the car, stretching out her legs from the long ride. Zeke walked to the front of the car and examined the hood. He scratched his head, wiped his brow, and trudged to the rear of the vehicle. He ran his withered, three fingered hand all over the trunk and below the fender. Where in Gods name is the tank on this contraption? "Check the left side, grandpa," a voice suggested from within the Chevy. The passenger side door opened and the source of the voice stepped out. Steve grimaced as he came out of the car, the desert sun pounding its rays into his pale skin. His white tee shirt, displaying the message "Youre brown, and Im proud of you", clung to his sweaty chest. "Is it usually this fucking miserable here?" the youth said to the old man before scouting out the depot, in search of something to drink. Zeke watched Steve march off toward his home and office. Never in his life had seen anything like this boy. His long, black, greasy hair came down beyond his ears, past his shoulders, and stopped in the middle of his back. A long, dark trench coat hung over the puzzling tee with the cryptic message. Steve seemed completely oblivious to the fact that it was currently dragging along the desert floor. Steve walked up to a tall coke machine that was leaning next to the stations door. He looked all over the front panel, searching for the coin slot. His eyes finally came to rest on it and the small price label above it. Five cents a bottle. Five cents? A bottle? "I wouldnt go wasting my money there, son," Zeke said as he pumped the gas into the brown Chevy. "I havent had a bottle in that machine for about thirty years now. That cokey coler just stopped delivering one day. Shame really. Used to make a pretty penny off the old girl. That reminds me of Irma, god bless her. She used to drink that stuff nearly all day long. Kept her up into the night, it did. Which wasnt all that bad a thing." The old man winked at Steve, his eyelid coming down to close tightly over his cloudy right eye. "I think thats all I want to hear about your soda drinking history, thanks," Steve said as he walked back toward the car. "I think it would be best for you just to finish up the gas before you remember something else about Irma." "You know, kid, back in my day we had respect for our elders. Might do you a little good to learn some." Zeke was getting noticeably angry now. "Luckily I dont live in a time where people are respected just because theyre old. In the world I live in, people have to earn respect. However, perhaps in this pile of crap you call home the rules are a little different." Steve was staring Zeke directly into his eyes. There was no sense backing down from this old man. "Youre right boy. Youre on my property now, and here the rules are a little different." Zeke fumbled with his belt, got it undone, and raised it in front of the boy. "You better play by my rules, son, or youre going to find yourself in sad shape." Steve spit in Zekes face. The saliva trailed down the mans forehead. The man clenched his teeth tightly together. Steve began to worry. What was this man going to do? Where was his mom? Was Lily still asleep in the back seat? These thoughts came to an abrupt end as Zekes belt, the first thing the old man bought when he returned from the war, came down across Steves shoulder. The boy reacted instinctively. This wasnt the first time had been threatened physically, however on this occasion there was no reason to endure the abuse. Steve lashed out for the mans wrist and caught it. He squeezed down on the frail hand, causing Zeke to loosen his grip on the belt and drop it to the dusty ground. Steve threw his arm back and let his fist fly forward. The first punch hit the eighty year old man in the chin, causing irreparable damage to his jaw. The next one hit Zeke in his cloudy right eye, causing it lose what little vision it had. Zekes body wavered but Steves grip on his wrist stabalized the war veterans balance. The third and final hit landed on the mans nose, shattering the bone and causing torrents of blood to flood out the nostrels. Zekes body fell straight to the ground, his bones splintering from the pressure of the impact. With his last bit of strength, Zeke lifted himself up slightly off the ground; his right hand clutched at his chest. He moaned in agony and cursed at the boy with the words he had picked up in his days in the marines. Within seconds, the mans arm folded under him, his body dropped to the dust. He remained silent and still. Marcy walked around the corner of the station and into Steves view. She was adjusting her pants, undoubtedly returning from a stop in the bathroom. From the smile on her face it was clear she had not yet seen the body. Steves mother drew closer and walked around to the drivers side of the car. Her eyes focused on the fallen man in front of her, and her mouth opened to speak. Before any words could come out, however, a sound from behind them made both Steve and Marcy turn their heads. A blue pickup truck was kicking up dust about a hundred yards down the road and rapidly advancing. Steve and his mother stared at each other in silence and fear as the truck pulled into the driveway of the Pinion Hills Gas Depot. Two brothers, the "Milo boys" as they were known around town, stepped out of the cab of the dirty blue monster. Ike was in his early sixties, short, fat, and right at home in the desert. His fifty-something little brother, Jeb, was tall and silent. He had not spoken since he was in elementary school. His prominent Mongoloid features had made him the center of a tremendous amount of traumatic abuse. Of course, Steve and Marcy did not know or care about these details. What they did care about was the fact that both men were carrying enormous shotguns and walking toward them. "Hi there!" Ike said. "Dont be worried about these here guns. Just buying a little ammunition from Zeke for our huntin trip tomorrow." Jeb nodded his head in agreement. "Wait a second," Ike murmured. "Whats that?" Steve tried to move in front of the old mans dead body but Jeb pushed him aside. The big man kneeled next to Zeke and rested his hand on the mans head, stroking his thin gray hair. "He was pumping our gas," Steve stammered. "All of a sudden he just fell. Maybe it was the sun or a heart attack or something. I dont really know." Jeb pushed Zeke slowly on to his back. The dead mans white shirt was now covered with a thick layer of brown dust and dirt. His face was almost unrecognizable. His eyes and nose were still bleeding profusely, a mixture of blood and dirt trickled down his face. "This man didnt die of no natural causes," Ike stated. "No sir. You killed him. I noticed the blood on your hands when I first came out of the truck. Reminded me of the time I delivered Jeb. Just eleven years old I was. My mother expected me to do everything after Pa died. I mean everything too. Might explain why ol Jeb here is the way he is today." Ike grinned. Steve shuddered. "Yup, messiest job I ever did see. Delivered a few more babies after that. Became something of a midwife around town you might say. Steadiest hands in all of Pinion Hills the women would declare. For a long time I was the only person anyone ever trusted with the deliverin of their newborns. `Spose it was a mixture of my experience and the fact I only a charged seventy five cents a birthin." Steve looked over at Jeb. The big man was smiling, and listening closely to Ikes story. His shotgun was being held straight out in front of him. Sensing his opportunity, Steve threw his hands down on the gun. The force knocked the weapon out of Jebs hands, allowing Steve to quickly scoop it up. "All right, Im telling the stories now!" Steve shouted, pointing the gun at Jeb. "Hurry up Jeb, go stand next to your brother." Jeb shuffled his feet slowly. His eyes had widened and were staring at the two barrels pointed at him. His upper lip quivered slightly. "Now, retard!" Steve ordered. "Now look, young man," Ike began. "I dont know why you did what you did to old Zeke here, but I know I dont like it none at all. Now youre threatening me and my brother. We didnt do nothing to you. I will tell you something, though. Something that may help you out. Back before the war I knew a man named Lewis. Some called him Lew, but I knew him as Lewis. Anyhow, he worked at the general store, which is a video store now, but back then it was a general store. Actually, we didnt call it the general store. We called it the trading post. See, back then you called your shopping trading. I am a gonna go down to Main Street to do some trading youd say. Of course, you werent really trading, you were just buying, but we called it trading. Anyhoo, Lewis owned the general store and everyday hed go to work and bring his dog. Maggie, the dogs name was. Big, fat, stupid beagle. `Bout as stupid as Jeb here, Id say. Dog didnt know his own asshole from a hole in the ground, was the joke at the time. Anyway, the dog isnt important. What is important, is that Lewis owned the general store." "Stop," Steve whispered. Ike didnt miss a beat. "You know where the tire shop is today? Well I was standing right about the spot of that building when I seen Lewis come out of the general store. He was a ranting and a raving and a carrying on like I dont know exactly what. He was a telling stories about his past, real quick like. Not giving a body a time to put a word in. Just telling `em, not caring whether or not the person wanted to hear what he had to say." "Stop," Steve said, this time audibly. He could hear his mom start crying behind him. "Anyhow, he kept talking this crazy talk for about a week or so before one of us decided to get worried about it. It was getting to be a real pain to buy anything from him `cuz hed always start telling you some story about the war, or what the dog did when she was a puppy or what not. We was wondering what was causing it and hoping it didnt ever happen to us so we called in the pharmacist. What was his name?" Ike paused and scratched his head. The heat of the desert sun was causing beads of sweat to fall down his red face. Marcy stood behind Steve in disbelief as this strange person told his seemingly pointless tale. "Oh yah, Herbert P. Longwater. He had a son, Johnson, that later took over. Boy went to a college back east he did. Cost him about 10,000 dollars I remember him saying. Anyhow, Herbert tried to figure out just exactly what in the world was going on with ol Lewis. Herb decided it couldnt be the vapors or poor mans elbow or the itchy pancreas, but it was something. He couldnt figure it out. The only medication Lewis ever took were these pills the pharmacist gave him to help him with his memory. But of course that couldnt have been the cause `cuz me and about every other person in this town had been taking the same thing, and have continued to take it until this day. After the pharmacist died, his son took over and he --" Ike had spoken his final word. Steves finger pulled hard against the trigger of the gun. Marcy, who had been watching and listening in silence, let out a scream as Ikes chest blew open. Jeb, meanwhile, was wasting no time. His legs were quickly carrying him down 138, away from the station. Steve pointed the gun at the fleeing man and pulled the trigger again. Nothing happened. Jeb and Ike really were in need of ammunition. Marcy was in shock. She gasped for air and tried to think of what to say. Nothing had been making sense from the moment she left the bathroom. Steve guided her into the passenger seat of the Chevy in silence. He could not think of any quick way of explaining what had been happening. There was one person who did know what to say. "Why is Steve driving?" the eight year old Lillian asked. She was small, blonde, and surprising intelligent for her age. She did very well in school academically, it was the social aspect that gave her problems. "Dont worry Lillian," Steve responded calmly. "Just going to get grandma. Were going to get her out of this town." The answer pleased Lillian and she felt no reason to ask anything more. She had slept through the entire gas station ordeal, and thus was oblivious to the danger her family was in. Steve started the car and drove down 138 toward his grandmothers house. His mind was filled with a thousand questions and worries. Could she be saved? Would this terrible drug wear off? Was the pill making these people mean as well as long-winded? This self interrogation came to a sudden halt as Steve heard the noise. It was a low and distant hum, almost inaudible, coming from up the road. Steve rolled down the window and stuck his head out, straining his ears to make out the source of the noise. As the boy drove on the noise became clearer, and Steve realized what it was. "What is that, Steve?" Lillian asked, gaining interest. "It sounds like..." "A crowd," Steve said, finishing for his sister. "A mob of eighty year old zombies to be exact. All wanting to avenge the death of their beloved gas station attendant." Lillian was perplexed. What in the world was he talking about? Boys are so weird. Her confusion was only momentary. As the brown Chevy came into town, the crowd became visible. It was just as Steve said. A giant swarm of old people came toward the car, each one speaking. Each one telling an irritating story. Jeb stood in front of the massive obnoxious army, laughing, and holding a giant Winchester rifle in his hand. Steve swerved, trying to avoid the inevitable hail of bullets that would be entering the cars windshield. Unfortunately for Steve, Jeb had different plans. The cars tires were quickly flattened by the lumps of lead lodged inside of them, forcing the teen to stop the car. "Whats going on, mom?!" Lillian screamed. Marcy was beyond words. No amount of therapy would ever get her to answer that question. "Get out of the car, both of you!" Steve ordered, opening his door and stepping out. The entire mob lurched forward, coming toward the Westmoreland family. Steve could hear bits of what the people were saying. He made out one male voice shout, "I remember the time that old Zeke was sick and..." Steve screamed. The whole town really was taking this memory pill. The boy took his sister by the hand and began running down the highway away from the town. He looked back over his shoulder and realized his mother was not coming with them. In fact, she was going toward the crowd. "Mom, what are you doing?" Steve yelled to her. "I see grandma!" she screamed back. Steve released his grip from Lillians hand and sprinted back toward the car. He knew the time he had to save his mom was very limited. When he reached the car he threw open the drivers door and felt under the seat. His hand touched metal and the boy sighed in relief. The gun kept under the cushion for emergencies was still there, unused. The boy turned his attention back toward the crowd and spotted his mom among the other people. "Dont mom! Its not really grandma! Its not the woman you remember!" Steve warned. His words fell on deaf ears. Suddenly the crowd became silent, he could hear only the dialogue between his mother and grandmother. "I remember the time your father built a radio out of chicken coop wire and a couple of rusty nails. He was the first man that ever built an electric radio in the western hemisphere. Might call him a hero, you might. Speaking of heroes, I made you some of the Tang you like. Here Marcy, drink it like a good girl. Thats my Marcy." Steve screamed, but it was too late. His mom had begun drinking it. He knew what his grandma had done. She had put that damn pill into the glass of Tang. God, this had been one crappy day. He walked slowly over to his mom to face the inevitable. "Hi Stevie boy!" Marcy said as her son approached. "I was just thinking of that time when you were five and you wet your bed. Remember that, honey? When you wet the bed? And then you came to me and felt really guilty about it and wanted to..." Her eyes suddenly closed tightly and then reopened. Her expression had changed. "Kill me, Steve," she whispered. "I cant mom!" he said, tears flowing from his eyes. "Kill me!" she demanded. A smile spread across her face. "Anyway, you were so cute when you did a big poopie in your pants and wanted to show it to me and I remember that I..." Steve shot his mother in the face. She fell lifelessly to the ground. The mob began to speak again, making Steve scream in terror as he heard 500 endless stories simultaneously. He ran toward his sister, shooting behind him without looking. When he reached the sobbing girl he scooped her up with one arm and ran toward the nearest building. He could sense the mob was making slow but steady progress behind them. Within seconds the door to the unmarked building was opened and Steve and Lillian entered. They closed the door quickly and locked it. They both sighed in relief and turned around to see where exactly they were. Lillian fainted instantly. Steves mouth dropped. There were just as many old people inside the building as there were outside. He looked at the plaque hanging on the wall across from him and read it in disbelief: "Herbet Longwater Memorial Convalescent Home". Steve began to cry as the crowd moved in. ----- Shopping scenes from the play by Bryant Stith Scene: Her Ex-Boyfriend ALAN and MARCIA step up to a line at a popular coffee counter. ALAN looks over his shoulder. ALAN: Hey, look -- you see that guy? With the tan jacket? See him? He's been following me for four days. MARCIA: Mmm... ALAN: It's so fucking bizarre. I saw him at the downtown library, at the Lemming Ledge, at Rosy's...he follows me everywhere. He waits for me to leave home. He might even call me sometimes; I've been getting these hang-ups... MARCIA: Can I tell you something? ALAN: What? MARCIA: Promise not to get mad? ALAN: Huh? MARCIA: He's my ex-boyfriend. ALAN: Oh my god. Aw, jeez. What a fucking loser. Just what I need, another psychotic obsessive dweeb in my life. MARCIA: He's not psychotic. ALAN: Oh, just deeply disturbed? MARCIA: He is not. ALAN: He follows me; he calls me up to see if I'm at home. MARCIA: I asked him to. ALAN: You what? MARCIA: Look, you wouldn't understand. ALAN: You may be right about that. MARCIA: If you were a woman you would want to take safety precautions as well. ALAN: Safety pre-- MARCIA: I had to make sure you're the kind of person who's safe to be with. I simply had him follow you to make sure you're not already sleeping with someone, or dealing drugs, or involved with any sort of crime -- anything like that. ALAN: Ho-ho-ho-ho-hold on a minute: None of that is your business, Marcia. MARCIA: How can you say that? ALAN: How... MARCIA: If I'm going to be intimate with a person, you bet it's my business whether they're a criminal, or whether they're already...morally compromised. ALAN: I'm...stunned. I mean, this is unfathomable. I mean, him following me is an invasion of privacy. You see? And just because we date doesn't mean you have the right to dig into every little crevice of my life like a fucking KGB agent. MARCIA: It's just a routine check. Jesus. ALAN: Furthermore, I'm...what kind of a relationship do you have with this guy? He's your ex but he does this kind of thing for you? How long have you guys been broken up? MARCIA: Oh, that's really none of your business. ALAN: But... but it's your business what I do with every second of my life? MARCIA: The past isn't relevant. The present is. I'm not delving into your personal history. ALAN: I don't think that's a meaningful distinction. MARCIA: Although your fling with Johanna last April was pretty tawdry. ALAN: Oh, now wait a minute here. That's totally unfair. That was a friend of a friend, who needed... some companionship. MARCIA: Well, for your information, I don't need that kind of companionship. ALAN: I never thought you did. I...we've been dating for two weeks; I've never tried to sleep with you. I'm totally serious about this. I mean, I'm really interested in you; this isn't some transitory little-- MARCIA: I find it hard to believe that you're really sincere. ALAN: I am! How can you question that? What have I done to suggest-- MARCIA: Alan, if you're really sincere, you're going to have to let me get to know you. ALAN: (pause) Fine, you know, I mean...okay. Look, as long as he doesn't directly get in the way. And the past has no relevance, so it's off limits. MARCIA: Oh? When it sheds light on what's going on right now, I'd say there's relevance. ALAN: Right, but otherwise. I mean, when it has no relevance... MARCIA: Then I don't care. ALAN: Uh... MARCIA: (gestures) Order for us. ALAN: Hi. Um, two mochas. For here. MARCIA: Yeah. Scene: What're You Doing Here? ANDY stands at a magazine rack. JOE walks by with his friend ALAN. JOE: Well hey, Andy. ANDY: Hey. JOE: (pause) What, you're not at home finding a cure for cancer? ANDY: Uh, no. JOE: Well, I'm surprised. Here in the mall? Instead of sitting around at home cloning sheep? Cloning Hitler? ANDY: I'm reading, Joe. JOE: Oh? What're you reading? Scientific American? Masturbator's Anonymous? ANDY: Uh, Rolling Stone. JOE: What, you finished solving all the problems in the universe -- now it's time for a little R and R? ANDY: Joe... JOE: I'm disappointed. I heard there was a homeless pigeon somewhere. I thought you might find a cure for it. ANDY: Joe... JOE: Andy. ANDY: Would you mind...? JOE: Oh, excuse me. I guess I forgot: you're busy unravelling the mysteries of the universe. ANDY: Look... JOE: The world just doesn't have enough problems for you. Sorry, I forgot your extraordinary mission. Your Great Scheme for Humankind. ANDY: Ugh. JOE: People like me just can't appreciate you. I guess I'm not godlike enough for the likes of you. ANDY: (pause) Is there something you want? JOE: Is there something I want? ANDY: Yeah. JOE: What, like an autograph? A private conference with your big toe? ANDY: I really... JOE: An opportunity to suck your halo? ANDY: Alright, this is pointless. JOE: Hey, sorry I bore you, Prince Andy, I guess I'm just not at your ecological level. ANDY: Excuse me. (exits) JOE: Superior Beings must have it rough, huh? ALAN: What a fucking snob. JOE: (calling after ANDY) Oh, and hey, Andy... you might want to check out Bertucci's -- I hear they have some fine low-fat tofu cigars Scene: I'd Be Happy With Anyone SUE and DEB are in an Orange Julius. SUE: Melissa McCarthy used to work here; she said movie stars came in all the time. DEB: Here? SUE: Uh huh. The young ones, especially. But also lots of older stars whose careers were sort of, I dunno, winding down. But mostly the young ones. DEB: That's hard to believe. SUE: Seriously. DEB: A hot dog stand? At a mall in Montabello? SUE: If you were a celebrity, wouldn't you come here? DEB: I doubt it. SUE: No, think about it: you spend all your life around agents and studio execs, around the press, lawyers. You get so sick of the superficiality...you're desperate to find real, ordinary people. DEB: Hm. SUE: I mean, all the bullshit, the kissing ass. It suffocates you -- like everything in the National Inquirer is suddenly real, and there's nowhere to hide from all your crazed fans, and everyone wants a piece of you. DEB: God... SUE: So where do you go to find real people? Some ordinary, out-of-the-way place, away from all the glamor, excetra. DEB: Okay. SUE: I mean, it's places like this where important celebrities come to meet people. Especially when they're -- you know... DEB: What? SUE: Well, when they're on the prowl. DEB: You think so? SUE: Definitely. It makes perfect sense. And Melissa's met lots of them. She met Johnny Depp. DEB: Really? SUE: At this very spot. Wouldn't that be so cool? A raging mega-star comes in to meet real people, and you just happen to be sitting right there, minding your own business, living your ordinary, real life, and suddenly... whoosh. DEB: I dunno. SUE: What do you mean? DEB: I think if a celebrity came in and tried to pick up on me... SUE: (pause) Oh, come on. DEB: No. SUE: You can't be serious. DEB: I am. SUE: You'd turn him down? DEB: I think, I mean: I don't need all that kinda life. I just want someone nice. Who loves me. Someone I can just chill with, you know? I'd be happy with anyone, so I don't need someone all famous and rich. SUE: (pause) You are truly a degenerate. DEB: Why? SUE: You're resigned to mediocrity. Life, life should be one giant orgasm. No, Deb, you're lying: you're just trying to sound all "let's hear it for the little guy." DEB: No, I'm just saying, what's really important in a relationship you can get with any decent guy who happens to love you. He doesn't-- SUE: Oh, please. DEB: I'm ser...okay, whatever. SUE: Admit it, Deb: if the drummer from Primus walked in, your head would spin. DEB: The drummer from...okay, well, sure that's-- SUE: And if he came up, and if he said, You know, I've been watching you shop and stuff, and keeping my distance but admiring you for like the past hour, and I've decided I can't live without you, but now you have to decide right this very instant whether you'll spend the rest of your life with me. You'd say Yes. DEB: I'd consider it. SUE: Admit it: You would say yes. DEB: I'd-- SUE: Just admit it, dammit. DEB: (pause) I'd say, Yes. SUE: Ordinary people, my ass. You're such a liar. Scene: The Shopping Impaired ALAN and MARCIA stand in front of a store. MARCIA: Alan, you have no idea how to shop. ALAN: What do you mean? MARCIA: You have no sense of shopping strategy. Deal-making, making choices. Perceiving people's commercial sensibilities so that the gifts you choose for them can be what they want, and what they need. ALAN: I guess you're right. MARCIA: How did you never learn to shop? Is it some sort of innate impairment? ALAN: God, does it really matter? I mean, I never learned to hang glide, either. If it doesn't seem important, I don't bother. MARCIA: What? People have to shop constantly. And quality shopping requires keen intuitions about human nature, as well as a subtle grasp of market dynamics, a detailed understanding of all kinds of commercial trends that're really far more complicated than, say, weather patterns, or animal behavior. ALAN: All right, forget it. Now I'm completely discouraged. MARCIA: I'm serious. If you can't shop successfully, it says something pretty terrible about your ability to understand and please other people. Suppose you're shopping for a woman, and you think-- ALAN: Wait a minute, I'm trying to find something for my older brother. MARCIA: He's in your own family! You should know everything about him. ALAN: Huh? No, why? What for? I don't think he even wants me to. MARCIA: Your family's not very close, is it? That's really crippling. People's whole emotional structure is based on early formative experiences. ALAN: (pause) Sometimes I think, what's the point in shopping? Buying gifts? Anything you can buy at a mall like this is some kind of mass-produced junk: none of it's unique. The same thing I'll end up buying for my older brother, someone in Kansas City will buy for their dad; someone else in Rhode Island will buy for their son; someone else in...do you get me? It's all so generic, and it makes people seem so the same. If people really thought about the gifts people buy for them, they'd be insulted. MARCIA: No. ALAN: Well, I dunno. MARCIA: No. No, that's just what you think. Scene: I Don't Know What ANDY stands outside a theatre. ALAN exits the theatre, spots him, and walks over. ALAN: How'd it go? ANDY: (shrugs) Mm. ALAN: Did you hear anything? ANDY: I sat down right next to them: I heard everything. ALAN: So what's the deal? ANDY: Well, first, the girl -- ALAN: Marcia. ANDY: Marcia said you were her cousin. ALAN: What? ANDY: Were you really a Jehovah's Witness? ALAN: What? ANDY: That's what she said. You just left a Jehovah's Witness seminary, and now you're trying to start a normal life so you need constant support. ALAN: Jesus. ANDY: He seemed to believe it. ALAN: What did they act like? ANDY: They touched a lot. Kissed a few times. ALAN: (pause) I don't believe it. Why is she doing this? ANDY: Was it...true about the horrible seesaw accident? ALAN: What? ANDY: You're not impotent? ALAN: No! Why does she lie? Why do people ever do this? If she wants to date him, why doesn't she just tell me? ANDY: Is it true that you can't shop on your own? ALAN: I guess, I dunno. ANDY: I'm sorry. I'm sorry to be the one to have to tell you all this. ALAN: No one's ever lied to me like this before. I mean, except my family. ANDY: Then are you sure you're not related? Just kidding. ALAN: I don't know what to do. ANDY: Get used to it, brother. Hey, she's coming this way. I'm outta here. (exits) ALAN: What should I do...? Scene: Is It Educational? ALAN sits with MARCIA. ALAN: The first thing I ask about any relationship, you know, is: Will it be educational? Is there anything I can learn from her? MARCIA: Of course there is. ALAN: Well, no, it depends on-- MARCIA: At the very least you can learn what it's like to be a woman. No matter who she is. ALAN: Well, apart from that. MARCIA: That doesn't matter to you? That's not very sympathetic. You're not interested in women's perspective on life? ALAN: No, I am, but I mean, learning in terms of other things. MARCIA: What other things? ALAN: Intellectual things. MARCIA: Oh, being a woman is anti-intellectual? Women are irrational, or something? ALAN: No, I mean, information. MARCIA: You don't want a relationship. You want to read an encyclopaedia. Relationships are about experience, Alan, about making meaningful contact with other people, not about harvesting information. ALAN: Well, I mean also cultural things. MARCIA: Women aren't part of culture? ALAN: I didn't say that. MARCIA: That's what you implied. ALAN: Um... MARCIA: The notion that you can't learn something from every woman on the planet is really arrogant. You think that males automatically know everything about women's experience? ALAN: Uh, Marcia... MARCIA: You don't know what it's like to have periods: to have cycles in unison with nature. Your bond with the world around you is so frail it's pathetic. ALAN: All I was trying to say-- MARCIA: You think I care? I'm sick of being patronized by egotistical men. I don't think I can go twenty-four hours without some obnoxious, self-worshipping macho prick insulting me because of my sexuality. ALAN: I didn't do that. MARCIA: Oh, yes you did. ALAN: (rises) This...this is pointless. MARCIA: Oh, I'm not educational enough for you? (ALAN exits) I'd really like to know why all men are such cowards. Scene: Jesus Christ SUE and DEB stand at a magazine rack. SUE: Oh, God, look at this picture of Assia. DEB: Wow. SUE: Every time I see her she looks more extra-terrestrial. DEB: What? SUE: Remember when she was doing the Cher thing? DEB: Yeah... SUE: Then she cut her hair off... DEB: Uh huh. SUE: Then she stopped smiling in public... DEB: Yeah... SUE: Now it's like she doesn't use mascara. DEB: (pause) Yeah... SUE: And here she is with these funky glasses. They look like insect eyes. DEB: It's kinda cool. SUE: What? She doesn't even look human. DEB: So what? SUE: How could any guy date her? DEB: Do guys look for humans? SUE: They must look for something. JOE and ALAN step up to the magazine rack. JOE glances repeatedly at DEB, then speaks. JOE: (to DEB) Hey. (pause) Hey. (pause) Are you listening to me? DEB: What? JOE: I said "Hey." (pause) Okay, whatever. (JOE walks up to SUE.) Hey. SUE: Hey, what's up? JOE: Nothing. What're you doing? SUE: Nothing. JOE: Yeah? SUE: Uh huh. JOE: Hey, who's that? (JOE points at the magazine.) SUE: Oh, it's Assia. A famous model. JOE: I know who she is. (pause) She looks like you. SUE: Really? JOE: Yeah. SUE: How? JOE: I dunno...the face. SUE: Really? JOE: Yeah. SUE: The face? JOE: I dunno, the hair. (pause) Hey, do you want to go out? Get a hot dog or something? See a movie? SUE: Mm... JOE: They got ten movies showing over there. SUE: I dunno... JOE: You don't know? SUE: I dunno, it's... (looks at her watch) JOE: What? Excuse me. Am I -- what? -- am I not good enough for you? You got something better to do? What, you gotta go home, watch fucking Bay Watch? SUE: What? JOE: What're you going to do if you say `No'? Solve all the problems in the universe? Unravel the mysteries of humankind? SUE: Look, I'm not-- JOE: Fuck, what've you got to lose? SUE: (pause) Well, what's playing? JOE: They've got ten movies playing over there at one time. SUE: I'm kind of hungry. JOE: I'll buy you some popcorn. SUE: You know, there's an Orange Julius. I feel like a hot dog. JOE: Oh, come on. SUE: Oh...what? JOE: No one goes there. It's shit. Look, what do you want? A feast? I'm saying I'll buy you some popcorn. I'll take you to the movies. I really enjoy your company. You're an interesting woman. SUE: Well, Assia's in that new movie. I've been waiting to see it. JOE: Aw, come on. That's shit. What do you want to see that for? Look, let's decide when we get there. (JOE and SUE exit.) ALAN stares at DEB. ALAN: So, uh...you want to? DEB: Do I want to what? ALAN: What my buddy was just saying. DEB: Uh, you have to ask. You have to put out some effort. ALAN: I am asking. DEB: Lookit: if you can't even communicate with me...this isn't worth it. ALAN: Huh? Jesus. What's wrong? DEB: (pause) Nothing. You want to go, or what? ALAN: Christ. We haven't even kissed, and you're already bitching. DEB: Look...let's just go. ALAN: Oh. Oh, okay. If you insist. Jesus Christ. Scene: The Last Good Moment of Your Life KELLY, eight months pregnant, stands in front of a magazine rack. PETER sidles up to her, reading a foreign language newspaper. PETER: When are you planning on releasing it? KELLY: What? (He gestures to her belly.) Oh. In about a month. PETER: It's a good thing men can't get pregnant. KELLY: Why? PETER: Cause if they ejaculated when they were pregnant, the fetus would launch across the room and take out a window, or something. KELLY: Well, childbirth would shatter the penis. There's no way a baby could fit out of that tiny opening. PETER: Yeah, that might require practise. Like, letting littler things inside the penis to sort of stretch it out. KELLY: Like...mice, or ducklings, or...kittens. PETER: Yeah. Well, I dunno, that sounds bizarre. I was thinking about inanimate objects, like kumquats, then plums, then oranges... KELLY: Then watermelons. PETER: That's a big baby. KELLY: (shrugs) Well... PETER: I mean, the penis is a tender creature. KELLY: I dunno... PETER: No, really. I mean, think about your nose. You can snort cocaine with it, but cocaine is powder. Do you think you could snort gravel with it? Or tennis balls? KELLY: But tennis balls don't get you high. PETER: Okay, that's right, but-- KELLY: Penises are basically bludgeoning devices. And I heard in a class I took that nearly all of the nerves in the penis are concentrated in the tip, so basically the penis is a numb rod with sensitive point. PETER: I find that degrading. KELLY: Do you consider your penis some sort of elevated being? PETER: Honestly, heterosexual women crave peni. From time to time. KELLY: What do you notice about the fake ones women use? PETER: I don't want to get into this. We were talking about the miracle of chi-- KELLY: They're much longer than real ones. PETER: We were talking about the miracle of childbirth, and I was about to tell you how I think that birth traumatizes everyone, and how I think women ought to be compelled by law to give birth while immersed in warm water. KELLY: And in public, right? PETER: Well, no, not in public. That's gross. KELLY: Oh, it threatens you? Why, because your body is capable of so little in comparison to women's bodies? Because you men can never be sure, really sure, that you're the father (unless you keep your woman imprisoned)? PETER: Are you being hostile? My god. KELLY: Giving birth is a wonderful thing that you can't do. That's all I'm saying. PETER: Oh, I'm sure it'd be wonderful blowing water out of my nose all over my body, but I sure as hell wouldn't trade this to become an elephant. KELLY: Anything that can't give birth -- in a certain way -- is always going to be alone. That kind of contact, that kind of closeness to another being, can never be matched. PETER: (feigns distraction) I'm hungry. KELLY: What a male response. PETER: I think I'm going to go eat some scrambled eggs. Or maybe some veal. Or caviar. KELLY: Do you ever realize how much of your life is escapism or denial? PETER: God, I would hate to have someone as bleak as you for a mother. if I could transmit a message to your kid, I'd say: when your mom gives birth, and all those pain killers are floating around, and some of the drugs drift into your body: I'm sorry. That'll be the last good moment of your life. ----- The Appointment by Zeylan I ENTERED THE BAR with a sense of purpose, of direction, something that had recently been absent from my daily routine. It had been a long time since I had procured a job, much less one that was this important. Lately things had been clouded in an air of disillusionment and regret, and the dreary prospects of my existence were hanging heavy on me, much like the way the smoke hung off the lights of this place. Nobody looked up from their glasses or mugs as the door creaked behind me and shut with a thump. The noise of my entrance went unnoticed, the sound disappearing within the din of low mutterings and soft lounge swing music which filtered out from the back of the room. I took care to walk in slow and move fluidly to the barstool, gathering as much detail as I could from my surroundings before sitting down. I took a quick inventory of bodies: The couple in the booth to my left, in the corner. They sat close together, his arm around her shoulders, their foreheads almost touching as they spoke and shared quiet conversation. A single candle in a glass bottle burned softly, illuminating their young faces. The fat guy at the small table in the center of the room. He held a burning Puerto Rican Tueraco cigar in his left hand and half of a salami on rye in the other. He glanced up and regarded me with a cautious eye and chewed with his mouth wide open so that I might see what his jaws could do. Sweat gathered on his cheeks in small droplets and reflected the dim light like little diamonds. Someone sat in a booth in the back of the room. The light overhead was tilted slightly to the right, just enough to cast a shadow over his face. All I could see of him was the silhouette of his massive figure as he shifted slightly in his seat to get a good look at me. Smoke climbed away from him in little wisps. The bartender polished a glass behind the bar, as bartenders sometimes do, but not often. The clock on the wall behind him read 11:34. I pulled the wooden stool back from the bar and sat down, reaching into my overcoat pocket for the Lucky Strikes and letting my eyes flick back to the fat man one more time. All of this I did in one motion so as not to attract attention to any one particular movement. I didn't want to reveal anything too soon. The fat man was still squinting at me, chewing carefully and meticulously, sweating ever so slightly. I turned my attention back to the bar and the short man behind it. "Evening," I said quietly. "Double-bourbon on the rocks, with a lime twist." He answered me with an even gaze. The glass in his hand made a soft squeak as he rubbed it with a damp rag. "And some matches, if you please." I shook a Lucky up from the pack and picked it out with my teeth. The cleaning of the glass continued as he said: "That's a strange drink for this time of night." "Yeah, well I'm a strange guy." I slid the pack into my pocket again. There was a pause as the bartender looked at me, from one eye to the next. He took the rag out of the glass, turned the glass right-side up and placed it on the bar in front of me. A couple of ice cubes clinked as he dropped them in. Then he produced a bottle from under the bar and poured the urine-colored spirit, topping it off with my slice of lime. His eyes never left mine. "Four-fifty," he said. I held up a five spot between my index and middle fingers and waggled it. "The matches?" He dropped a matchbook next to my glass and snatched the bill from my hand. "Keep the change," I said. I took a match from the book and lit up. The smoke felt good in my lungs, felt good as I pushed out what was left of the night air I had ingested on my way to this place, felt good as it tickled my eyes on the way to the ceiling. I spent the better part of an hour consuming my cigarettes, watching the room's activity in the dusty mirror behind the bar. There wasn't much movement, and what little there was didn't hold my attention too deeply. The fat guy worked on his cigar in between grotesque bites of his sandwich. Every so often I caught a glimpse of his sharp teeth, and I could have sworn I saw his forked tongue at least once. I stared at the candle between the young lovers for quite some time. It flickered and danced in time with the cadence of their conversation. My drink was refilled three times. The young couple in the corner finally got up to leave. The fat guy's eyes darted away from me and landed on the retreating figures as they pushed their way out into the street. All eyes in the bar chased them out the door, watched as they strolled past the window and embraced under the streetlamp, followed them past the window until they were out of sight. A few seconds later, their voices had trailed off completely. The candle on their empty table flickered and went out. The room was silent, except for the soft tinkle of the lounge music and the whooshing of the fan overhead as it churned through the smoke. I looked back to the mirror and noticed that the fat guy was now standing, moving towards me. I let him approach, extinguishing my cigarette to make it appear as if I didn't notice him. I could feel his hot breath on the back of my neck as he stood behind me, and it wasn't pleasant. I turned slowly to face him, and our eyes met. We said nothing for what seemed like forever and a day. Then he said: "You here to see the Foreman?" His deep voice was like gravel being shoveled from the back of an iron truck. "Sure am," I answered. "What's yer business?" he snarled. "Check your calendar," I said. He cocked his head slightly, his eyes following my form to the floor and then back up to meet my gaze. I hadn't been sized up in such a melodramatic way in quite some time. "Don't take that tone with me," he growled. "Do you know who I am?" I smiled and lit another Lucky. It was all I could do to keep from blowing a small cloud of smoke into his boarish face. But I wasn't here for a confrontation, I was here for a delivery. "Yes, I know who you are," I said through my grin. "And I also know the words that can hold you." I leaned in a little. "I think you know I who I am, yes?" His eyes widened slightly, and he took a step back. His nostrils flared. With a snort, he turned and stormed away to the back of the room. To the booth where the large man sat in the shadows. He murmered quietly to the large man, pausing only to point back at me and snort for emphasis. I thought of the young couple, and the candle. The large man waved his hand in dismissal, and the fat guy returned to the bar. His head hung low, as did his glare. "My apologies," he muttered. "The Foreman has granted you audience with him." He motioned for me to go to the back of the room. "Think nothing of it," I replied. "I'm sure that will be easy enough for you." As I approached the corner booth, the shadows shifted over the large man's face, and as I took a seat opposite him I noticed that they were almost part of his grizzly features. He regarded me solemnly for a moment. "I had not expected an envoy," he said at last in a hollow voice. I shrugged and waved my cigarette slightly. "You should have," I said. "I suppose so." He took the cigar from between his jagged teeth and smiled. "I'm glad it was you. It is good to see you, Sara." I could not hide my amusement at this. "You lie well, sir," I returned. "But I receive your compliment nonetheless." He returned my smirk. "This meeting place is acceptable to you?" "I've been in worse places." "Yes, I know," he said. "So. How are things at home?" I shrugged again. "They are as they have always been." "And probably always will be, I'm sure." He tapped his cigar on the small metal tray in the middle of the table, sloughing off the gray ashes to reveal the glowing embers beneath. "You look like shit," he said as he returned the cigar to his teeth. "This the first job you've had in a while?" "Yeah." "That's too bad," he said. "I would think someone as resourceful as you would be doing a lot better." I wasn't enjoying this particular route that our dialogue had taken. I looked away, my brow heavy, and my eyes fell upon the empty table and the smoldering wick of the candle. "I want to keep this short," I said, turning back to the large man, "so I'll get right to the point." "By all means." "I bring a message," I said. "It is time." He studied my eyes carefully. "That's it?" "Yes. That is the entire message." He nodded. "Very well," he said. "If that is your message, then my answer is this: I have been preparing, and I am ready to begin." He blew a large ring of smoke into the air, and it briefly hovered over my head before dissolving. "Then that is settled." I leaned back in my chair. "You look relieved." "I am," I said. "My job was to deliver the message, and receive yours. Now I can go home. I haven't been home in a long time." His eyes narrowed slightly. "I have been away from home much longer than you," he said sternly. "You get no sympathy from me." "And I'm not asking for any." There was an eerie stillness as we both considered each other in silence. I thought again of the young lovers, and of the dripping wax of the candle. I took a deep breath. "I suppose I should say something," I began. "I suppose I should try and change your mind. I believe that is why the message was supposed to be delivered in person, so this meeting could take place and I could try to intervene. I think I'm supposed to try and stop you. Maybe I should. Maybe I should go on and on, and tell you why this is wrong, and offer you all the alternatives that you were offered in the past. This does not have to be. It does not have to happen now." He said nothing. "Did you know that I have been empowered to grant you reprieve? It's true. I have the authority to bring you absolution, forgiveness. You could come back to the family. I could offer you a position, allow you to return home. I could do that. All you would have to do is let it pass. Let the time come, and then let it go. Sit idly by and do nothing, and redemption could be yours." I waited for an answer. When none came, I sighed and shook my head. "I don't really care either way," I said. "You can do what you wish. Perhaps they choose poorly when they sent me as the envoy. Because I don't care what you do. I've been here far too long, here in this city, and it's made me numb. So do what you will. I've said what I think I was supposed to say, but in all honesty, I have no feelings about it. Let it all get destroyed, why should any of us care? When this one is gone, another one will be made." I inhaled the last of my Lucky and dropped the butt into the tray in front of me. "I hope the next one is more interesting." I sighed again, and looked away. The smoke in the room had managed to consume most of the light that was left, despite the dim glow of the struggling lamps overhead. The lounge music had diminished entirely. After a time, my companion leaned slightly forward, drawing my attention back to him. "You know what I have to say, Sara," he said. "You cannot change my mind. No matter what your concerns may be, I cannot deny who I am, and what I have to do." His voice became somber and direct, and his eyes bore into me. "The time has come, and I must murder the world." I looked deep into his black eyes, and nodded my head. "Then my business here is done," I said. I rose from the table and turned to go. The fat guy at the small table stood and took a few steps back, allowing plenty of space for me to pass. As I reached the door, I heard the dark voice from the back of the room. "I shall see you again soon, Saraqael," he said. I turned my head slightly. "All too soon, Lucifer," I replied. The night air was cold and brisk, and it stung my face as I stepped into the street. I stood under the street light for a time, looking up at the dim lamp, and I thought of the young couple, and of the candle they briefly shared between them. I am still thinking of them. And now, here I am, waiting for the light beyond the horizon. Soon I will be going home. I can't see it, but I know the sun is just beyond the edge of the city and is slowly climbing into the sky. I am anxious to feel the warmth on my face, to sense the aroma of the morning, and to climb into the intoxicating light of the last tomorrow. ----- "I killed my god," said the child by Mordrak THE SCREEN WAS HAZY, covered by a permanent snow shield. It flashed pictures, slashed pieces of chaos pasted crudely on an Etch-a-sketch. More pictures on a manila background, side shots and police shots, a nice profile, "--played tic tac toe on the victim's stomach with a knife--", a gasp of disbelief followed by a shuffling of papers and the television continued to spew psycho-babble. There was nothing more to concentrate on. The sound of teeth on fingernails, repeated twiddling of thumbs, a queer recollection of a forgotten scene. There was blood; there was always blood. It became more of a disjointed memory and a sporadic tension seeped slowly into the room. I anticipated and braced myself for someone to scream and the pixeled mannequins of the media droned on. Nobody was quite sure of what exactly happened. Everyone was confused, but I think it was the television's fault. I'm not ready for this sort of scene..... Another morning... or at least the right shade of dawn. Awakening from a nightmare, not quite sure if it was over and most of the time, too afraid to find out. A sick urge asserted itself in my head and my body would not respond, through haze that was red, although red was not the right color for morning. Color isn't supposed to have texture. There was nothing anymore to be sure about, seeing as how nothing was what it appeared to be. Another memory resurfaced and it was one of pain. Two sharp cracks reverberated through an empty house and a woman screamed. I was holding her down when the man in the black mask entered the room and started mutilating her with his gloved fists. The woman was already dead, but his own maniacal laughter spread throughout the house and kept him intoxicated in sculpting his meat art. Fluid spurted from the body's mouth onto the floor and the sticky sound of drying blood filled the silence as the stranger's lolli-pop steps headed away. I knew I was alone in the house when the dirty growl of his '87 Buick could no longer be heard. Sickly bile rose from my innards and I dropped into unconsciousness. Consciousness was regained, only to find my limbs in a pool of black and blue blood and the screaming started again. Reality shifted and a pale film covered my vision, as if someone had switched my emulation into greyscale. The woman's bloated body still laid on the floor, but all the blood looked like metal pudding. I dug a hole in the backyard and threw the body into it, trying the ignore the trickles of blood running down my legs into my socks. Dried blood would occasionally flake off my arms and it reminded me of the cremated remains of my cat. The sun was beginning to set the next time I noticed, and the same shade of red passed through my window and tainted the white walls crimson. Another night was about to begin and a sense of dread started building until it spawned into fear. Another night and I knew that the man in the mask would visit me again tonight. I wanted to run, but I knew it wouldn't do me any good. I wouldn't be able to run away this time; I didnt want to. Time slowed and the gradual fading of light heralded the coming darkness. The methodical ticking of the clock that only existed inside my head marked each of the passing seconds, and I waited. I stared at the blank ceiling and the television was still on. The constant lifeless monotone of the television reflected the chaotic state of my nerves when it was suddenly time. I stood and I was surprised to find tears streaming down my face as my hand reached for the black mask that waited for me on my bed.... ----- The Girl of the Month Club by Colin Campbell I WAS ALREADY LATE for work, but when I opened the door a Transcontinental Courier delivery driver was in the hall about to knock on my door. "Are you William Wood?" said the courier. "Yes," I said. "What's going on?" "This is for you." He pushed a handcart into my apartment and expertly flipped an ovoid shell of thermoplastic off the cart. It slid on a flattened bottom side and stopped at my feet just inside the door. It was about the size of a beer barrel. "Please sign here." He held a clipboard toward me. "What is it?" I said. "Are you William Wood?" "Well, yes, but I didn't order -- " "Then it's for you." The courier grabbed my right hand and pressed my thumb onto a print plate before I could react, then trotted away down the hall. "Hey, wait a minute," I said, but he'd rounded the corner pulling the handcart. "I didn't order anything like this," I yelled after him. The building manager came around the corner in his electric golf cart just as I yelled. He squinted down at the shell, then pointed at a label. "It's got your name on it," he said. He was an Oldie and he could read. I looked at the label and it looked like my name -- I know the letters of my own name, William Mnemonic Wood. "What does it say?" The manager read the label aloud for me: "William N. Wood." "My name is different from that," I said. "Wait a minute, let me use my reader." I have a great reader, a Mitsubishi that's only four inches long and a quarter inch in diameter and reads 76 languages, and I rubbed it over the label until my ear implant pinged. Then I touched the pointed end of the reader to the printed words, and heard them spoken. "Okay, my middle name isn't N., it's Mnemonic," I said. "There's some kind of mistake." "You kids," said the oldie. "Shit, N. is just an abbreviation, you kids don't even know what an abbreviation is any more. Your middle name starts with N, you just said it yourself." "But what is it? I didn't order anything." "I hope not. You were ten days late with the rent this month. If you can afford this kind of stuff, you can afford the rent." He rolled away and I said, "But I didn't order it, I don't want it." "Do whatever you want with it," the manager said. "If you leave it out in the hall and I have to get rid of it myself, you'll have it charged on next month's bill." Then he was gone. I ran the reader over the rest of the label, then touched the eight biggest words. "Congratulations!" my ear implant said, "Here's your first Girl of the Month!" It was some kind of mistake, but I was already late for work. I had to move the shell to close the apartment door. It must have weighed a hundred pounds. I pulled off the shipping label and there was a brochure and an instruction manual under the label. I thumbed through the brochure: it was full of pictures of naked women, and the pictures were not only 3-D, but motile and audible: the girls writhed erotically on the pages and little moans and squeals of pleasure escaped. How the hell had this happened? I'd heard of The Girl of the Month Club, but I'd never ordered it -- first of all, it cost a megabuck or more, and only an Oldie could afford one. But mainly, it was such a geriatric idea -- nobody but an Oldie would want to screw one of these synthetic, non-human clones. I mean, even a 'moner like me has standards. I paged through the instructions folder but it was almost all in writing. Well, I was already late for work... if I was late one more time... I closed my door and went up one floor to street level and hopped on my bicycle. In the old days you had to lock your bike or somebody would steal it. I can't imagine a Los Angeles like that. What a barbarous world it must have been. The world the Oldies made... only an Oldie would prefer a fantasy clone cobbled together from dog and cat and kangaroo DNA. I pedaled to the freeway and rode down the ramp and into the slow lane. The freeway's magnetic field grabbed hold of my bike's transducer and accelerated me up to a steady 55. It was against the law, but it was faster than pedaling. The transducer was one I'd pried out of a wrecked truck after the cops left the scene of a crash. I welded it to the frame of my bike and I was going to keep using it until they caught me: the less time I spent out in the open on the way to work, the less radiation I'd get. I could have had my pick of any old-time car in the city, of course, but gasoline is definitely out of my budget class, and I've never had any practice driving on the freeway in a car among the trucks. Today was clear and sunny for a change. I could see the mountains all around, and I took off my hood and enjoyed the naked wind in my face. The pace of traffic slowed and I began slipping between the trucks and I enjoyed the annoyed honks from the truck drivers as I whipped past them. I hoped they were Oldies, but not many Oldies had to take jobs as truck drivers. Only Oldies were able to afford things like The Girl of the Month Club. You couldn't afford it if you were working for the minimum wage at the Megalith Corporation, like I was. In ten minutes I was at the Wilshire Boulevard exit, and in another 5 minutes I was parking my bike at the surface entrance of the Monolith Building. That's when Skizz tapped me on the shoulder. He can really sneak up on you unnoticed. "Hey, Billy," he said, "Need any 'mones?" "What do you have?" I said. Sometimes Skizz has the neatest stuff -- rhino adrenaline, mutant insulin, tailored testotesterone -- but his older brother makes the stuff and he's an experimenter, you never know if you might be the first-time tester of some zappy 'mone. Skizz himself took a big dose of schizoprine a couple years ago and still hasn't really come out of it yet. "Got some new pituitary," he said. "Nah," I said. I'm already 6'8" and I'm not like those Get HiGH freaks who aren't satisfied until they're seven feet tall. I only do it once in a while. "And some new thyroid you just won't believe." "Yeah? What is it?" "Kind of like an upper, gets you really going." "No, I mean is it human, or what?" "Well, it's panther thyroid, actually." "Wow." I gave Skizz a gold dime and swallowed the 'mone and went into the Monolith Employee Entrance. I announced my name and employee number and pressed my thumb to the print plate and the elevator opened. I started the long ride down and wondered if that package was really from The Girl of the Month Club, or if one of my pals was trying another stupid joke... was there really a girl inside it? I remembered the girl's face from the brochure. Felina was her name. * * * TWENTY MILES AWAY AND thirty levels underground in a luxurious apartment with a delivery code only one digit different from Bill's, William N. Wood, age 104, studied an invoice and punched out the phone number of the New York offices of The Girl of the Month Club. When the prosthebot answered, he said, "Hiya doll, we got some kinda fuckup here, I got the bill but not the merchandise, lemme talk to a human, okay? Yeah, I'll wait." He knew it would be a long wait for a real human. William N. Wood owned Albuquerque, New Mexico, through a quirk of the Urban Homestead rules, and he made a comfortable living by sifting through the homes and stores and factories and warehouses of Albuquerque and removing valuables and transporting them to Los Angeles for sale. He had to do the work himself, or at least supervise it, because unsupervised labor would simply remove the stuff for their own profit. There was no local labor to be had in Albuquerque, of course. Nobody lived there, not since World War III. Vast expanses of American urban area had been wiped clean of life by neutron bombs, but the cities themselves were virtually undamaged. Several parts of the continent were devastated, true, but there was so much property left over, and so few p