he hits the horn again, aimed at no one in particular, knowing it will have no effect except to make the world around her just a little bit worse. Here she is, trapped in gridlock with no end in sight. For most people, it’s an inconvenience. Just another necessary evil in a long bastard of a day. For her, it’s life or death. This is the way she feels about everything, all day long. Somehow she keeps on living. This time, though, she could lose her job. She looks at the clock. Seven minutes left. If she gets there late, at best they’ll take it out of her pay. Again. She puts her hand on the lid of the cardboard box in the passenger seat. Lukewarm and fading. And there goes her tip, too. The right lane opens up and she makes her move, hitting the gas and swerving in front of a rusty old Civic. She flashes the finger in the rearview before the other driver can honk. Her lane is wide open ahead. She’ll show them thirty minutes or less. She crushes the pedal, flashing by all the gawking commuters on her left. Then she sees a flash of orange dead ahead and realizes why the lane was so open in the first place. She waits until the last minute and then screeches to a stop. The sound shocks the driver of the hatchback on her left enough that she can jam herself in front before he can do anything about it. A green sign above, like a beacon on a rocky coast, tells her the exit is just another hundred metres or so. Four minutes left, time for extraordinary measures. She swerves left into the carpool lane, accepting honks from all comers. They don’t know she has a passenger. Twelve slices of cheese and pepperoni. Cheese already stiffening in rigor mortis as it cools. She jumps ahead a few more car lengths and then hops right, then left, right again, more honking, screeching tires, brushing bumpers, windows rolling, new curse words birthed, and then there she is—running up the ramp to freedom. All that mess left behind her for someone else to deal with. Two minutes left. Just enough time. To make the right on Broadview, make the left onto Victor, make it to fifty-four just in time. She pulls through the stop sign without looking and something crashes onto the hood of her car, windshield spidering with cracks. She jams on the brakes, but whatever she’s hit grabs a hold of the wipers to keep from falling off. A man. A man in red spandex, mask over his eyes and rabbit ears. He’s pressed against the remains of the windshield, staring at her, cross-eyed, with a grin like an escaped mental patient. She looks at the clock. She’s going to be late. It can’t be avoided. All she can do is feel annoyed.
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e didn’t notice the change. It’s hard when you’re together every day. It had been too gradual, like the air leaking from a balloon after a party. One day all that’s left is a wrinkled bit of rubber you find under the chesterfield. But balloons were not cats. Cats could live fifteen, twenty years. It was a long time. He calls again for breakfast. It used to be that he was the one woken up every morning. But there’s no pounding down the stairs now. No meowing banter. He doesn’t bother with the bagged food anymore. Instead, he makes the cat’s favourite, hoping the smell will lure it down to eat. To shit. To make it through a few more hours before falling back to sleep again. Day after day being stretched like some old piece of leather. You never know when it’s going to rip. He used to make it from scratch. Nature’s most perfect food. Peel and seed the tomatoes, boil down the sauce. He’d buy the noodles at the little grocer’s up the way. An old Italian widow rolled them by hand. The store was gone now. They’d plopped something big and cold and mean on top of it. Maybe crushed the widow, too. So, now he bought the frozen stuff. Microwavable, but he doesn’t have a microwave. It took twenty minutes in the oven. Tasted like gym socks. But it was easy. And he could watch TV while it cooked. He hitches his belt in another loop. He doesn’t eat so much himself these days. He’s too scared to ask why. He’d lost the dog last year. The car hadn’t even stopped. He dug a hole in the backyard and the work nearly killed him, too. But one of the neighbours called the city on him. An officer showed up, lights and everything. You can’t do that anymore, the officer said, They got cemeteries for that now. After he’d gone, he lit a bonfire and tried to cremate the dog. The officer came back, followed by a fire truck. The whole street was lit up like Christmas. They wouldn’t let you have fires anymore, either. He climbs the stairs with the pan in his hand. It takes him a while and he has to lean on the wall a few times to catch his breath. He’s not the spry bachelor he used to be. Just another old, lonely man. He stands in the doorway, looks at the cat sleeping. The little wooden box and the blue baby blanket. Half of it spills onto the floor into a furry puddle. Fat, the veterinarian said. But he just thought of it as big. He sets the pan on the floor and pulls his pants up again. The cat opens its eyes, too tired to even yawn. He’ll feed it by hand if he has to. It keeps on growing and here he is, wasting away. They were disappearing in different directions. he police arrive late, as is their habit when parents are crowding emergency lines with gross hyperbole. The strobing lights are an alien presence on these tree-flanked suburban boroughs. People gather on their lawns in clothing not meant for public consumption. Jogging pants with awkwardly situated holes, shirts with questionable stains. It’s a community event to rival any backyard barbecue. It was the little Weaver kid. Danny with those angelic locks of hair. You’d never suspect him of such wanton violence. You’d think it was one of those downtown kids, sneaking up on the bus to smash a window, steal a bike, uproot the geraniums. Not one of their own. He must play the same videogames those terrorists enjoy. But his parents aren’t talking. They’re huddled in a little circle on their lawn with the sprinklers erupting all around them. The water trickles down the street toward the Johnsons’ place, but it can’t wash the stain from the curb. That cement sucks up the blood and it’s already drying black as the asphalt underneath. Little Lou Anne, the pride of 19 Butter Crescent, is the victim. Father, a real estate agent with a smile like a china cabinet, is smoking one cigarette after the other, while Mother holds a cloth to her darling girl’s head wound, in between bouts of shrieking for justice. You’d never suspect such a little nick could bleed so much. The police officers have split up. Hands hitched in belts, one with either family. Nodding and taking notes that look a lot like grocery lists and doodles. No one has noticed the thing lurking in the shadowed gutter. In between the leaves and the litter. A small ball. But not just any ordinary tennis ball, because this one has a face. A single eye. A horn. A grotesque grin. When Danny brought his mother the package in the hardware store it had boasted Freaky Fun for Everyone. Mrs. Weaver said, What are you going to do with that awful thing? Danny said, Throw it. But he didn’t say at what. He didn’t say at whom. He didn’t mention the petition that Concerned Parents of the Americas had mailed in. They were ugly, the petition said, too ugly and the rubber was too hard. Children could not be trusted with rubber. Rubber was the gateway weapon. Rooftops and rifles were next. Their families could not survive the embarrassment. When Mrs. Weaver took Danny’s toy to the counter, she had no way of knowing the balls were being recalled and new ones manufactured from foam. Soft, harmless foam with happy faces instead of gruesome monsters. She could not know that there was a better way. But little Danny knew. Foam was not fun for anyone. e had to fight, they said. When he asked why, they simpered and wrung their hands. No damsel to be saved, no kingdom to conquer, no villain to overcome. There was certainly no reward. But haven’t you always wanted to be a hero, they said. No, he hadn’t. He was moderately content with his mid-level salary, midtown condo, middling midlife mediocrity. They simpered some more. But what about flying, they said, bet you always wanted to fly. No, he said. Flying made him sick. In the end, they drugged him and stuffed him in a trunk. The next thing he knew, here he was, sitting on an ostrich on a ledge over a pool of lava. And they’d taken all his quarters. Bridle, reins, saddle. Just like a horse, they said. But he’d never ridden a horse. No problem, they said, this one flies itself. But ostriches can’t fly, he said. Shut up, they explained. He dug his heels into the ostrich’s side. Giddy up. It turned its head and hissed at him. He heard flapping above him, and looked up to see large birds circling. Buzzards. They didn’t look friendly. He peered down. Far below the ledge, the lava was rising. He didn’t like this. It was all too exciting. He liked monotony. He liked doing the same thing over and over. That’s why he’d answered the ad in the first place. Wave after wave, they told him, wave after wave after wave. Something hit the ledge near him with a wet slap. Steaming and stinking. Buzzard shit. The ostrich spooked and started to run for the edge. It spread its stunted wings. He was still pretty sure ostriches couldn’t fly. he kicks through wet leaves. Orange and red, dying and dead. The streets are empty. All the children, their laughter and their shouts, are safely tucked away for another year. Butterscotch wrappers scattered in the gutters are all that remain. She follows the pools of lamplight, jumping in and out of darkness, like she has for most of her life. Nobody rang the bell again this year. Here, she climbs the wooden fence. Paint flaking, boards leaning like old men trying to catch their breath. She can’t hop it like she used to, barely breaking stride. She gets one leg over and her coat catches on a scab of wood. She gives it a yank, the seam tears and she lands on her ass in the dirt of the field. Nothing’s been sown here but weeds for the last twenty years and even those aren’t doing so well these days. There’d been some sort of run-off from the factory. Folks just bought their pumpkins from the supermarket nowadays. She finds him here at the far end of the field. Stretched out on the earth, his ratty blue blanket tucked under his head. His skin glows in the moonlight. So pale, you almost don’t notice the grey in his hair. His face looks so relaxed in sleep without all the tremors or tics. She plays with the torn seam on her coat. New this year, but now as ruined as anything she owns. Just like him. The neighbourhood kids have their jokes. If his failure weren’t so sincere, she’d laugh too. Coming out here, year after year. He’ll freeze to death if she doesn’t bring him home. She pulls the edge of the blanket up to cover her brother as best she can. They have a long walk ahead. But for now she’ll let him sleep. The disappointment of tomorrow could wait a while longer. e likes his showers hot. He likes it to burn. After, he wipes the fog on the mirror with his hand and gets a glimpse. Nothing of the cherubic young boy left. He has another long day of meetings ahead of him. Sitting, listening vaguely, nodding. Doling out limp orders like a cafeteria slop server. He’d drag himself home after dark. Make a martini, sit on the couch and watch the news. Pet the dog, if it wasn’t off terrorizing someone. He shaves, the razor stumbling over stubble. Things had been easier when he was younger. Before shaving. Sure, there was the pressure of potential that all children feel, and he felt it more than most. But there was still time to play. Time to be free. And, of course, time enough to entice a nanny into suicide, now and then. He wraps a towel around his growing middle and opens the door to the bedroom, steam following on his heels. His clothes are laid out neatly on the bed. Ready for work, or a casket. When he was a kid, wearing a suit was special. Like playing at being grown-up. Just like carrying a butcher’s knife and smiling was special when you can’t even reach the counter. He’d been the next Antichrist. Now he was just another middle-aged savage in a sea of murderers. nce a year, they’d meet for lunch in some charming New England town. The kind of place with booths covered in naugahyde, like tanned skin, and squeaking springs like bones. You’d almost feel they were all trapped in a bell jar of time, except the three of them were looking so old these days. Jay and Mike and Fred. Things ached. As they should after so much pain. Burns and scars and broken bones. It all mended but none of it looked pretty. At one time, they’d been called unstoppable. Invincible. But you wouldn’t know it. Age wears even the biggest mountains down. They came like three kings, laden down with gifts. Scrapbooks and old newspaper clippings. Frankincense. It used to be a competition: how many could you bag. In a day, in a season. A premium on teenagers. Now it was just comparing histories. A way for them not to forget, since it seemed everyone else did. There used to be more of them. The guy who wanted to be a lumberjack. The one with the acupuncture fetish. That little doll would even sometimes show up. It was almost like a convention. Sometimes the owner would bring the good stuff out from behind the counter. It had been a party. But even in paradise, the milk goes off and flies get after the honey. Fred would take off the fedora, run those long nails over his smooth head like some idle god. He’d prattle on about the old days. Jay and Mike would nod or grunt once in a while. They both still kept their faces covered. Better to fit in. They’d finish their lunch. Separate bills. None of them tipped. The waitress cleaned the table with a dirty rag and watched them go. Bastards, sure, but harmless. hey sat there for a while longer, passing the bottle of J&B back and forth while the camp burned around them. Everyone else was dead, even the guys he had liked. It was a disappointing ending. Not an ending at all, really, because he still had none of the answers. Did they win or lose? Was he himself? Or something else? Was this guy, the camp’s big black mechanic, who he said he was? Was anyone really? When you get down to the brass tacks of the thing, maybe we’re all hiding some thing. Maybe there’s a murderous tentacled alien presence lurking inside all of us. It hurt his brain to think about the big questions. He failed his way out of first year philosophy and also he was drunk. They said they’d wait a while and see what happened. It had been a while and nothing had happened. And they were quickly running out of scotch. He wished he could dig his Apple II out of the wreckage and give the chess simulator a spin. Even down here, in the Antarctic, things were like any place else. Sure, aliens attack, your friends die, things get blown up, but in the end all you got’s another cold, hard morning and an empty bottle. hings hadn’t gone so well in the courtroom. His mohawk looked good, his earrings and necklaces had been shined up with the ultrasonic the night before, and he made sure to scowl throughout in that way people found intimidating. He still lost the case. He doesn’t shake hands with the prosecutor on his way out of the courtroom. It was the same fool who beat him last month and the month before that. His record is starting to bulge in the loss column. He feels like a heavyweight fighting in a welter league and he just can’t catch his breath. The truth is, he missed his partner. She was always nagging and second-guessing him, third-guessing him too, but she knew the lingo. She’s holding a gavel now and he was left to shoulder the partnership. He isn’t sure why people keep hiring him. You’ll find the same thing at a fight. Fools betting on the one that looks like a winner. Each one of them coming through his doors, with that hopeful shine in their eyes. A couple of pretty boy lawyers in all their get-up laugh as he pushes through the revolving doors. Sharks always smell the blood. This latest one hurt. He really wanted to win. Not just to get back on track, but because he actually felt for the kid. Reminded him of himself at that age. Young and angry and alone. But so righteous. He isn’t sure if the kid stole what they said or not. He isn’t sure if it even matters. It seems so petty with the rest of the world getting away with murder and massacre. He crosses the street and cuts through the alley. He goes in through the back so he won’t have to see any of the other guys in the gym. The locker room smells like old sweat. He strips methodically, pulling off the gold chains, hanging up his five thousand dollar suit on a ten-cent hanger. He pops the combination and opens his locker. Inside is his leopard fringe leather jacket. Shitkicker boots. He’ll put it all on. Just like old times, just like always. Punch his fist into his open hand and hit the streets. He’ll find the one responsible and tattoo his ass. He couldn’t make them pay in the courtroom, but on the streets. Hell. But there was no one to find. No one to hit to beat the hurt out of things. Instead, he reaches past the jacket and pulls out his electric razor. The chains are only plated, but he can still get a hundred bucks for them. It isn’t a total loss. hat a dive, he thought, wiping the sweat from his eyes and looking up at the old house. The peeling paint, the boarded front door. If it wasn’t on his route, he’d never bother coming all the way out here. It was the kind of place you’d expect to find slavering jaws and sinister lurking presences. He shoved another leaflet in the mailbox and headed off on his way, back across the open field west of the white house. Several feet away and one storey up, he lurked in the dark bosom of the attic, waiting. He couldn’t go downstairs because of the light, so he lurked here among the dust and useless things that pile up attic corners. If some wannabe adventurer came stumbling along, without a light, he would eat it. Other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot to do except continue lurking. An adventurer was stringy business, all muscle. And they were always carrying things—gems and swords—junk that irritated his already irritable bowels. Sometimes he got a Jehovah’s Witness, but they always talked too much. And the Avon ladies gave him gas. He hoped if something showed up, it would at least have the common sense to be carrying a brass lantern. Maybe then he could get a good look at himself. Having lurked in a dark place his whole life, like his parents before him, he had no concept of his own appearance. He felt out of shape. Lurking was not good exercise. And he was suffering from chronic Vitamin D deficiency. His mom told him he was beautiful, but what else could you expect from your mother. He could be disgusting, hideous. How would he even recognize the difference? He had nothing but darkness to measure himself against. And darkness wasn’t anything but a place to lurk. He could take a chance. Throw open the windows. Head out into the world with all its sunshine and possibilities. But he’d have to put some pants on first. And there was his photophobia to worry about. His stomach growled. The whole thing was rather depressing. In the end it just seemed like so much fuss. It was easier to stay here. To lurk a while longer, and wait for something to happen to him instead. Even if it never did. |
8bitmythsRemember when you were a minipop, and you saw that film, you know, the one you loved that never had a sequel? Well, let's say it did. And it was just like you imagined it, only a little bit worse.
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