Strange Mammals (8 page)

One Big Crunch

Dashed yellow lines strobe past in my headlights, rolling to the left under the car, dividing the asphalt into neat little lanes. The trees flash by in the darkness, blurred purgatory grey. I pull the Mustang out of my lane, line up those pulsing yellow dashes dead center in my grille. I edge the wheel to the left, back to the right, taunting, teasing. The beltline around Raleigh, North Carolina is desolate at 3 a.m., free of witnesses. White Zombie roars out of the speakers: “. . . eye for an eye and a tooth for the truth . . .” I nose the Mustang past sixty, past seventy, past eighty. I’m all over the road now.

Flashing blue lights appear behind me and I smile.

I slow down and pull over to the shoulder. As I wait for the highway patrolman behind me to get out of his car, I flip open the small panel next to the clutch with the toe of my boot, exposing the red button. I unlock my seatbelt and roll down the window, inhaling all the smells of the night, brought into crystal clarity by the bitter cold.

I watch in the side mirror as the cop slams his car door and lumbers toward me. He walks with authority, his steps stiff, his arms straight down at his sides. He approaches my window with a scowl on his face, apparently annoyed just to be working at this godforsaken hour. The badge on his jacket tells me that his name is Ken Tyler. I grin up at him.

“Yes, officer?” I say in my most innocent voice. “What can I do for you?”

The outline of a bulletproof vest stretches out the cop’s thin jacket, but it won’t save him tonight. “Sir, place both your hands on the steering wheel,” he says in a rumbling tone. I do so, with a hearty slap of meat on vinyl. “Do you have any idea how fast you were going back there?”

“Absolutely none.”

“I had you clocked at eighty-two. That’s twenty-seven over the speed limit. Where were you going to in such a hurry, sir?”

“Nowhere in particular. Just out for a drive.”

The cop fills my window; his breathing steams in the night air, vanishing as it crosses the threshold into my car.

“License and registration please.”

When I lean over to open the glove compartment, I stomp the red button on the floorboard. I dive to the floor of the car, bruising my ribcage against the steering wheel, and cover my head with my arms. There’s a loud pop, and the car rocks to the right. The shaped charges inside the driver’s side door force the explosion outward, but I hug the floor mats anyway; shrapnel sometimes has a funny way of going where it wants. I go deaf briefly, then a harsh ringing starts in my ears.

I count to ten, sit up and look outside. The large policeman is lying halfway on the road in a spreading pool of his own blood, his legs mutilated, his chest a large red splotch. I open the car door and walk over to the cop. His gun is still in its holster, forgotten.

The cop’s wide eyes quiver in their sockets and I can hear him whispering the same word over and over: why? The same question asked by the soldiers in Vietnam and Iraq barely old enough to be considered men, the children of Hiroshima blinded and scarred by the chain-reaction of justice, the Anasazi in New Mexico right before they vanished from the Earth forever.

“You were dead already, Officer Tyler,” I whisper. “I was just making the transaction complete.”

The cop snuffles loudly as fat tears trail down his cheeks to pool in his ears. They leave streaks through the blood spattered across his face.

“You were supposed to die two months ago, in that tractor trailer explosion, remember? Your partner died instead. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. You skipped work that day so you could have sex with your girlfriend, and Morris had to go on patrol in your place. He wasn’t scheduled to die for another ten years. You upset the balance.”

“Morris?” the cop mumbles. “Who’s Morris?”

The cop is delirious; he doesn’t have much longer. I need to speed things along, make him understand before the crunch comes. “When the universal balance is upset,” I say, “I come along to set things right. I can’t bring back your partner, but I can send you to join him.”

The cop whispers something, blood bubbling through his lips, and I bend down to hear better. “Who are you?”

I smile. “I’m a symmeter, a slave to Fate. I balance the scales, equalize the equation.”

Officer Tyler’s eyes glaze over and he exhales slowly. He doesn’t inhale again.

I shiver as the LifeWeb trembles, adjusts, evens out, balances. The high is ephemeral and fleeting, but stronger than the purest cut heroin. My exhale comes out in a shudder as it passes.

I stand back up and survey the damage done to my car door; the micro-explosion of shrapnel has produced a ragged hole three feet in diameter, revealing bare frame underneath. It’s amazing what you can get in a hardware store.

I get back in the Mustang and head for home.

~

I pull into the parking lot of my apartment complex and take the last space on the left next to the wall, hiding the ravaged door from the casual glance. I turn off the engine and look up into the apartment on the second floor in front of me; the kitchen light is on, the blinds up, and the heavy white girl with nappy red hair is in her nightshirt, making a sandwich at the floor-to-ceiling window. I’ve passed her numerous times in the parking lot, with barely three words between the two of us.

Her name is Debra. She never was attractive, growing up awkward and overweight. Boys have stopped looking at her altogether. She has a seven-year-old beagle as her only companion, never going out at night, staying away from the world of beautiful people.

I get out of the car and slam the door, staring into Debra’s apartment. She looks out the window at the sound and meets my eyes. I stride to the stairwell and pace up to the second floor. My knock makes the metal door sound like a gong, and Debra opens it slowly. Peanut butter crusts the side of her mouth. I lean down and lick the extra-crunchy from her face, then stand back and smile.

“May I come in?” I ask.

Debra steps aside and I enter her apartment. An ugly purple sofa sits against one wall, opposite a 32-inch television. Four tall bookshelves line the other walls, filled to overflowing with romance paperbacks and mysteries. Her beagle trots out of the bedroom and up to me, sniffs my knees. I scratch the dog behind the ears and it pants in contentment. I turn around as Debra closes the door and walks up to me.

I motion to the bedroom with my head. “Shall we?”

Inside the room I disrobe slowly, letting her stare at my thin body. When I’m completely naked, I walk over and lift her nightshirt over her head, wincing discretely at the fresh pain in my ribs. Her large breasts sag; her skin is soft and doughy. I guide her over to the bed and lay her down on her back.

I stroke her face with the back of my hand. “Don’t worry,” I say, “it will only hurt for a second.”

Debra’s thighs ripple as I pound into her, and she turns her head to the side. She bites her lower lip and lets out a small cry as her hymen gives way, her short nails digging furrows into my shoulders. The LifeWeb adjustment coincides with my orgasm, momentarily rendering me blind and mute. I sense the vastness of the Web itself, stretching far past our solar system to the four corners of God. It constantly heaves and shudders, vibrating with an infinite number of plucks from all over its endless reach. After a long moment, the feeling subsides, and I’m back in my frail human body again, lying atop Debra. I pull out and roll to the side to catch my breath.

“Do you want to hear a story?” I pant quietly, not wanting to spoil the moment.

She nods her head. Her red hair is plastered to the pillow with sweat.

“For years now,” I say, “scientists have theorized about how the universe works. Some believe that it will continue to expand until every star and planet is so far apart that journeying from one place to the next will become impossible, and we will be completely isolated.”

Debra’s breathing is steady next to me; I have her full attention.

“Others say that the universe expands and contracts, forever swinging from one side of the pendulum to the other, achieving a cosmic balance through positive and negative cancellation. My boss likes that one. But it’s not what really happens. The truth is that the universe will stop expanding and begin contracting, cramming tighter and tighter until everything is ultimately destroyed in the Big Crunch, kind of like the opposite of the Big Bang. And that makes me happy, because I won’t be needed any longer.”

Debra puts her knees down and rolls onto her side, her back to me, pulling up into a fetal position.

“That’s not much of a story,” she says in a quiet voice, tinged with a soft Southern accent.

I chuckle and lace my fingers behind my head. “No, you’re right, it’s not. But I wanted to share it with you.”

I wait until I hear Debra snoring lightly, then get out of her bed. My clothes are crumpled on the floor at the footboard; I dress quickly and leave the apartment. I want to stay and tell her all the mysteries of the universe, that she would have died alone and unloved in seven years from ovarian cancer. That perhaps now she’ll have the confidence to leave her apartment at night and meet new people, and that one of those new people might find her attractive. That maybe he’ll notice her looking pale and clammy one day and convince her to go to the hospital. I want to tell Debra how important she is, how necessary Officer Ken Tyler was tonight, in maintaining the balance. Instead, I tiptoe down the stairs and back to my own ascetic apartment.

Inside, I click on the halogen lamp. I walk over and stand before the headshot of the Prince. I had the portrait framed years ago, not long after the Master started contacting me. He always finds unusual ways of telling me what my next assignment will be. I make the sign of the Libra and descend to my knees. I press my hands to the floor, close my eyes and take a deep breath. Something in the kitchen is rotting.

A blue light fills my soul as the presence of the Master manifests; my skin prickles as all my body hairs stand on end. I gaze up at the portrait.

YOU HAVE DONE WELL TONIGHT, the voice of Fate booms through the Prince’s mustachioed mouth. The portrait’s from his Purple Rain phase. YOU EQUALIZED TWO LIVES, THOUGH THE GIRL WAS BALANCED AHEAD OF SCHEDULE
.

“Yes, Master.”

YOUR NEXT ASSIGNMENT IS IN ANN ARBOR, TWO DAYS FROM NOW. YOU WILL TRAIN A NEW CONSCRIPT IN THE ARTS OF SYMMETRY. DO NOT FAIL ME.

“A new conscript? Master, I don’t think I’m ready . . . “

YOU ARE READY ENOUGH. SHE WILL BE TRAINED.

“But Master, what about my car? And new supplies?”

YOU WILL BE PROVIDED FOR. FATE IS ALL.

“Yes, Master.”

~

The drive to Michigan is long and lonely. I play through all the CDs in my car—Nine Inch Nails, Led Zeppelin, Soundgarden, White Zombie and David Bowie—halfway through the first day. After it gets dark, I stop at a rest area somewhere in Ohio and sleep. The windows are one-way tinted; I can see out but you can’t see in.

That was one of the new amenities on the Mustang I discovered upon waking up that afternoon. The tinting, my repaired door, fog headlamps, and a week’s worth of beef jerky and bottled water. Inside the glove compartment was a wrist harness for a retractable blade, six inches long and serrated. The harness fits perfectly around my right wrist.

I arrive at South Main Street in Ann Arbor by 4:20 the next afternoon. The downtown area plays at being a big city; trendy restaurants, clothes shops, and chain after chain of corporate coffeehouses line the street. At night, the sidewalks will be choked with pedestrians, the restaurants full, the air buzzing with the collective need to have a good time. But I won’t be here that long.

I make several right turns and end up on Observatory Street. A big leafy oak tree spills shadow onto the road, and I park underneath it. The giant cemetery to my left sprawls out for acres, with a wrought iron fence seven feet tall around the perimeter. I step out of the car, pat my back pocket for my wallet, then walk up to the gates.

I stroll through the graves, idly looking at the markers. Here, James Burrill Angell, dead in 1916, US Minister to China and Turkey. There, Justus McKinstry, dead in 1897, a Civil War Union general. I meander through the grasses for three hours before she appears from behind a cedar tree. Waif thin, blonde hair chopped short and severe as if she cut it herself, bedecked in a thrift-store red dress. She looks around wildly, gnaws on her fingernails, and walks like a newborn colt with pigeon toes. The new conscript. My pupil.

“Hello,” I say, and she jerks her body toward my voice. My steps are slow and careful; I don’t want to spook her. The newly dead are often skittish and confused. I remember my own second birth, waking up in a Dumpster, half a block from where my life had just been terminated with the unfortunate snap of an elevator cable, though I didn’t know it then. I wandered for a week, begging for change and sleeping in cold alleys, before the Master first communicated with me. I was standing in front of a bar, watching television through the window, when I realized that Ellen Degeneres was talking to me from the TV screen; I could hear her in my head. She revealed to me my name and my function and the existence of the LifeWeb, the endless sticky fibers that connect every human being to every other human being. I have since learned that the Master is not bound by gender, but manifests through either sex as he sees fit. I was about to drop to my knees in supplication when the bar owner erupted out the door and frightened me off with a crowbar. If someone had been there to guide me, the transition into symmetry would have been much smoother. At least I can use my knowledge to help along this frightened new inductee.

“Hello?” she says, her voice wavery, as if she’s about to cry. “Are you real?”

I smile and take another step forward. “As real as you are.” I take my hands out of my pockets and hold them palm up so she can see they are empty.

“Who are you?”

“I’m here to help,” I say, my voice smooth as velvet.

“Are you from the institution?”

She’s confused. That or she thinks she’s crazy. “No, I’m not from the institution. I’m a friend.”