Immortal (2 page)

I have no idea how long I’ve been here.

   
The problem is they took my watch before making me change out of my clothes. And one of the reasons I’d gotten that particular watch was because of the calendar feature on the bottom of the face. Most people can keep decent track of what day and month—and year—it is without checking, whereas I’ve been known to lose entire decades. Which, I guess, is normal for someone like me.

Can’t complain too much about the cell. Not that I am all that familiar with cells in general. Let’s say it looks better than the ones on television. It has a comfortable cot and a real pillow, a clean toilet, and a functional sink. No mirror. Probably figured I’d break it and use the pieces as a weapon. Or use the pieces to hurt myself. Which I wouldn’t do, but I can understand why they wouldn’t appreciate it, at least before they’re done with me.

Without the mirror I have no idea what I look like any more. My face, which I’d kept clean-shaven for the better part of the past century, is now sprouting the first stages of a beard, and the hair on my head is starting to grow back. I bet with a good enough look at my reflection I could use that to determine the length of my captivity.

How had I ended up in this state? There’s the real question. I’d have to go back to the day I woke up behind the futon.

*
 
*
 
*

My first thought, upon waking up, was that sometime the previous evening I’d become paralyzed in a tragic accident of some kind. I was almost entirely unable to move, largely because all four of my major limbs had fallen asleep and were not nearly as interested in awakening as the rest of me.

It took a little work and a lot of wriggling to ascertain that I wasn’t paralyzed. I was simply pinned behind a futon. The smell of stale beer, tipped ashtrays, and vomit triggered vague memories of a party of some kind, one that I may even have been invited to. There was also the outside chance that the futon belonged to someone I actually knew, but that was, statistically speaking, a long shot.

I’m actually something of an aficionado in the “waking up stuck in strange places” department. I’ve woken up in hay lofts, under a butter churn, on roofs, in a choir loft (twice), under tables, on tables, in trees, in ditches, and half-pinned under a sleeping ox. One time in Bombay, I woke up to find myself lashed to a yak. This was my fourth futon. So, you’d think I’d have been used to it by now.

I could hear an American-style football game playing on the television, meaning first, someone else was in the room watching the game, and second, I was still in the United States. If I was exceptionally lucky, I was still in Boston, the last place I could recall being in.

My guess was whoever was in the room was also sitting on the futon, because the futon was rather heavy, and past experience suggested most unoccupied futons are easy to dislodge with minimal effort.

“Hello?” I said.

There was a lengthy delay, long enough for me to think I hadn’t been heard. Then, “D’you hear that?” someone said. Man’s voice, unaccented English. Okay, still in the United States, possibly not in Massachusetts any more.

“Yeah,” his friend said. They were both on the futon.

One of them peeled back the top and looked at me through the back support. “Hey, dude,” he greeted.

College student. Had to be.

He and his buddy stood up and pulled the futon away from the wall, affording me the opportunity to crawl to the center of the room. They pushed the futon back, sat down again, and continued to take in the game while I lay there and waited for the tingling sensation in my arms and legs to subside. That accomplished, I made a half-hearted attempt to get to my feet, but discovered that was far too difficult, due to a screaming hangover, which almost never goes well with bipedal movement.

“How’s it goin’?” one of my new friends asked, without taking his eyes off the game. “You need any help?”

“I’m fine right here, thanks,” I said.

“’Kay.”

If you’re thinking they were acting terribly nonchalant about discovering a stranger behind the living room couch, you’ve never been to a collegiate keg party.

“Beer?” he offered. “We’re still draining the keg.”

*
 
*
 
*

After two cups of beer from my prone position on the floor I managed to gain my feet, struggle into the only other non-floor-position seating in the place, and watch a goodly portion of the football game.

I don’t understand American football. If you’re going to line a bunch of behemoths up in front of a bunch of other behemoths and ask them to hit each other as hard as they can, why tell them they can only hit one another a certain way? Too many rules, that’s the problem.

The Romans did it right. Plus, back then the combatants were slaves and didn’t command massive signing bonuses. So, that’s two points in favor of the Romans.

My bleary-eyed cohabitants shuttled between active interest and practical catatonia. Once in a while one of them would muster up a “good play” or “run, dude,” but that was pretty much it. We did work out basic introductions. The one on the left—blond, gap-toothed, wearing nothing but shorts and sneakers with no socks—was named Gary. On the right—jeans and T-shirt, barefoot, black hair, black skin—was Nate. A more detailed review of their character and standing would have to wait.

By the time the game ended I was on my fourth beer and had probably overstayed my welcome, but I’ve never been one to much care about that sort of thing, so I sat where I was.

“So, you live around here?” Nate asked.

“I guess,” I said. “Is this still Boston?”

He looked at Gary. Gary looked like the kind of person who enjoyed holding people’s heads under water.

“Yeah, still Boston,” Gary said. “You know, you don’t look much like a student, Adam.” I’d given them my current American name, chosen more or less at random. Lately, I’ve taken to picking appellations alphabetically, the same way the weather bureau picks hurricane names. Zigmund was my last name but I dropped that after only a couple of months. Hard to travel around the U.S. with a name like Zigmund, I have to say. I’ve gone by hundreds of different names, including, of course, the one I was born with, which was really more of a grunt.

“Grad student?” Nate inquired. They were both sobering up enough to feel a little uncomfortable about me. And I was a bit too tipsy to lie.

“Nope. I just saw there was a party and dropped in,” I admitted. This might not have been true. I might have come with somebody. I couldn’t remember.

“But you do have a place of your own, right?”

“Not so much, no.”

“You’re a homeless guy?” Gary asked, mustering up some incredulity.

“Well, in the sense that I don’t currently have a place to live, yes. But I have had a lot of homes.”

“Geez,” he said profoundly.

“C’mon,” Nate said, “you can’t be more than, what, thirty?” The reasoning being, aren’t homeless people all a lot older?

I took a sip of my beer and decided, what the hell. “I don’t really know how old I am.”

“What, you were adopted or something?” Gary offered.

“No,” I said, “I just lost count. I’m immortal.”

You have to be a little careful about dropping that bit of information in the wrong place. I’ve been called a witch, a blasphemer, a devil, and a few other unpleasant things depending on the where and the when. But college students—and bar drunks for some reason—tend to be okay with it. Which may explain why I spend so much time with college students and bar drunks.

“Cool,” Gary said after an adequate pause. “You wanna crash here for a while?”

*
 
*
 
*

A couple of things about being immortal:

First of all, I’m not a vampire. I get that a lot, even during the day when I should be in a coffin or a crypt or something. (Very few vampires bother to sleep in a coffin, if you must know. Lugging one around everywhere you go is inconvenient, and it almost always attracts the wrong kind of attention. I did know a vampire who had one, but it was mostly a kinky sex thing for her.)

I’m not invincible. Also, no super-strength, X-ray vision, power of flight or any of that. I eat, drink, sleep, and shit just like everyone else. I just stopped getting any older at around age thirty-two. Why thirty-two? No idea. I have all my hair in all the proper places, and a relatively slight build that doesn’t seem to get any larger whether I lift weights or binge. To put it in a way a twenty-first century person might understand, it’s like someone hit pause on my existence.

I’m pretty sure I can be killed. I can certainly be hurt, and have on several occasions been very close to death due to one near-mortal wound or another. If I wanted to—I think—I could take my own life, although obviously this hasn’t been tested. Now maybe you’re not the type who ever considered suicide, but—and you’ll just have to trust me on this—when you live this long, it comes up. I was suicidal for two solid centuries once. That was during the early part of what they now call the Dark Ages, in medieval Europe. Suicidal tendencies were
de rigueur
at the time, and I’m nothing if not trendy.

I don’t know how old I am. My earliest memory is something along the lines of “fire good, ice bad,” so I think I predate written history, but I don’t know by how much. I like to brag that I’ve been there “from the beginning” and while this may very well be true, I generally just say it to pick up girls. But it has been a very long time, and considering I’m not invincible or super-strong, that’s nothing short of miraculous.

Oh, I do have one other thing going for me. I can’t get sick. Universal immunity. That’s a fairly big plus. Not as much of a big deal now as it was back when the average life span was in the low thirties and we measured the seasons by what plague was in vogue at the time but still, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

I’m currently white-skinned, but I wasn’t always. I pretty much blend in with whatever culture I’m hanging out in, which is a very useful trait when you think about it. Of course I never fit in anywhere for the long haul, not after people around me all start getting old while I don’t. So I move around a lot. You know, before locals start getting out the pitchforks and torches and what have you.

I try to keep up with the rapid advancement of modern culture, something I liken to sprinting in wet sand. I owe a lot of what I understand about the world today to television and movies, which are a true godsend to a guy in my situation. Likewise, I keep up with language pretty well, that being a survival skill I took to heart just around the time language was first invented.

I’ve been rich a couple of times. I still am, I think. I just don’t live the life. That whole material wealth thing got old fast. I mean, creature comforts are nice, but immortality does funny things to the whole making-something-of-yourself imperative that people who expect to die someday go through. I hang onto enough money to get by because it’s the easiest way to acquire alcohol, which I’m much in favor of.

Speaking of which, if you want to know what I’ve learned in my extended time on Earth it is this: beer is good.

I’ve never been much of a deep thinker.

*
 
*
 
*

We finished tapping out the keg that evening, and I immediately earned my stay by providing funds for more alcohol. After that we got along fine.

Turned out Nate was a history major. You’d think with me being immortal I’d be able to help him with that.

“No, no, this isn’t right,” I said, skimming Nate’s copy of
The French Revolution: a cartoon history
. We were sitting at the table—a cheap folding card table—in their dining room. Books and papers were strewn across the surface, leaving precious little room for one to put one’s beer.

“C’mon, I got a test on it tomorrow,” Nate said, staring unappreciatively at me. “What’s wrong with it?”

I tossed the offending tome onto the floor. “The French Revolution was a street brawl that got a little out of hand. Everything that came after that was a massive rationalization.”

“Pretty sure I can’t say that tomorrow.”

“I can tell your professor myself. You want me to? I was there. He’d probably appreciate my input.”

“Cut that out, man,” he urged, picking up the textbook.

“Sorry. Maybe you should drink some more. I find it helps.”

“No, I gotta study. Seriously.” Nate wasn’t much fun sober.

Gary was the more laid-back of the two. He didn’t know what his major was, but he’d shown a great talent for keg-tapping with a minor in drooling. From the kitchen he said, “That’s so cool,” as regards my immortality. He said this every twenty minutes or so, usually unprompted. In the kitchen, he was fighting a losing battle with a team of roaches that reportedly held a box of Cocoa Crispies hostage this morning and were unwilling to end the siege twelve hours later.

“It’s not cool if it gets me an F on this,” Nate barked.

“So, you’d rather just regurgitate what these books tell you than know what really happened?”

“Exactly.”

“No quest for truth? Where’s your spirit of exploration?”

“You never went to college, did you?” Nate asked.

He had me there. So, I let him be and joined Gary, which was just as well. When you’re immortal you find there are only so many faces in the world, and to me Nate looked exactly like a Bantu tribal prince I used to hang out with. I kept having to remind myself not to speak to him in Xhosa.

In the kitchen, Gary was standing on the counter with a can of Raid and firing indiscriminately into the cupboard, undoubtedly rendering everything in there inedible, including the compromised Cocoa Krispies.

“Any luck?” I asked.

“It’s only a matter of time, my friend. They can’t hide behind the macaroni forever.”

My money was on the roaches, and I was about to say something to that effect when something under the kitchen sink made a loud bump.

“The hell was that?” Gary asked.

I shrugged. “Really big roach?”