The Bend of the World: A Novel (25 page)

Morrison, Johnny said, you are one smooth motherfucker. How do you keep fooling these chicks into liking you?

Let’s take a walk, I said.

12

We walked around the perimeter of the party, but something compelled us to go into the woods. Our fondest memories of each other involved the woods, the acreage north of Johnny’s grandparents’ house or the other times when Pappy would take us to Raccoon Creek and Ohiopyle and Linn Run. We had been fortunate to be neither very popular nor very unpopular in school; attainment of the former state required a swift, early, and brutal self-amputation of the better part of imagination, the substitution of sarcasm for irreverence, and the acquisition of all the fucked up values of adulthood that adults try to disclaim when they compare the office or the PTA or the neighborhood association to a high school, their cliquey, backbiting colleagues to teenagers. The office and the other women at the gym and the social committee at the church are not like high school, not like teenagers—rather, the opposite. Rather, the young acquire all their most iniquitous habits from the grown-ups in their lives. Meanwhile, the truly unpopular, beset constantly by the depredations of the sociopathic socially adept, had no time for imagination, being too busy simply seeking to avoid attention. But to the slim middle, those of us who were rich enough or self-possessed enough or weird and resilient enough to glide through like distant relatives at a wedding or a funeral, it was possible to cultivate some wonder at the world, and the woods, because they were essentially private, permitted us the expression of it.

13

We were somewhere near the river—we could smell it—when we heard the first shot. I wasn’t sure when we’d stopped hearing music, but we had, and then something like a distant thunderclap, but muffled, as if heard through a thick curtain. Did you hear that? I asked Johnny. Huh? he said. He was walking with his head tilted back, his mouth hanging open, staring through the leaves to the stars overhead. What I love about the country, he said, is that you can really see the stars. You’re fucked up, I said. Sober as the day is long, he replied. I swear I just heard a gunshot, I told him. Yeah? said Johnny. What’s the upshot? Fuck you, I said. Then I felt the pressure change beside my ear and a trunk beside us popped with splinters. This time the report was clearer. Holy shit! I said. Run! Huh? said Johnny. Run! I grabbed his arm and pulled him after me. It was dark. We took two steps and tripped down a muddy embankment and slid thirty feet into a leaf-choked trickle of a stream. The muck and loam smelled sweet and yeasty. Johnny was on top of me. Fuck, you weigh a ton, I said, but he was giggling and wouldn’t move. What’s so funny? I said. You have a boner. That’s my phone, you asshole. Get off of me. Someone just shot at us.

Oh, I don’t know, Johnny said. It’s dark. Probably a case of mistaken identity.

We’ve got to get out of the woods, I said.

No, don’t worry, Johnny said. I have excellent night vision. He started laughing again.

Come on, I said, and I pulled him to his feet, and we set off through the mud beside the stream.

But I was feeling pretty high myself, and as my awareness swam into a moment of adrenal lucidity, it occurred to me that we were walking very, very slowly. Johnny was saying something about the time he ran a campaign on the Western Front. We need to find the Fist of Odin, he said.

The what?

The Fist of Odin, dude. It looks sort of like a rock.

Why?

Beats me.

I think we need to find a fucking phone, I said.

Use your boner.

What? Oh, asshole. Yeah. I’d forgotten. I pulled the phone from my pocket, but it was soaked, cracked, ruined. Well, so much for that, I said.

What we need is a good old-fashioned field radio, Johnny said.

Yeah, well, if we happen to stumble across one. We were getting closer to the river. The creek bed was getting rockier, and I could smell the muddy water.

I think we’ve lost them, Johnny said.

Keep walking.

We’re having an adventure! He put his big arm around my shoulder and gave me a sideways hug. Fuck, yeah.

Yeah, I said. We are.

It’s a fucking stupid adventure. My pants are all wet.

Mine, too.

I have something to confess, Johnny said.

Oh yeah?

It’s possible that I may have been stealing money and, you know, drugs from Pringle.

He delivered the line soberly; he was nonchalant. I shrugged off his arm and pushed him away. Fuck, Johnny! You think maybe that’s why someone just took a shot at us?

Whoa, no reason to get pissed at
me
!

Fuck.

You said that already.

We’ve got to get back to the city, I said. We’ve got to find my car.

No need! We turned. Pringle stood outlined against the sky like a boulder on a stone outcropping about six feet above us. He was dressed in something like a cross between a paratrooper and a school janitor’s uniform.

Behold me and despair! Pringle declaimed.

Shit, we said. He was holding a rifle. It had the look of an antique, and I wondered if it was real, but I didn’t know anything about guns, and it looked real enough.

You boys have gone far enough.

Listen, I said. I held up my hands. There’s no reason to be crazy. I can pay you. I can cover whatever he took. I make good money. My family’s rich.

Oh, you’ll pay, all right. You’ll pay, Herr Morrison. I’ve come to balance the accounts.

Johnny tried to step in front of me, arms extended, but he was so stoned that he slipped and fell on his ass in the water. Leave him, he yelled. Take me!

Johnny, Jesus, I said. Get up.

Both of you shut up! Pringle screamed. Then he fired a shot above our heads. The gun was unbearably loud this time, and I realized in some distant, dimly functioning portion of my mind, the cold corner of my consciousness that could see and record and remain disinterested, that I was afraid.

It’s Morrison that I want, Pringle said. It’s always been Morrison.

What did I do?

Your grandfather, Morrison. He ruined me. He ruined me and took the Project from me. For I
am
Wilhelm Zollen!

My grandfather? You’ve, uh, aged well, if that’s the case.

Olive oil, said Johnny. Is that your secret?

You guys are assholes, said Pringle, now petulant. He seemed as if he were about to leap from the rock, but instead he slung the rifle over his shoulder and sat and dangled his legs over like he was going to ease himself into a swimming pool, and then he sort of slowly shuffled around and hung by his arms, his huge ass toward us, and then he dropped the last couple of feet to the ground. He righted himself slowly and panted. I guess if we’d been sober, if it had been daylight, if either of us had been a different sort of person, we might have taken the opportunity to jump him and take the gun, or to run away, but Johnny just sat there in the stream, and I just stood there, and Pringle caught his breath and cried, I am his son! So you’re not him, I said. You’re his son.

I am both him and his son.

Johnny also did a very good Faye Dunaway: I’m both him and his son!

You’re so gay, I said.

You’re
so gay, he said.

Both of you are so gay, Pringle bellowed.

But what do you want with me? said Johnny, now a bit petulant himself as he realized that he might not be at the center of this little plot.

You? It was never about you, you fool! You patsy! You . . . homo! You were never more than the bait in the trap, the lure on the fishing line, the, uh . . .

Salt lick, I suggested.

Chum, said Johnny.

Will you two fucking cut it out!

I think we’re getting to him, I said.

Yeah, said Johnny. By the way, Pringle, your drugs fucking suck. I’m not even high.

For real, I said.

My plan— began Pringle.

Yeah, I said. We’re not really interested.

Nope, said Johnny.

My plan! said Pringle. Was always to draw you here and incapacitate you, Mr. Morrison. Of course, I knew I could never reach you directly. Your crass, arrogant materialism would never permit a real interest in the deep occult. You were never more than a dilettante.

He’s got you there, said Johnny.

Stop talking! yelled Pringle. I drew your friend in, tantalizing him with secret knowledge, dangling the possibility that he might join me in my Great Working, for I knew that your concern for your foolish friend would ultimately drive you into my arms. And here you are. Helpless.

Um, I said, what’s to stop us from just running away from your fat ass? You probably have terrible aim.

Yeah, said Johnny.

I am. Mandy stepped from the shadows, the vast dog, bigger even than I’d remembered it, at her side. She was holding a gun. Don’t even think about it, she said.

You should have kept an eye out, hot dogs, said the dog.

Whoa, I said.

Pringle glowered at me. My father was going to transform the Project, turn it into something for the betterment of all mankind. He was a great inventor. And your fascist reptilian grandfather took it all away, had him framed for terrible crimes!

Wait a minute, I said. I thought your father was deep, devious, and powerful.

Based on your grandfather, obviously! The
real
secret master. The real Bonesman!

The way I hear it, your dear old fucking dad was a hustler who conned my family out of millions of dollars.

Precisely what a reptiloid yuppie monster would say, said Pringle. Well, it’s too late now. Any hope of warding off the nightmare has vanished. Any hope of turning the tide has disappeared like the spring dew. The Project now requires a sacrifice, and only a true ancient bloodline will do. What an irony that
your
sacrifice will consecrate it.

Wait a minute, I said. What about Mark and Helen?

Who? said Pringle.

Peter’s fancy new yuppie friends, said Johnny. Helen’s the coke slut he brought tonight.

She’s not a coke slut, I said. Actually, I think she’s really unhappy. It sort of seems like an abusive relationship.

That’s real after-school of you, Johnny said.

It’s all irrelevant! Pringle screamed.

Don’t bag the groceries, said the dog.

What? Johnny and I said.

Hey, uh, sorry. A pretty young man in a tank top and painted-on jeans walked toward us. Do any of you guys have a light? He didn’t appear to notice the firearms.

Oh, I don’t think so. Uh, let me check. Oh, maybe, we all said. Mandy found a little plastic lighter in her pocket. The guy lit his smoke and handed it back. Thanks, he said. What’s your name? Johnny said. Johnny, I said. What? he said. Do you guys know when Presumption of Innocence is supposed to go on? the guy asked. Who? I said. They’re, like, a band, the guy said. Soon, I think, said Mandy. After Butt Machine. Cool, said the guy; well, thanks.

He was into me, said Johnny.

Both of you. Mandy gestured with the gun, and the dog growled. Walk.

14

We came to the bank of the river. There was no moon. The arm of the Milky Way rolled overhead. Far to our left, I caught sight of a solitary figure beside the water. Look, I said to Johnny. A river spirit. Ooooohhhh, he said. Coooool. There’s no such thing as river spirits, said Pringle. Right, said Mandy. We walked along the river. It felt like miles. Where are you taking us? I asked. A hired boat will convey you back to the city, said Pringle. There, you will be bound in the Time Chamber to await my return, at which point we will release your lifeblood directly into the sensory deprivation tank from which the psychoperator will draw the sacrificial-orgonic magical energies necessary to collapse the quantum borders between realities and begin reordering the quantum genome of the multiversal reality matrix.

Simple enough, I said.

Can you reorder it so that they don’t replace Michael O’Hare with Bruce Boxleitner in B5? Johnny asked. It really fucked up the whole arc.

You’ll regret your irreverence, said Pringle.

You know, I said to Johnny, I think I should apologize to Lauren Sara.

Oh God, he said. You’re such a fag.

We came around a long bend in the shore and saw a small boat bobbing along a small dock. Well, I said, Johnny, it’s been a pleasure serving with you.

But as we reached the boat, there was a humming overhead that resolved itself into immense mechanical whirring. Oh shit, said Johnny. Oh, AWESOME! There it was above us, liquid and silver, its skin reflective and luminous, the air around it shimmering like the air above the thousandth foot of highway on a hot day.

No, said Pringle. No! They always interfere! And he started firing wildly into the air, but it was no action movie, and after just a second or two of flashing and reporting, the magazine was empty.

The dog whimpered and dropped its belly to the ground.

A shaft of brilliant light dropped from the ship and surrounded us.

A voice with the smooth cadence and hushed sibilants of a public radio host seemed to come from the ship.
Waffe Weg. Hände hoch!

Johnny, I hissed, run!

And while they were dazzled we stomped back into the woods.

15

Johnny, I said. We’d lost Pringle and Mandy and that goddamn wolfhound with no trouble. I’m sorry. What for? he said. Well, apparently this is all my fault. They wanted me. Johnny stopped and considered it, then slapped my shoulder. Nah, he said. I still think he was pissed that I was dipping into his stash. I mean, I probably stole a thousand bucks’ worth of heroin, not to mention all the ketamine. But hey, man, what did I tell you about that fascist family of yours? I believe the phrase you used was big Jews, I said. Yeah, he said, well, tomato tomahto. How long have we been out here? I asked. I feel like we’ve been out here for a couple of years. No, he said, maybe, like, fifteen minutes. I think it’s been longer than that, I told him. Possibly, he said. Do you think maybe the drugs are altering our sense of time? I asked him. I’m perfectly sober, he said. Well, other than the beers and such. Me, too, I said. We should find Helen, I said. Who? he asked. Helen, I answered. Helen, the girl I came with. Fuck her, said Johnny. She was a downer. I’m telling you, I said, I think that she just has a shitty relationship. I think that Mark is, like, controlling her mind or some shit. Controlling her nose is more like it, Johnny said. Controlling her bank account. Well, yeah, I agreed. That, too. My point, Johnny said, is that bad relationships are made by mutual consent. I don’t know, I said. I don’t know if I agree about that. Look at you and Lauren Sara, he said. We didn’t have a bad relationship, I argued. We were great. I mean, good, anyway. Yeah, Johnny said. A real pair of paragons. There may have been some communication issues, I admitted. Morrison, he said, how come the minute I admit you’re not a fucking boring Stepford dude, you come back at me with communications issues? Sorry, I said. I love you anyway, he said. You’re the brother I never had. You did have a brother, I reminded him. You are the midseason replacement casting choice for the brother who was offered a better gig, Johnny told me. Jesus, I said. That’s an interesting way of looking at death. Is there another way? asked Johnny.