The Best of Electric Velocipede (20 page)

The Oldest Man on Earth

Patrick O’Leary

T
he Zoo was just over the border, nestled in the crook of a valley between lush green mountains that soared upward. The road to it was winding and ill-repaired: the cage jangled in the back. The visitor anticipated a quieter return journey when it would be full. He had come a long way; he expected the trip to be worth his trouble.

The signs he passed in his Land Rover were shocking:

STRAWBERRIES. PICK YOUR OWN.

FRESH PEACHES. FIREWOOD. HONEY.

Fruit, he thought. Bees. Smoke. He shuddered and reminded himself to wear his waders.

The Curator of the Zoo appeared at his horn beep. He had a straw hat and a metal face and he hustled to unhook the chain that hung over the gravel drive. Then he watched as the dark-skinned visitor put on his wading boots and gloves.

The Curator insisted on giving him the full tour.

The polar bear was a female who had her own air-conditioned trailer.

The pair of mountain lions had yellow eyes and never stopped regarding him with pure malevolence. Hunger may or may not have been involved. His body would move no closer than 20 steps to them.

They kept the bald eagles in a converted outhouse—a quarter moon carved into the whitewashed door. A wooden crossbeam stood three feet off the floor and allowed them just enough headroom. The Curator smiled as he held open the door and made excited noises. “Aye? Aye? Aye?”

Two goldfish flitted around each other in a clear plastic tube. They spiraled up and down the tall chamber like galaxy dust.

The reindeer had tiny bells tied to each of its antlers. The visitor vaguely recalled an ancient extinct holiday. Some ritual of a red clown delivering gifts and Coca-Cola.

Though the wolfpack seemed exceptionally restless as they paced their wired cage, the pad pad padding of their paws could only punctuate the quiet of the Zoo. A hushed resignation pervaded. Every creature wore a red rubber bracelet on at least one ankle.

Every one is wild, he thought, but nobody is getting out.

Unless I buy them.

“Big Time Sale,” the Curator had said in his message. “Everything must go. Rare specimens. Endangered Species. Historical curiosities.” Metal heads were crappy bargainers. “Name your currency. Stim? Diamonds? Flesh? Nan? We take ’em all.”

Looked like it was cookies here.

“The Kodiak dances for cookies,” the metal man said handing him a vanilla wafer. “Toss him one.”

He did and the bear chomped on it.

“Toss him another, aye?”

It stood on its hind legs, its paws hung limply. Waterfalls of saliva gushed from its open maw, and it swallowed cookie after cookie so fast it couldn’t have really tasted them. And it did little hops like it was walking on coals. He supposed you could call that dancing. He wondered aloud why it didn’t just step over the ankle-high electric wire.

“He forgets about the tether,” The metal man explained. “The wire reminds him.”

When the bear roared all the skin on his skull rattled.

“Toss him another.”

“That’s enough.”

“Getting soft, are you?”

He looked at the metal man. “What?”

“He gets six. You break routine, you get soft, aye?”

The visitor didn’t know what to make of that. “Soft?”

“Out of sequence. Too much variation, you get chaos. Soft. Soft is bad. Heard you humming. Key of F, aye?”

“When?”

“Down the road. Got ears you wouldn’t believe.”

He had indeed been humming along the way. A habit he picked up on long trips—he preferred the classics: Radiohead. Nirvana. REM. The fewer synths, the better. Pop when pop had melodies and instruments.

“Humming’s okay. Soothes the meat. Sung a song or two, myself, aye?”

“Have you?”

“Wanna hear?”

“No.”

“Don’t get to vocalize much. And won’t talk to the animals. That’s soft.”

“I’m not interviewing you for a job. I’m prospecting genes.”

“Top-notch Catalog. Well-fed. Exercised. Most of them have mates. Be fruitful. Multiply, aye?”

“Noah’s ark,” he said with a smile.

“All available. Good terms. No problem.”

“Would you do me a favor?”

“Absolutely!”

“Would you shut the fuck up?”

The Curator dropped his eyes. “Sorry.”

You had to know how to talk to these types.

Finally the metal man took him to his prize. He warned him on the way not to get his hopes up. They followed a gravel path to the main house where the smell of coffee led them to a kitchen. A small white bald man was washing dishes. Bald. How about that?

“Leroy,” the Curator said. “Say hello to Dr. Ford.”

Leroy didn’t look like anything special. Bib overalls. White long johns. Clod Hoppers. Put a pitchfork in his hand and you’d have art. His tether looked like a costume part—a red rubber anklet that required him to tuck his pant cuffs in every morning. It would flatten him if he ever tried to cross the invisible fence—or worse. He doubted the Curator changed the voltage to accommodate humans.

The bald small man looked up and looked down.

Momma, his eyes are green. It had been centuries since he’d seen eyes like that.

The Curator said, “You two get acquainted.” A look. “Be right outside, aye?” To the man in the apron: “Be nice. Customer. Happy time.”

The screen door slammed three times.

“Coffee?” the small man asked.

“No, thank you.”

“Have a seat.” He did.

Arrogant. Willful. Soft. Those were the warning words the Curator had used. But he saw only a tame man with a rotten sense of fashion.

Leroy asked, “You’re from where? Mars? Saturn?”

“Saturn.”

“How is the ring world?”

“Noisy. Nice to get away.”

“You’re what? 400?”

He was good. “350. You?”

“600. It’s always nice to see you youngsters.”

Okay, maybe not so tame. He was throwing back his phony use of the word “nice.” He couldn’t wait to get off this used-up podunk backwater planet, and the curious man had picked up on it.

“I’m sorry. Did I offend you?” the small man asked, hiding a smile.

“No. I guess we’re all young compared to you.” A true singularity, he thought. He could be The Ancestor. P.E. Pre-Everything. Before any Mods. He had to will himself to be calm.

“Yeah. They don’t make ’em like me anymore. I got all my original parts.”

He’d been warned about this as well: an almost telepathic ability to read visitors.

“Yeah, I pick up a lot.”

Whew.

“It’s not a trick. Just practice. You get lied to for six centuries and you learn all the angles.”

“I’m not lying.”

The small man smiled. “It’s OK. I’m used to it. Most people have to get a flow going before the truth comes out. You’ll try out all your lies one by one. And when you see they don’t work, you’ll get tired enough to start telling the truth.”

All right, then. “I want to buy you.”

The small man smiled. “You don’t look rich enough.”

By way of proof he held up the latest currency. On several moons it would allow him to rule for years. The nan cloud grew in his open hand until it hovered like a mini cumulus and cast a damp shadow on his palm. The O filled the room and purified the air and, in a matter of seconds, the aroma of coffee was gone, the kitchen smelled like a swimming pool. Where he came from that was the definition of clean.

The small man smirked. “That’s the smoke. Where’s the mirrors?”

He closed his fist and watched it for a second. Then brought his eyes up to the small man’s, making sure he got it. He released his fist. “You know I could buy everything in this zoo with that cloud.”

“Everything but me.”

That gave him pause. “He said—”

“—He’s a metal man. He wants out, aye? Can you blame him?”

It had been so long since anyone had interrupted him it took him a moment to recover. Then he wondered: Was he mocking the clipped dialect of the Curator? It sounded like it. “I thought I could interest you in freedom.” He looked at his ankle. “And useful work?”

“I’ve got useful work.”

“Washing dishes?”

“Tending the pets.”

That’s what he calls them? Pets? “You don’t seem to understand.” He held open his palms, presenting the potential of his largess. “I’m offering you a new life. No restraints. Your choice of settlements. A good salary.”

Nothing. Not even a twinkle. There had to be some lever.

He turned his palms over and wiped away reality. “I promise you. Any debts remaining—I’ll clear.” Wipe. “Anything on your record—I’ll erase.” Wipe. “Anything you’re running from . . .”

“I’m not running. I’m home.” He removed his yellow rubber gloves. The snapping sounded angry. He untied his apron, pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and hung it over the back. Then sat down.

They faced each other across the table.

The man from Saturn smiled. “I can get you a mate.”

“Close. But not quite truth. You can get me sex.” He rubbed his arms as if he’d caught a sudden chill. “Listen. I’ll save you a lot of trouble. Here’s what’ll happen. He’ll sell me to you for a ridiculous price. He’ll be glad to. It’s his last chance to get transferred off this dump. You’ll be out a handful of cloud and in 24 hours I’ll be gone.”

This was a man, the visitor thought, who’d never had the shit kicked out of him. Who’d never been beaten unconscious and woken up aching all over and tasting his own blood. He wondered what it might feel like to be so deluded you could imagine an adolescent sense of invulnerability: an untested omnipotence and freedom. Your whole life stretched out before you: limitless potential, endless choices, a lover waiting around every corner, failure, a remote chance you could transcend with determination and character (as all the stories said), and death, a distant rumor, a relative who lived in a dark country far away whose inevitable visit seemed quite unlikely. Did he ever feel that way? Did that charming air of innocence which clung to Leroy like the glow of a stim high really exist anywhere anymore? Perhaps it was time to explain how reality worked to this old-timer.

“Don’t,” the small man said. “Don’t even start.”

“A cage,” the visitor said. “Have you ever lived in a cage?”

“This is a zoo. It’s the definition of a cage.”

“Then you know what it’s like to have no options. To be trapped.”

A green hummingbird hovered outside the window and watched them with one eye. The bald man presented his profile to the bird. Then tilted his head and made the smallest gesture with his eye. The hummingbird flitted out of sight. He smiled at the visitor.

“You talk to birds?”

He shrugged.

“Do they . . . talk to you?”

“Their brains are the size of peas. They don’t have a large vocabulary.”

“I could have sworn I just saw communication.”

“You did. But there was no talking involved. Sort of the opposite of you and me.” He started rubbing a spot on the yellow table. “I’m a homer, Doc. Aye? Sometime and somewhere when you’re not looking—I’ll escape. I’ll come back here. I always do. A few years later, there’ll come another one of you. Confident. Rich. And desperate, aye? Sniffing around. Offering a ton of chit. Save your money, Doc. I’m happy here.”

It occurred to him then that it was the metal man who was imitating the bald man. Not vice versa.

His eyes took in the ugly yellow kitchen. A black cat on one wall was a timepiece. Its tail swung back and forth like a pendulum. “They don’t tether people where I can take you.”

“No?” Their eyes held each other until the visitor looked down. “Without me the Kodiak would have rotten teeth and no one to talk to. The eagles would stress out and they’d be truly bald. The wolves wouldn’t know what to do—I’m their pack leader. The mountain lions—Kate and Kim—they’d go crazy without me petting them.”

“You name them? And pet them?” he asked, horrified. Imagining the parasites, not to mention the teeth.

“I pet them all. I’ve raised a dozen generations of animals. I’m needed here, aye? Without me? This is just a prison. With me? It’s a home.”

“I’m offering you a chance to live among people again.”

He laughed and laughed and laughed.

“We’re better company than that straw man robot.”

“Harold’s okay.” He smiled and shrugged. “He is a hard case. I’ve only had him 10 years. I’m teaching him to sing. You know what happens to a singing robot?”

“No.”

He smiled. “He gets soft.”

The visitor said, “I could force you. Drug you. Ship you.”

“And you wonder why I’m not dying to hang with people again, aye?” Suddenly he was standing. He didn’t see him get up. “Watch carefully,” the small man said. “Your ancestors were stolen from their villages. Separated from their families.” He was washing dishes in the sink. How did he get there? “They were chained together. Branded. And stacked like firewood in the bellies of ships.” He was at the fridge taking a long slow drink of milk (Milk!) from a glass bottle. He swallowed. “They sailed for weeks. Many died. They landed and were sold to farms. Where they were worked, beaten and abused in every way possible.” He was bending over behind him, whispering in his ear. “Those were your people. What would they think of a man who puts creatures in cages?”