We Live Inside You (8 page)

Ron, can you reach your mother from here? Yes… okay… and is she?

She is? Are you certain? And you’ve checked the jugular and carotid? Can you reach a mirror to check for breath signs? No.

Oh, dear…

No, son, I don’t think I can move from this position right now. This shard of the bumper appears to have me pinned to the bench seat like a common Lepidoptera. You know, as a Byronic hero with a smattering of Randian objectivity flitting away in my mind, I can’t help but feel disdain for this entire scenario. This is low.

Did I just call myself a Byronic hero aloud? Well then, it’s out in the open. Your suspicions are quelled, correct? I’d never defined myself for you before because I felt you should find your own path and… Ugghh! That is disgusting. What is that smell? Dear lord. I thought the burning gasoline was bad, but that odor… her bowels have let loose, haven’t they? Death moves like quicksilver.

Ron?

Stop touching her face, Ron. Recognize death’s permanency and move forward.
We
are still alive—maintaining this status should be your only focus. Let go of her hair. You and your crippling sentiment; don’t give that body a value beyond what it is now.

No, it’s not your mom anymore. It’s water mostly, some minerals. Gases. Proteins.

Check yourself for injuries so we can assess, repair, and mobilize.

No, we should be protected if the tank explodes. You may want to breathe through your t-shirt, though. Some of that smoke
is
entering through the crack in the dashboard.

Quell that braying, Ron. Your generation… I don’t understand the value you’ve placed in vulnerability. Were this ancient Rome you’d be of age to marry and launch an empire. Have all the pugilists retired?

What is that ticking sound? It’s coming from the engine block?

Well, I paid fifty-grand for this behemoth, and I believe it will hold. Those hippies in their little tin-can cars, they used to deride me on the roadway, middle fingers held up proudly. Fools protesting survival. Proto-agrarian communists denying progress. Denying man his greatness. Imagine
their
little car flipping four times and remaining as intact as our rig. God bless military design. Sturdy as a rolling mountain. I’d have bought the version with Gatling gun intact had that been an option. Had we been that well equipped I could have gunned that possum into the troposphere…

…

Ron, I don’t think I can move my head in either direction. I’ll need you to get loose of your buckles and crawl back here. Ronald?

Yes, I seem to be pinned. Good God, the back of my head is a-throb… your churlish weeping isn’t helping a bit, either. Silence yourself, child.

Yes, I said “child.” Never believe that age alone makes a man. And don’t shift about too quickly. We’re still on an incline and I believe too much weight on the right side of the rig will tip us back into a roll.

…

We should never have let you drive. A possum for Pete’s sake… those animals are God’s litter. Furry detritus. Just an animal. Nothing. Have you ever seen
me
swerve on the roadway before?

Yes, but have you ever seen me swerve to
avoid
an animal? That’s my point.

What do you think the lifespan of a possum is, anyway? How many more years of mindless foraging do you think you’ve assured that ball of fur by dooming us to die here in the woods?

Well, we could die. Accept that. Any given moment. Remember your cousin Dane? He was vibrant up until the second he collapsed face-first into that birthday cake. Remember how you cried that whole night. “I saw his dead eyes! I saw his dead eyes!” That was your complaint. Strange how that didn’t make you wiser. Just weaker.

I really cannot feel a single one of my limbs.

I’ve been in and out of consciousness, haven’t I? Why can’t I see the trees? How long have we been here?

We’ve lost the final vestiges of daylight, Ron, and yet you remain there, holding her. It’s so absurd. She’ll begin expelling gases soon. Maybe that will loose your sad Oedipal grip and we can try to get out of here.

The burning engine was providing much of our heat, wasn’t it? Funny how quickly the warmth slips away once the sun drops. I still can’t command an appendage, Ron. You’ll have to get moving; make a run for that tiny gas station we passed about thirty miles back. You will be Pheidippides, and I, your Athenian tribe for the saving.

Ron?

Ron?

Speak, son! I’m hoping you can reach the Mag-lite in the flip-down console. I need some light back here, and your help. I’ve got to assess my condition and try to stop my bleeding—there’s a static fuzz to my vision so I know I’m not getting adequate circulation here, Ron…

Hello? I can see you breathing, Ron, and I doubt you’re asleep. I NEED THE MAG-LITE!

Jesus, son! No need to lash out like that. Okay, so it’s embedded in her chest. How was I to know that, from this vantage point? Your anger is ridiculous.

Any chance you could get a solid grip on the light and free it for our use? I bet one solid tug would do the job.

Ron?

Ron?

It was my hubris, I suppose, to think us so invincible in this vehicle. Should I have packed flares? Yes, that’s obvious. Water? Yes, even more obvious.

Perhaps, Ron, there’s an errant package of Fritos on the floor near me. A Snak-Pak, maybe?

But this machine did keep us alive. I had to have it at first sight, this shining example of man’s command over nature; our bodies reshaping steel, our minds designing perfect geometric infrastructures, our wills dredging liquid fire from the Earth’s belly and converting it into unprecedented levels of speed, striking down drudgery and demanding progress.

And don’t start, Ron, with your sniping. How you ever developed your line of leftist drivel while being home-schooled, I’ll never know. The fact is that it is best to consume everything we can, while we can. Sustainability is a fantasy for those believing that humans were meant to exist forever as they are now—LIES!

I have never known such a level of thirst… Ron? I swear there was an extra Snak-Pak up near the driver’s seat. Maybe some aspirin? This headache’s gone thermonuclear.

We have to use up all the oil, Ron. It’s what our bodies do. We consume. And when we are done consuming one thing, our bodies will learn to ingest another and our lights shall burn forever on. So said Darwin. So said Emerson—the conflict defines us. Ether and stardust swirling, colliding, sparking off into new shapes. If you had your way, we’d be stagnating on some insect-riddled farm right now, fondling possums and plucking fiddles while our teeth rot.

Oh… my head…

Well… dead ship captains on mosquito ponds, Ron! We’ll not return to the stew. That doesn’t match up on a theological or biological level. That’s not why we’re here…

Parched does not begin to define how I’m feeling here, Ron.

Your dad always wanted to be a poet, kiddo. I aspired, but aspiration was all that was within my reach. Playground injury, Ron. Age eight. Flew off the swings inverted, caught my head on the plywood marking the park’s border.

The doctors never defined this clearly, Ron, but I believe that that
exact
moment was when I lost my grip on meter.

Pieces of you, Ron, they can die at a whim.

Especially, Ron, especially if you can’t get your fucking whimpering little cur bitch of a son to bring you a GODDAMNED MOTHERFUCKING FRITO SNAK-PAK!

Your punishment, son… yes, your
punishment
, for even in this situation you must understand that all of life is a lesson, and you’re lucky to have your elder to guide you… your punishment now shall be to understand survival. Basic animal survival… the way to soothe the reptilian bits at the back of your medulla so that you may live past this moment and continue to ascend to your higher human calling.

So wake up. Yes, that’s it. Look me in the eyes, like a man.

The sun is rising. Your dark night of the soul is over, Ron, and you have to move forward.

Crawl back here. Carefully. Slowly. Keep the vehicle in balance. Your right leg looks dreadful, but it doesn’t appear the femoral artery’s been cut. That’s good. That’s good. You can do this, Ron. You can take your punishment and grow up strong.

Smell my breath, Ron. That tint to it, the thing worse than morning breath, that fresh cat-shit smell… that’s me dying. And I can tell by the look in your eyes that my assessment is correct. I’m missing crucial human elements, aren’t I?

Well, I could tell by the buzzing of flies at dawn, by the soft prickle of their landings in wide perimeter, that the rear of my skull is perhaps missing. I sense a gulf of tissue.

That bad, is it? The idea of me seeing another sunset with that much of my brain exposed to the elements is absurd. So it is that you, my only seed, must carry on as I instruct.

You can survive this, Ron. You are, at this moment, only an organism. And you must consume. Fluids, proteins. And if the Iroquois were right, perhaps a bit of my strength.

I proffer this now, the flesh of the father. Let my mind give you life. It is my last wish. It is your duty.

Tilt my head forward more? Perhaps that bit of glass by my feet will help you serrate….

Yes, you can do it. You must. Move swiftly, that this throbbing may abate and I may catch up with your mother at the soft, light gates of her heaven.

And gently at first, please… yes, that’s it… please stop crying... no more sentiment… you are an animal now, and must remain so until you return to the world of man…oh, to be part of this Greek tragedy, it feels right, a poet’s end… I am your Leonidas, eat well for you may not survive the day… yes, dig in… I’ll not ask you to describe the taste… to paraphrase Joplin I suggest you take another little piece… Gorp! I can’t… oh, God, a bit of blood in my eyes, I can’t see much… your hands are stronger than I’d imagined them to be… how I love and despise you, Ron… yes, burrow in, son, let your throat be gorged with my wisdom, swallow ages of evolution… oops, you’ve got a bit on your chin there, tut-tut, no waste in nature… they were right—there’s no pain, no self-aware nerves in the gray matter itself… aaaaooooaahh… that last scoop touched off an old memory—the smell of the Atlantic in mid-winter New England, a hint of your mother’s perfume… but what is this light… Oh, holy fire! Yes, Ron. I will live on through you… in you… carry on, consume, survive… swallow me down, Ron… take me deep, child, and become a man….

Does he know about the Mercabol? Damn it. Did I hide the gear last night?

Jackson pretended to stretch his neck as he scoped out his Spartan charm-free rental unit.

Thin mattress/weight bench/jugs of protein powder and amino fuel in the closest corner. Jump rope on the floor. Boombox with a stack of CD’s placed neatly to one side, sitting next to a digital alarm clock.

No needles. No tiny glass bottles. Thank God.

But what if the shit’s still out in the bathroom? Keep him busy right here. Keep talking.

Kane had just arrived, an hour earlier than expected, and was pacing Jackson’s apartment, clenching and un-clenching his considerable fists.

Okay, what was I talking about?

Jackson started up again.

“I mean, didn’t you ever think, for just a second, that maybe this lifestyle…”

“Maybe this lifestyle
what
, man?”

Jackson paused.

Okay, wrong tack. Focus, man. Don’t act so shaken up.

He let his arms drop to his sides and hissed out a deep shaking breath. Felt the blood flow to his hands, veins bulging.

I’m heavy. Getting heavier. Finally. I don’t think they know…

Jackson eyeballed Kane. Big, hair-trigger Kane. His superior by about 60 pounds and a few months of training. Thick, razor-shaved symmetrical skull and over-prominent brow. Gorilla physique. A guy prone to misunderstanding nuance. A guy deeply loyal to the EndLiners ideals. A guy who might just put a fist through Jackson’s throat that very second for questioning said ideals.

Jackson cancelled his query/feigned mental drift.

Kane was watching him—studying him with his head turned slightly to one side, waiting for a response.

“Shit. I don’t know. Having a fuzzy-brained moment. I haven’t slept much the last few days.”

Jackson noticed the oily rings around Kane’s eyes and figured he was equally exhausted. They’d been training so hard…

“Yeah, man, I know what you’re talking about. My brain’s a little jacked at the moment, too. Last night I was curling and while I had the bar all the way up I started staring at the weight on the right side and seeing all the patterns in the gray metal, and then I looked up at myself in the mirror and I didn’t know who I was for a second and I wanted to jump across the room and just fucking mash the dude.”

“What?” Jackson asked the question with excitement in his voice, glad that Kane was going to let Jackson’s earlier thought drop. Better for both of them.

Kane continued. “Seriously. I was so pumped that the sight of what I thought was another human being made me want to go kick some ass. It was like this force was behind me, pushing me towards him…”

“Towards
you
?”

“Well, yeah. And that’s why nothing came of it. Because if I would have swung on the dude all I would have got for it was a broken mirror and a fucked-up hand. But I was
close
, man. Some borderline shit…”

They both smiled at that. Things had been sketchy for weeks, chaos sliding into their lives a little more as each day rushed by in anticipation of the big night. Jorge had gone to jail for trying to steal a crate of eggs (ostensibly, they all guessed, to be used for protein binging). Nate got pinched for rape, his own girlfriend the accuser, her broken right wrist making it an easy case for the cops to close. Kyle was arrested for brawling downtown, and was still wearing his “Your Mom is A Rotten Cunt” t-shirt when he was bailed out. Mitchell broke his ankle trying to clear a fence after getting caught in the middle of prowling an upscale residence (for reasons none of them could readily ascertain). And Frank had… well, Frank had crossed a line but
hadn’t
been caught.

Their fearless leader, the man behind the EndLiner ideals, had gone out one balmy Thursday to spend the night sniping zoo animals with a rifle.

Frank saw it as further proof of human dominion, of the absolute power accorded our species, but Jackson could tell a lot of the guys were holding back a flinch or two while watching the footage.

Ex-straight edge kids, he guessed. Wanted the extra hardcore aspect they could get as EndLiners but still harbored their old pro-animal affection (or
affectation
as Frank would call it). Jackson got the feeling from Frank that his empathy ran as deep as a creek in Death Valley, and that all EndLiners were expected to exhibit that same coldness. And many of them did run frosty, these ex-edge kids who’d realized how much easier it was to deride and destroy. They discovered how
fun
it could be if you didn’t mind abiding by their leader’s occasional extremes.

As shaky as Frank’s digicam footage was, it had been rough watching him drop the tiger. And the monkeys. A few of those twitched as they bled out. Other monkeys came right to the freshly-plugged bait, tearing out their fur in tufts, screaming at nothing until Frank scoped them down too.

And always, in the background, Frank’s laughter. Like a sponge full of joy being squeezed out by his throat, his love for the midnight mercenary mission on full display.

Jackson had been paying close attention to the tape. He’d heard Frank whisper, “We win,” after the last monkey dropped. Jackson had rubbed the goosebumps off his skin quick and mustered up the best laugh he could. It sounded as false as it was.

Kane had looked at Jackson then, too. Watched him closely.

He can tell something’s off. Does he know about the ‘roids? What is he telling Frank? We’ve been friends for so many years, man. Jesus, I shouldn’t even be thinking about Kane like this.

But Jackson had been out on his own midnight missions with Kane and knew the kid that helped him limp home after his first bike wreck wasn’t around anymore. Kane had developed a strong taste for the rough stuff, and there’d been a shift. They were EndLiners and now everything—everybody—fell into two categories.

The weak and the strong.

And God fucking help you if were even a momentary member of the first party.

The pillow fights were, of course, Frank’s idea. Loosely, anonymously organized, being wholly un-associated with anything EndLiner. General net shenanigans got it done. Emails, IM’s with an address and a single message:
Bring a pillow and be ready for battle
. Frank paid a guy to pay a guy to set the ball in motion, and the results were great.

The first fight—at McGrady’s public park—pulled a few hundred combatants and ended with a ration of bruises and grass covered thick with expelled feathers.

Arrests: zero.

Jackson had watched the officers from the periphery, studied their faces, guessed at their reactions. Some smirked—writing it off as the further infantilism of a worthless generation. A few cops kept their itching hands hovering over their pepper spray canisters. Some wished they’d brought their own pillows.

The second fight was in the town square and pulled double the numbers. This time the media was invited. Everything stayed anonymous but now people who’d never even heard of the term “web browser” knew about the events.

Those crazy kids, they commented, there’s worse things they could be doing.

What Jackson couldn’t tell Kane, or anyone else for that matter, was that he was starting to have doubts about the big night.

There was no name for the event. Frank wasn’t big on marketing.

“No catchy slogans orsimple images to tag up on a wall,” he’d said. “Being an EndLiner means respecting one thing: Human survival. If you need a ten step plan or a secret handshake or a goddamned secret Mason reach-around, then we don’t need you.”

Keeping the idea at the forefront—that humans were the one great species on Earth and that they must, at any costs, become ever-stronger—that’s what Frank did. He tapped into primal urges and desires. Fighting/fucking/feasting. The things that came with power and strength.

But you had to work for it. You had to get big. Local stores ran short on protein powder/milk/eggs/chicken/steak. The guys involved with Frank stayed loosely connected, per his net instructions, but when they did meet in person their conversations invariably drifted to three topics—lifting programs, combat techniques, and music (predominately of hardcore variety).

The straight edge kids ate it up because Frank thought that their power should come without the taint of drugs. His ideology freed them from believing in the nobility of anyone other than themselves; saved them from the inevitable letdowns that the rest of humanity had to offer.

And they liked the fact that he allowed meat and promiscuity back into their lives. Many of them had grown skinny and anemic without their old diet of animal flesh. Surging sex-drives had made the ascetic lifestyle a bitch. Now they were bigger/more dangerous/sexually aggressive to the point where you could taste the hormones when a group of them entered a room. And they were going to the same punk/metal shows, throwing around considerable added weight, and getting blown in the parking lot while blast beats still rumbled against the roof of the venue.

It was ape heaven.

At least that’s how Jackson was starting to see it.

He’d been enchanted at first. Like a lot of the EndLiners he came from a shitty household scenario. It was close to standard issue with their crew. Jackson’s particular brand of bullshit was father-oriented.

His Pops was an unshakeable, almost admirably tenacious alky. Even the drunken traffic wreck that broke his dad’s right leg and put Jackson’s mother in the grave hadn’t slowed down his bottle draining mission (his time “in the cups” as he called it; shooting for charming but coming off resigned).

After that particular mom-slaughtering indignity, Jackson had been taken away by the state and started the eighth grade as a technical orphan before his dad figured out who to payoff—with money from mom’s life insurance policy—to get his kid back.

Back home. Two years of listening to the fucker sobbing over the sound of empty bottles clinking. And then it was legal emancipation/dropping out/working groceries at the Shop N Save for rent money. Freedom, pretty much, aside from the occasional late night phone call filled with promise and apology.

I’m so sorry, Jackson. I hope you know it. I try so hard but I don’t think you’ll ever see that. Enough talk though, right? Show and prove time. I’ve been thinking about joining a gym, and maybe I can even go back to AA if they don’t keep pumping God up my ass and… I don’t know. I’ll quit talking, Jacky, and I’ll show you something.

Once in awhile the old fucker sold it sincere enough to tease out a sliver of hope.

It was that hope—and how his father used it—that led Jackson to hate the man. When Jackson was teased by those chances to see his father as a
father
and not just the drunk that spawned him—and when those chances were inevitably smashed like empty bourbon bottles—that was the worst of it.

That was what made him want to be
hard
. To be big, and better, and clean, and powerful.

To be an EndLiner.

But as Jackson stared at the injection kit in front of him—a slim needle and a small glass bottle with a label reading Mercabol, underscored by some Asian writing he couldn’t translate—his doubts returned.

I’m just as hooked as Pops.

Jackson killed the bad thoughts, recognized they could only take him in one direction. He drew fluid into the syringe, wondering if it was really horse testosterone like the web ad had said, and then pushed the needle into the meat of his left thigh. He grimaced at the intramuscular burn, pulled the needle, and watched one drop of fluid emerge and slide loose down the side of his leg. His thoughts ran so morbid that he felt the expelled drug drip was his only way of crying now, and his face flushed red with embarrassment at the lameness of his own maudlin bullshit.