by Roman McClay
“Papa, I got here on, or when, I was five right?” she asked.
“On your 5th birthday to be exact,” he said.
“And tomorrow I turn 10, right?” she asked.
“Today , you turned 10 today at midnight, you were a midnight baby, and,” he began but she excitedly interrupted.
“I was, how come I never knew this, I was born at midnight? 10 years ago?” she asked with her mouth open and her eyes wide.
“10 years and three, four hours ago yeah,” Blax said.
“I’ve been here with you longer than I was without you. Did you know that smart ass?” she said, and he began laughing so hard that she had to pull away from the burst of air and noise. She began giggling and covering his face to prevent all that expulsion of guffawing air; to prevent it from making her own skin flap like sails in the wind.
“Papa, you are so loud!”
“Angel, that was funny. Now, look, do not make a habit of calling me names, and never in front of anyone. That will make them -well, they will take it as a sign of weakness- but right now, that is some funny shit. And it is your birthday so I figure you’ve earned the right to call me that.”
“Well, did you know that I have lived more of my life here than anywhere?” she kept after him.
“I did not think of it that way; not until now of course, and of course you are right; like always,” he said, and she clasped both hands together in a Roman victory semaphore above her head and kept her back to him as she grinned. Her missing tooth snagged on her lip sometimes, but she liked it, it reminded her of Caius’ maw.
“Yeah, so pancakes for sure, and Champagne too; I think the good stuff is in order. And papa, can we go kill something today, I feel like we haven’t killed anything in weeks!” she added.
“Yeah, we can likely get a bear tonight at dusk; they are hungry still from the late winter; but don’t you want to saddle one and ride it around instead of shooting it?” he asked with a grin.
“No, I want to shoot it in the face,” she said, and he laughed so hard again that this time he buried his own face in a pillow and shook in the bed like a convulsant. As he laughed in the darkness of the pillow the God’s Hand Nebula appeared in his PGC’s visual cortex reverb and he saw now the thing grasped, the red obelisks were irradiating God’s fingers and he could see the x-ray of the digits and the skeleton of four fingers with stars on each fingertip. He felt the laughter sucked back into him like a vacuum that made his ears pop and his eyes press against the lids.
He knew they were as ignorant as any species had ever been, and the cosmos was out there behaving as insouciantly and war-like as ever; all against phenomena that they as humans would never even hope to understand. Like single cells in the dirt under the ground of Manassas as Beauregard looked on with grim, unsmiling visage, or Maragha under the tread of Subedei and his Mongolian mare as humans warred and warred again.
He just tried to keep from crying too much so that she would not worry that her papa was coming apart at the seams. He hoped the dark would hide his eyes, and that she would look away. He hoped those dull knives at the neck would cut clean through for once and rend him of this head and its pain.
But as he lay prone and exposed, she rolled over on and saddled him instead of the bears out there as her black a-shirt slid to one side and her black boxerbriefs bunched up at the groin; she lifted one hand up as if he was a bull and she was as ready for the next 8 seconds of her life as anyone alive.
II. 2018 e.v.
He sat in the water and saw the crow come alone. There was a woman in the water now with him; and he half way -two-thirds- loved her, which was more than he could afford. He had dreamt of a corvid of golden plumes and onyx beak; it sang in cathedral volumes and monk-Latin and the codex of the Mexica . He heard it via the harmonics of struck rib bones and from her teeth as she smiled at him in morning of this the year of the Bear.
“Can I tell you a story?” he asked and looked into the water as it held flies and two wasps and the ball of an imploding, collapsing black spider.
“Sure,” she said and moved her hands in circles in the warmth under the surface.
“When we lived in Hawai’i , I told you and Brandon a story, and it was a true story. It was nothing grand or that important, but it was true. And you told the story to Don, a guy I worked with at the time and he told, you guys later informed me, he told you that I lied.
“You and Brandon laughed, you told me you laughed -laughed at me- as if you believed Don over me,” he said.
She grew tight about the eyes and her heart began to thump in her chest; her breasts absorbed most of it, but the slight vibrations in the pool began then and he felt them reach him in time.
“And for the longest time I did not know why you believed Don over me, why you laughed at me, why the whole thing was as it was. I was wounded; but confused. I asked you, I asked, of all people, why he -Don- would lie about me like that . You pretended not to care and waved it away with a hand. But it stuck with me; and has for almost 20 years now.
“And I can tell you why now if you want to know,” he said as the mist stayed at the edge and the birds flew further away .
“Ok,” she said as if agreeing made it go quicker. He was a man who made one feel nervous and made time slow down. One needed tricks to get through his magic; one needed incantations to survive his words once he had decided to speak.
“See, humans are chimpanzees mostly. I didn’t know this then, but I know it now. I’ve read on it and seen the evidence; the data. And basically, the way it works is this: the alpha chimp is the leader, and he is stronger and larger by about 25-50%. So, two or three beta chimps that are about ¾ his size can match and usurp him.
“And the way they do this, is that they build coalitions, they sit around, two or three of them and they plot. And they often recruit a female chimp too; they get one or two of the harem to go in on the coup ,” he said as The Pyre from Kevin MacLeod played over the speakers of the container just eight feet away from the tub. The strings grew in tenor, the drums built up and on themselves like life itself does. She sat vulnerable in body, he sat exposed in his soul. The water was below both of them from the chest down.
“And these beta chimps begin by making fun of the alpha, laughing at him and throwing rocks. Little things really. And they watch how he responds. They watch, and they feel and they take it all in. And the alpha -doing his thing- becomes aware, slightly and over time, that those betas over there, way over there, are laughing at him and throwing rocks at him.
“Now, many alphas are magnanimous, and generous and actually de-escalate conflict more than they create it. Did you know that?” he asked as she shook her head. “Yeah, the alpha males stop fights between women and betas like 10 times as often as they engage in violence themselves. And they console other chimps too, that is a big part of their role; and they do it naturally, without ever being told; without rational reason; they do it with enlarged oxytocin receptors and amygdala. Right? It’s who they are.
“They are empathetic and decent, they feel for their troop, and they help keep the troop from internecine battles and maintain group affection and cohesion and calm nerves,” he said and pursed his lips in a pause for her to take it in. He knew he packed so much information into each sentence that a break was needed from time to time to allow the listener to absorb what she had just heard. This is why most men speak in cliché , it makes communication easier. The pragmatic man never says anything new; for new takes extra effort; the efficient man must speak in bromides, for anything novel takes time, precious time. And time is money; and is anything more important than money to the pragmatic man? Can anyone even afford to listen to anything new?
“I didn’t know that,” she said, not oblivious to what was coming, but breathing, with rhythm, as apotropaic of some kind; one never knew just what this man would say or do. It was why her heart and pussy quivered when she was around him, and it’s why she rarely stayed around him for long.
&n
bsp; “Yeah, and this is what is so sad about life, for me anyway. The alpha gets one thing, one thing for all his generosity, all his food sharing, all his baby-tickling, and squabble-stopping and grooming and petting of those that are sad or left out; for all his sticking up for the underdog; and in fact that is almost always who the alpha defends first and most adamantly, the underdog in any fight. He feels an impulse, a chimp impulse to throw in with the loser, the maligned, the fat kid who gets picked on by actual bullies. See, most bullies are betas; not alphas. This is a fact, again, I am citing research done by the primatologist Waal, et.al .
“Most rape is committed by beta males too by the way. And women -human women- are often raped by betas too; the alpha rarely is dangerous in that way.
“However, there is one exception, and it is only one. For all the costs imposed upon and bore by the alpha chimp, the alpha male, and let me add that the costs are metabolically surmised, the alpha male chimp has the highest level of cortisol of anyone in the troop; but for all these costs he gets one thing.
“Also, let me add that cortisol is the stress hormone and it kills; it is the number one reason for heart disease. And mostly cortisol is highest in the lowest chimp in the troop, the loser, the underdog, and then it gets a little higher, excuse me, sorry, the cortisol levels drop, the levels get lower and lower as you -as the beta chimps moves up- as one moves up in the hierarchy one’s stress goes down.
“Until you are king, top dog, alpha, then your stress -measured by cortisol- shoots back through the roof to the highest of all,” he said as he tried to explain it in detail so she would know it was not just some theory he had or had heard, but that the data backed it up too. He wanted her to know this was biologically, evolutionarily, and thus deeply, true. It was the opposite of philosophy or politics, it was closer to art. It had been true for millions of years.
“And the one benefit the alpha gets for this, all this shit, the politicking, the generosity, the handling every goddamn internal fight and argument, the defense of the tribe from marauders, the playing with each baby in the troop, the grooming of each female and back slapping each beta male, for all this, his unique role, for this he gets access to the females. He gets laid and that is it.
“Now, I’ve had harems, and it is not an insignificant benefit, I must admit. It is nice,” he said.
“Wait,” she asked, “you’ve had harems, like girls, more than one at a time, living with you?” she asked this as if this was the point; and of course it was the point to everyone except him. To him it was everything else that mattered.
“Yeah, I’ve had two and three living with me at a time; a rotating periphery of girls around a core two or three, I’ve had more women in bed at one time than most men in history ever had,” he said as he blinked to clear a bit of film from the eye. What he had said was technically true; most men never had one female at all; and of those that had any, just one or two was the best they could do in a lifetime.
She laughed and shook her head and felt her cortisol drop from the glee, but then felt a little insecure about her own status as just one aging female in the presence of an aging alpha who still looked as large and dangerous as ever. He did not look 44. His obliques alone made him look 30 at most. But his dark eyes were like entropy sinks, basins of gloom. His eyes aged him -and his beard too- but his body seemed unmarred by time. She worried about each of their lines.
“So, anyway, that is what the alpha gets as his prize. And guess what his friends, his so-called friends of the troop -all those betas that he protects from the feral chimps of other troops that do drive-bys all the time- guess what they do? The betas want his females, man. And so, they plot and scheme and ingratiate themselves and try to cuckold the man.
“They try and they succeed unless that alpha runs them off. And in fact, the alpha does exactly this. If he sees a beta even make eye contact with one of his wives, he will go ape-shit, and beat each of them -the male and female- to a bloody mess .
“And if he doesn’t, if he abjures, well, now the females -see, chimp females are promiscuous, unlike ancient women, natural women who were more chaste, chimp females are sluts like modern human females are- and anyway, they sneak off into the jungle behind his back, sensing weakness and that they can get away with it. If the alpha is nice or oblivious he’s rewarded with being cheated on. And in these little liaisons, the alpha’s wife may get pregnant with some beta’s seed. This is first cause for things most people can’t even imagine. But I can imagine it.
“And as an aside, I knew a woman, Kelly Naylor, who did this exact thing, she had an affair and got pregnant and told her husband it -the illicit child- was his child, so the husband was cuckolded and then had to raise his rival’s child! Can you imagine a more outrageous sin than that?” he paused and she just stared and thought of many more outrageous things than that; although she admitted as a man, for a man, that might in fact be one of the worst.
“That is tantamount to a man giving his wife AIDS by sleeping with a hooker or some shit. For a woman to not only cheat but get pregnant and then lie to the husband so he raises the kid? Oh, she was evil, man, like, pure evil. And this is why men are so vigilant, so jealous about other men, and all the liberal, feminist, horseshit about letting women have guy friends is sinister and wrong and that is exactly why. And chimps know it and have for millions of years.
“But, let’s return to the jocularity and stone-throwing for a sec. See, the way a beta will even decide to make eye contact with a female is if he does his little beta-group chuckling and rock-throwing and the alpha ignores it. If the alpha ignores these little, innocent, right, quote, innocent , digs at him, the betas are crafty, they have 23hrs a day to think of ways to get laid man, like some incel in his basement, man, they are crafty.
“And so, the betas notice, they take note,” he said; his eyes squinted, and the crow returned overhead, and the sky grew lighter as a thin gauze of heather grey clouds hung just above the tree line; the peaks were occluded. He pointed with a wet finger at his temple, meaning his eyes and their cortex and the lower layers down in the brain.
“They take note and his insouciance, his refusal to over-react, is taken as weakness and they begin the first move in their overall putsch ; their layered attack. Next, they make eye contact with a female, and then -if the alpha refuses to over-react to this innocent, oh-so-innocent look, the -hey, we’re just friends, I can have guy friends can’t I? This is 2017 dude, stop being so controlling - look; you know that look, yes?” he asked as if it was all cute and half-funny and no big deal when he was actually describing a massive social ill that was the epicenter for social collapse.
She laughed nervously and was feeling a coldness in her extremities as the water reached 103 degrees Fahrenheit. He was somehow more unsettling when joking like this.
“And if the alpha does not respond to that look with violence; for remember, moral suasion, just talking or yelling at the beta is insufficient, it will not dissuade him; Waal and his team have shown this. The beta has no moral shame, he will not be humbled into abeyance of his sexual desires.
“Like beta male humans, he has no moral code at all. In fact, he is rational, oh-so-rational and liberal and modern and thinks this monogamy thing is a vestige of the church, man, like, relax yo . Right? The modern beta, like the modern female, thinks alphas are too controlling and like, retrograde, man , like grow up, modernize, bro-hammer!” he said with the slight accent of the modern dumb.
She laughed again at his role playing. She ignored her first instinct to worry .
“So, if the alpha just yells and then ignores the transgression, the beta and this alpha’s putative wife are in the forest shortly, sinning and fornicating with abandon.
“And if that happens, and there are no consequences, which often there are not, for the alpha has no idea he’s been cuckolded, maybe he was off foraging for food for the troop or defending the troop from interlopers or tending to one of his other members of the odalisque,” he sai
d as she interrupted.
“Odalisque?” she asked.
“Harem. Yeah, and so the two scoundrels -the beta male and the slutty female- just got away with their little infligrante delicto and now, now the beta is emboldened even more and goes and shows off his victory to his mates. Yeah, he rubs his genitals on them to prove he got his dick wet, and they now, they too are emboldened and within a few days they physically surround that alpha and beat him to death,” he said and stared at her with dark eyes, hooded and lashed and at the top of the white of the eye like a sun setting upside down in the sky; sucked up beyond the horizon of a heaven that had abandoned this earth in disgust.
She was shocked by how quickly his verbose and ornate story came to a cleaving, guillotining end. She found herself short of breath at this high elevation of ground.
He watched the crow now use the thermals to hold steady in place just to his 2 o’clock position -he faced out over the south toward New Mexico- and maybe 15-meters out over the ledge that they sat on, his plateau of homestead was upon a narrow band of flatland only 80 feet from edge to edge; the 35 acres was almost entirely ascending and descending slopes. The hot tub was a mere five feet from a one-to-one slope of evergreens and rock and wilderness, a drop off that fell 1,000 feet to the next valley before rising again a quarter mile away. A thick fallen tree lay on its side as boundary to the drop.
The black feathers of the corvid were translucent at the edges as they pulled from the bones of the wings. He saw the outline of the skeleton of the bird and coveted its head; imagining stroking the bird into a bullet shape in his mind as the free head moved side to side. He saw visions of capturing ravens and magpies and the black birds with 3-foot wingspans. He felt their heart beats in his hands as he squeezed these avatars, and they filled themselves with mountain air and he forced out bird-air like bellows with each clasp of these imaginary hands.