CRACK!
The air is angry. It roars and gathers its black clouds for a reckoning. Hurry home, Elwood, hurry to the home. Scurry over flat kudzu leaves, look up and see them crawling all over buckeye, pawpaw, devil’s walkingstick, hornbeam, holly, and hickory. A great green battle.
When the kudzu came to our home, it brought its bugs, little creatures with red eyes and mean spirits. They eat other greens and the kudzu grows and grows here, King Of The South. They bring secrets from a faraway place, stories of molting cherry trees and snow monkeys that bathe in hot spring water. We cannot tell if they are truthful. They don’t share everything they know and we don’t welcome them because they are not like us.
CRACK!
Hurry home, Elwood. The sky flashes hot white. I am almost there, almost home. Groundhogs and skunks are heading to their dens to hide from the hot, angry air. I am home. I get ready to dip down into my tunnels, but another great white flash splits the air. The white streak strikes, cobra quick. It has declared war on the kudzu! The kudzu is now hot, bright orange, and burning. Smoke rises, mean gray curls. “I’m here,” says the smoke. “The sky is mine.” The burning spreads, killing up the kudzu. I smell its smoky green death. Hurry home, Elwood! I dip into my tunnels and wait. This is my home. I’ll just wait here to see who wins.
Chapter 18
S.T.
Unconscious, Whereabouts Unknown
My nictitating membranes slid open like rain-slick patio doors. A nose the size of Saturn took up my entire field of vision. As it gave a weather vane–spinning sniff, its gravitational pull sucked up my feathers. The nose then retreated, allowing me to take in more of its owner’s face. Flapping fawn folds of skin, drooping, near-melted eyes that gave an air of constant hopelessness. Dangling dangerously close to my eye was a bizarre turkey wattle reminiscent of an elephant’s testicles. Never in my wildest night terrors did I think I’d be so happy to see Dennis’s slimy jowls, the bubbles of saliva poised to spill over their sides. Dennis snorted his happiness at my consciousness, excitedly sniffing me from tail to beak, licking my feathers, and nudging me with that spongy, omniscient schnoz.
I righted myself and shook, freeing a shower of sticky droplets from my feathers. The scorching stabs in my chest had gone, and then I remembered my collision and lowered my head in embarrassment. I couldn’t believe that I’d beak-planted in a mostly glassless, Windex-free world. As I lifted my wings, a tightness and vague numb sensation constricted my movement, but I was lucky. I’d gotten away mostly unscathed. Dennis must have found me in a crumpled heap at the zoo. And then he must have carried me, held my limp body in his soft mouth, and waited with me here. Hoping I would get up again. This may be a projection, but I’d like to think he felt lost without me.
“Where did you bring us, Dennis?”
A glance upward revealed a towering pyramid of needled branches. The Douglas fir. We were sitting on the stone steps of the teal and white house. The air was the blistering cold of freezer-burnt venison. Above, peeking between spiny fir limbs, blanketing blue laced with orange and raspberry sherbet told me it was very early in the morning. Not really a time either of us were yet accustomed to. I could tell Dennis hadn’t slept by the wiry energy coming off him, like he’d been plugged in and blown a fuse.
Dennis plodded to the front door and whined. He looked back at me with a face that could sink a thousand ships, then dragged his catcher-mitt paws down the length of the door. I hopped to where the window was and lifted to get a look inside. I launched my body into the air but it immediately pitched to the side. I flapped harder, a frantic rooster’s flight, and clawed on to the window ledge to peer in.
Cinnamon was by the front door that separated her and Dennis, looking like a flattened hand muff. One thing was clear: The Black Tide had come in, its dark spume lapping at her little ginger body. She was giving up. I launched from the steps, flapping with all my might. One of my wings felt tethered as I descended to the ground in a hideous corkscrew shape like a duck penis. The other thing that was now clear was that I couldn’t fly. Something had happened to my wing where the numbness lingered like a winter chill. Dennis was watching me with amber eyes. I didn’t want to alarm him. We certainly couldn’t have two dogs in the throes of depression—these were Cymbalta-less times, for shit sakes. But the implications of being a near-flightless bird in this brutal world were horrifying. I felt the weight of doom, as if I should be preparing my will, perhaps penning some pithy quips for my own eulogy. My defense had always been to take to the air. Now what would I do? I was a sitting duck.
Perhaps a penguin, who already can’t fly because they were born utterly useless, would give up in the face of a setback like this. But this wasn’t an option for me. I’d been raised as a MoFo, and I knew that of all the things MoFos are, they are not quitters. MoFos never gave up on the belief that they could land on the moon, and by thunder, they did it! (After sensibly sending up a few test subjects including cats, tortoises, mice, mealworms, a rabbit, chimpanzees, rhesus macaques, squirrel monkeys, cynomolguses and pig-tailed monkeys, a boatload of dogs, and some fruit flies.) Winston Churchill, an English MoFo who liked cigars and his curtains to be made from iron, famously said, “Never, never, never give up!” Steve Jobs, the MoFo who invented the iPod and the black turtleneck, said, “Be punctual, never give up, achieve your goals, even when everything goes bad.” He was pretty amazing; he may have been a wizard. And when Jackie Chan or Chuck Norris was surrounded by hordes of inexplicably sweaty bad guys, did they give up? Never! They fought back, avoiding a hailstorm of bullets with their mid-air body-torpedo spins, “who farted?” expressions, and long, feathery mullets. How’s that for optimism and an indelible spirit? MoFos didn’t need wings to soar! Maybe being grounded would make me more MoFo than ever.
So, I got to doing what MoFos do best: I got to thinking. I thought about not having hands or working wings and then I decided—much like a penguin tuning out the massive amount of danger it constantly faces—not to focus on what I couldn’t do, but rather on what I could do. And when I thought of the things I was capable of, well, then and only then did a plan start to form. It was risky, wild, and far-fetched, but it was all my own. And it started with a treasure hunt.
I fluttered haphazardly onto Dennis’s back and gave a sharp whistle. It had become clear on this second attempt at going airborne that I now had the aviation skills of an obese chicken. Again, I tried to focus on the positive and not the comparison to a bird who likes to sing while ovulating and has the worst retirement plan of all time (pot pie). Dennis understood that I had a plan, and both of us could feel electricity in the morning air.
After Dennis urinated on the Douglas fir and I bobbed up and down, bowing out my apologies like the arm of a maneki-neko cat, we set off along Phinney Avenue. Maneuvering Dennis wasn’t as straightforward as one might hope. I could have really used some reins, but we didn’t have time for these sorts of luxuries. Instead, I relied upon the training I’d done with him, ordering him to “Stay!” or “Let’s go!” The trickiest part was not having a system for telling him to go left or right, but I eventually found that he got the gist if I leaned in the desired direction from my perch on his thick back. Unless he smelled something that piqued his interest; then we were screwed, and I resigned myself to fulfilling his quest to water a fire hydrant or investigate a pile of rotting trash. As usual, we were at the mercy of his honker. But for the most part, our mission was full steam ahead.
Aura’s stupid song had started up but I blocked it out by humming tunes I’d once heard on the radio, including one about memories by a songbird of a MoFo named Barbra Drysand. The sun was drizzling the rows of buildings on Phinney Avenue with the liquid gold of a pale ale. The first area we investigated was an apartment building. The windows were all smashed, which allowed us to hop over the base of the white doorframe and into its ransacked lobby. A fake kentia palm lay on its side, terra-cotta pot smashed, soil spilled on the lobby tiles like leaking blood. A w
all of metal mailboxes were dented and warped. A broken door beckoned.
“Hello?” I said, hoping to flush out any sick MoFos or anything else hiding near the lobby. Dennis and I waited. Silence. You could have heard a dust mite queef in there. Satisfied that we were alone for now, I hopped off Dennis and began searching. I had explained to him what we were looking for, but didn’t feel he’d fully grasped the concept. A door was hanging by one hinge, half-blocking a room that called itself the “rental office.” Something quite gruesome had gone down in the rental office, as evidenced by the MoFo leg that was sticking out the top of a mangled filing cabinet. It appeared to have been there for quite some time, certainly long enough for a collacine of maggots to take up residence in the calf’s skin, buzzing about how grateful they were, how wonderful life had become. The youthful arthropods were in full celebration, excitedly commemorating their sacred Feast Of Meats, which precedes The Phenomenal Transformation wherein they blossom into shit-seeking houseflies. It was a sobering reminder that everything is a matter of perspective. All of them sounded drunk with happiness, fat with food and future, and disturbingly like Stevie Nicks.
Blood spattered the office walls. One of those insidious inspirational posters that said LEADERSHIP was barely hanging on to its place on the wall. It had a bald eagle on it. Irksome. What the hell do bald eagles know about leadership? The EXCELLENCE one had shattered on the ground, flimsy poster naked and exposed. It also had a bald eagle. I stepped on it, ripping the eagle’s white head with my foot. It felt great. Some sort of tornado appeared to have ravaged the place. Rental agreements, keys, and packages littered the cramped office.
“Find it, Dennis!” I cawed. Dennis got to sniffing around, but I couldn’t be sure he wasn’t just looking for a rogue sausage. I poked my beak into the keyholes of the filing cabinet. They wouldn’t open. The drawers of the desk were of particular interest to me. I pecked at the wooden fortresses, but couldn’t persuade them to open-sesame. By this point, Dennis was lying down with his paws over one of the packages. He got to work slapping it with his black toenails and tearing apart the cardboard with his teeth. I watched, impressed by his determination. Bright colors emerged from the brown box. Teals, pinks, chick-yellow polka dots. Dennis had hit the mother lode—artisanal chocolates and a package of elite handmade marshmallows. I hobbled over to him and immediately confiscated the chocolate, having seen how, after pillaging Hershey’s bars, he could lacquer a living room. We shared the marshmallows and then got back to the hunt at hand.
I hopped up the apartment building’s stairs to the first floor. The corridor was right out of The Shining, dark but for the sliver of morning light that snuck in through a sad porthole. Various items lay strewn on the corridor’s maroon carpet. A hairbrush. Hair ties and pins. A bottle of Aqua Net. An empty protein shake bottle. I had an idea. I sidled up to Apartment 100 and wondered if it was possible. I snatched up one of the bobby pins and used my beak to straighten out the wire. Then I called Dennis to the door and hopped up on his back, lining myself up with the lock. I inserted my pin into the lock and jostled. And jostled. And jostled. The jostling went on for quite some time, until my beak was sore, and Dennis kept sighing because he was bored shitless. I abandoned that idea, cursing MacGyver and his perfectly preened mullet. It had been a long shot, and even if I’d picked the lock, we still had the matter of the handle to deal with. The rest of the doors were all shut to us, save one: apartment 107.
107 had a door, but it had gone several rounds with the machete that lay on its doormat. I approached with caution, Dennis plodding behind me. I could hear the MoFo before I could see him. Bubbling gurgles echoed, bouncing off the once-white walls of the apartment. I allowed tiny sparks of hope to rise inside me. Perhaps, just perhaps, we’d find one injured but not yet touched by sickness. The apartment was fancier than my home, with properly framed paintings that weren’t just thrift store art like our kitchen masterpiece, “Skeletor and Jesus Fly-Fishing.” Signs of a struggle announced themselves as upturned ottomans and pieces of porcelain on the floor. The musky smell of rotting algae filled the air. I found an aquarium filled with fish that had long since perished, floating like milk skin on a film of green. The gurgling persisted. Dennis got busy chewing a high heel with a red sole—old habits die hard. I hadn’t seen him this enthralled with a shoe since he was a puppy, so apparently not all footwear is created equal. I can’t fault him; as Dennis has shown me, dogs eat shoes so their MoFos don’t leave the house. I left him happily squeaking leather on his canines and went to investigate the gurgling.
The MoFo was in a soaking tub, marinating in his own secretions. He was wrapped in rope that was knotted around both the curtain railing and the faucet. He wore a hairdryer and its cord as a necklace. Since his head was above the brown sludge, you could clearly see the burn on his face in the perfect outline of an iron. The red of it really set off the color of his eyes. There are bad days and then there are days when you’ve been bitch-slapped with an iron. There was a pink letter opener sticking out of his neck, and a KitchenAid mixer bobbed in the water with him, still plugged in to the wall socket. Perfumes and shampoo bottles and lotions lay all around the bathroom with their liquids now congealed on the floor, leading Detective S.T. to deduce that they’d been used as projectiles. When I put them together, the signs hinted at a potential domestic disagreement. Bloody prints—the dainty size of Big Jim’s Tinder dates’ feet—led away from the bathroom and out the front door of the apartment. There had been a woman here, which meant…
I summoned Dennis, excitedly insisting he join me in the excavation. After thoroughly ransacking the bathroom, I took my sleuthing skills to the bedroom, where clothes vomited from a dresser—someone had been in a hurry to leave. I scoured the closet, disturbing dust clouds and pecking at mountains of clothes. No dice. Where did Tiffany S. used to leave hers? The kitchen smelled of rotting gases, of geriatric chicken eggs. But on the counter, next to a blood-slick hammer, a chair leg, and a spilled prescription of something called Klonopin, was a purse. I plunged my beak into the soft pink leather that was called Kate Spade and rifled through. A bottle of bear repellent, a wine opener, a ream of condoms, Alka-Seltzer, a mini bottle of Tabasco, a spring-assisted rainbow-blade tactical hunting knife, and a sizable packet of Midol took up most of the space. Sign of a ladies’ night out? I couldn’t be sure. A note that had a list of names like Downtown Emergency Services Center. Dr. Hsu’s Acupuncture and Herbs. Seattle Medical Center. CDC and a list of corresponding phone numbers was crumpled at the bottom. Another note, this one in hurried handwriting, said Cash, canned food, flashlights, water. Find H. Find Sarah. Find a way to Whidbey. Were the healthy MoFos hiding out on Whidbey Island? Could it be? I swallowed my hope. In the side pocket of the pink bag called Kate Spade was what I was looking for. I chirped, opening the rectangular black case to find…a compact mirror. Dammit. The expectant black bird peering back at me was not at all what I was looking for. I hopped up onto the perfume-stained couch, digging my beak into its crevices, a known treasure cache. Stuffed down the side of a cushion, a hidden velvet pouch had been sequestered, containing a packet of birth control pills, a receipt for Lovers—birthplace of Big Jim’s blow-up dolls—and a bracelet. Evidence of an affair.
Dennis abandoned his shoe and disappeared into the closet. Moments later, he emerged with a look of jubilation, excited to show me what was dangling from his mouth. An argyle sock.
“No, Dennis. That’s not what I asked for.”
His rudder of a tail swung left to right. Upon seeing my disapproval, he dropped the sock and retreated to the closet. I had decided we should leave apartment 107 when he reappeared. This time, he had an iPhone in his mouth. Open beaked, I stared at the bloodhound I’d grossly underestimated his entire slobber-slimed life. Dennis returned to the high heel, flopping on the ground to resume masticating.
“Good boy, Dennis!” My dear Dennis had cracked the case.
I encouraged Dennis—in shoe ecstasy, now hav
ing removed the heel and punctured through the scarlet sole—to say a small prayer as I pushed my beak on the power button. I held my breath. Dennis stopped chewing, staring at me with a giant saliva leash attached to the collapsed ex-shoe. He emitted a thin whine. I hopped from side to side, waiting.
Come on.
The phone’s screen lit up and in an instant it was Christmas, July Fourth, the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl, and a 7-Eleven–wide sale on Cheetos®! I hopped up and down, unable to contain my glee. That cool electric beam was the same majestic luminance that came from the enchanted interior of a refrigerator and Dennis and I stared, enjoying its instantly cloaking comfort, realizing how much we’d missed it, how long we’d been in the dark.
I powered off the iPhone and we got the hell out of that hideous apartment complex, making our way along Phinney Avenue in search of the second part of my plan. There may or may not have been a very quick detour into A la Mode Pies, where Dennis snarfed down what looked to be an ancient cobbler. I helped myself to something that had once called itself a bourbon butterscotch pie, but only a little—I had to reel that shit in. Jesus, at this rate, if the predators didn’t get us, the diabetes would. Still, a little sugar rush might not be the worst thing for what I was planning.
I clutched the smartphone in my beak, feeling a growing sense of terror. The cell phone represented power, a lusted-after treasure. All the sick MoFos were wearing out their limbs and eyes searching for its luminous glory. And in a world with no electricity, we had as long as the battery would last. We set down Phinney Avenue back the way we came, under a bright overcast sky the color of silver silk. This time, I was the one who was hunting. On the road ahead, between the Ride the Ducks vehicle that lay on its side and a pile of empty beer crates, a willowy MoFo wandered alone in front of us. He was naked as a mole-rat apart from the neon body paint splashed across his hairless torso that said “Live in full color” and his unicorn hat. He staggered toward a corrugated metal sheet that had been torn from a storefront. He placed his twisted face up close to the metal and started to trace his eyes and head left and right, left and right, as if tracking something written in its grooves. On his back, the rainbow of paint spelled out “Proceed with love and you will live forever.” He was missing a butt cheek. We walked right past him. We knew he was lost in his sickness.
Hollow Kingdom Page 14