We Can Save Us All

by Adam Nemett

  “Oh thank god,” she rasped. Her voice made David’s eye twitch. “I knew you’d come.”

  “We are here to help, ma’am,” offered David. “How are you doing today?”

  “My rectum is on fire,” she said. “How are you?”

  Martin explained his wife had stage four cancer. It started as a tumor in her breast, he said, and then metastasized to her liver and lung. Now, doctors were pretty sure she had throat cancer, too, but they obviously hadn’t followed up once the storm started.

  “I can get by without most of my parts,” she heaved. “But they can’t take my voice. I told them let the angels of death come take me! And now”—she smiled, calming—“now you’ve come.”

  David began backing out of the room, but Ultraviolet grabbed him by László’s lapel.

  “Tell Peacemaker and Echo to join us,” he instructed. “And tell Dr. Ugs to bring medicine.” Ultraviolet asked the sick woman’s name—it was Barbara, but she said to call her Barbie—and took a knee at her bedside. After David radioed for reinforcements, Martin pinned him in the doorway.

  “She begs me.” He, too, dug his fingers into the blazer. “Someone else has to do it.”

  Martin had that same frantic, mortal whisper David remembered from their drive home from the grocery store. David suddenly understood. But he couldn’t stomach what the man was asking. He feared what might happen if he refused, and how could he do anything but refuse? The USV was here to help. He was happy to deliver food, sure, but this was a distant moral hinterland David was not prepared to venture into.

  “Do you boys have power?” Barbie interrupted Ultraviolet.

  “No, ma’am, I think everyone’s power is off,” Ultraviolet replied.

  “When your power goes off, at first it’s a relief, isn’t it? You don’t have to work. Everyone gathers together. You thank god for technology, television, heat, and even when the batteries run out it’s not the end of the world. You’ve got card games, books. You tell ghost stories. When the plumbing goes, though? When you start living in your own filth? That’s when it’s enough.”

  David piped up. “We have a real doctor back in the van, actually. Her name’s Maria and—”

  “No!” Barbie said. “I’ve taken every medication. And they’ve taken half my body. Only thing they ever gave me was sixteen weeks to live.”

  “How long ago was that?” Ultraviolet asked her.

  “Two years ago,” she coughed out.

  “So you’re a fighter,” Ultraviolet said, nodding. “My brother was, too. After his accident doctors said he wouldn’t last the night. But Eddie fought, for four months—”

  “Can’t fight anymore, honey. But can’t do it myself, either. I don’t know where I’m going next, but if I kill myself that pretty much clinches that it ain’t Heaven. No, I’m ready. I’m scared, but I’m ready.”

  As Barbie reached out to her husband, Golden Echo, Peacemaker, and Dr. Ugs arrived in the bedroom doorway.

  “Smells rough in here,” said Dr. Ugs.

  Ultraviolet gave him a look. Ugs apologized and handed over a Ziploc baggie.

  “We can’t offer you an end.” Ultraviolet took her bony hand. “But we can offer medicine.”

  “I told you, honey. I’ve taken every pain med—”

  “It’s not for pain. This is plant medicine. Ancient. Very powerful.”

  David hadn’t attempted another Big Bang since Stony Brook. But this was the time.

  “You fear the horizontal,” Ultraviolet continued. “Life and death along a flat timeline. The Big Bang provides the vertical experience, communicating above and below. With Heaven, I guess, and the opposite. You exist at that intersection of the vertical and horizontal, where there’s no time. If you want to swim in that truth, Barbie, we can create the vessel for you.”

  Barbie giggled. “You cute boys all make me feel so young!” she said. “And so fucking old.”

  “I am Ultraviolet,” said Ultraviolet. “And I will be your shaman—a safety rope tied from this world to the other. And this here? This is the all-seeing Infrared. He will join you on your journey.”

  Mathias passed a pill to David—no, Infrared—and the other he held to Barbie’s lips. He pulled her blanket up around her back, tying it loosely around her neck like a cape.

  “Repeat this chant,” Ultraviolet whispered. “Kisszapill… Kezapel… Kezapel…”

  “It’ll come on fast and feel like forever,” Infrared said. “But I promise, it will end.”

  Soon, that synthetic smell of garbage bags. A swarm of tracing paper. A Good Witch with white hair. He recognized he was afraid, that this was what feeling afraid felt like.

  He shot into the air, his eyes fixed up in the blue sky, blue like Superman spandex above, wait, so blue, wading down until the sky opens and an army forged in blue light pours down from the heavens hundreds thousands millions billions of bubbles blue like whitewater warriors of light to quench the world beneath red underground coming up to meet blue crashing down till the earth opens and swallows evil into itself and the water spreads like water and everything is okay again.

  “Are you afraid?” David heard Mathias whisper.

  “No,” he heard Barbie say.

  “Were you afraid before?”

  “Before when?” she said.

  “Good,” Mathias said. “You’re good. You’re really, really good.”

  v.

  The ground shed more layers. Soon the muddy field was strewn with bodies. David and Mathias huddled beneath the bleachers of the Pennington High School baseball field while late-arriving SUVs parked and parents rushed their kids to catch the first blast of Pennington’s annual New Year’s Eve Fireworks Extravaganza. It was a warm evening and the air still smelled like the holidays. A stack of outdoor speakers played James Brown’s “Living in America,” and middle-aged white people did their best to boogie down. Life was kind of good again.

  While the others smoked menthol Kools, Fu twirled a motorcycle helmet around his fist and puffed one of those twig-colored cigarillos, the kind Colombian dictators might smoke while overseeing interrogations. Owen stood guard outside Mathias and David’s hideout under the bleachers. Good thing, because every time they showed their faces, they got mobbed.

  Ever since their rescue mission, the boys from The Egg were regional superstars. CBS’s WNJ24 featured them in a segment called “Superheroes of the Superstorm.” The details got distorted, but plenty of neighborhood folks joyously offered televised testimonials on the strange yet brave costumed youngsters who’d arrived at their front door in a snowbound life raft, just in the nick of time. And none was more thankful than the mayor of Pennington, Martin Rosse.

  He’d never divulged his job to David, neither in the MaxMobile from the grocery store nor during the ordeal with his wife—and nobody’d cared to ask what the man did for a living—but Mayor Rosse was now forever in spiritual debt to the USV. His brave Barbie passed away two days after Christmas, but hers was a welcome end, peaceful and pure. When David parted ways with Barbie after their DMT trip, she and death were ready for each other.

  During the town’s year-end parade, David got to drive the convertible while Mathias/Ultraviolet and Mayor Rosse sat on the drop-top, waving. Martin wore his suit and the guys all wore their costumes. It was festive, but there was something bigger afoot than annual community spirit. As a town, they’d escaped something, and David’s crew had served as shepherds.

  The Godfather of Soul faded out and in came the subtle strings of an orchestral prelude.

  “Ahh, the Eroica!” Mathias said, nodding his head toward the parking lot where the music was coming from. “Tasteful. Refreshing. Goddamn 1812 Overture has been done to death.”

  They scanned the ball field. Some folks were passing bottles of wine. Others ate sausages from a grill manned by Pennington Quality Market’s butcher. Mathias and David hung back while Dr. Ugs wheeled a cooler around. He was handing out his homemade ayahuasca tea. News of the USV’s trip
with the mayor’s wife had slipped through the grapevine, and David knew at least a dozen moms and dads in the neighborhood now very curious about trying DMT.

  During David’s last trip and its aftermath with Barbie, the value of the Big Bang had become exceptionally clear to him: a glimpse behind reality offered assurances of something more, something beyond this world. As a result, the idea of death became less final and frightening. This was an important revelation in pre-apocalyptic times, not only for the terminally ill, but for the countless millions scared shitless. You emerged from the Big Bang not feeling abandoned or doomed, but supported by unseen gods. It was a new era. And it belonged to the cooperative evolved who’d rather defer to death than rip each other apart for the last can of SpaghettiOs.

  Still, David knew it was crucial not to ascribe too much power to the drug. It was a peek, a jump start, nothing more. If all they wanted was to do psychedelics, they could just do them in dorm rooms like normal college kids. The goal of the USV wasn’t some drug-addled counterculture.

  Real heroes remain good in the face of catastrophe, David decided. That’s the whole point of everything.

  Twin orange dots popped into the sky, faded, burst. Red tendrils curled down toward them like sea anemones. David found it fascinating to watch this refuse, these ashes, and wondered if this was the reality of the Big Bang: trillions of years ago, all that far-flung carbon was merely a worthless by-product of an infinitely pretty explosion; now, they were all merely star farts.

  “The wind’s blowing in,” David noticed. “Don’t they worry about ash falling on the crowd?”

  “What’s weird is that it looks like the fireworks are only falling toward us,” Mathias said. “But in point of fact, those things explode as a sphere, in all directions.” He let his palms cup an invisible ball and mimed its explosion, whispering, “XplO!”

  “Then how come it looks like it’s headed right toward me?” David asked.

  “Because you’re a self-centered prick,” said Mathias.

  Under the bleachers, the slats laid horizontal shadows across Mathias’s painted face. When the fireworks popped, muted stripes of color lit up his eyes. David thought this was what jungle soldiers must feel like when the sky is alive with enemy fire—when they look at each other before rushing into battle and wonder if this is the last other person they’ll ever see.

  “It’s going well,” David offered, a bit proud of himself.

  “You’re great at organizing,” Mathias mused. “Like the Halloween thing. You were Batman.”

  “Y’know, I always thought there was potential there, too, but—”

  “And that was you that got beaten up, too,” Mathias said. “By the wrestler.”

  David was suddenly speechless.

  “I remember shooting you.”

  Wait. What?

  His neck got cold. Of course it was Mathias who shot him that night, who saw him. He’d almost forgotten. He tried to talk but could only say, “The man on the roof.”

  “Lots and lots of shadows,” Mathias replied.

  “Okay, fine, so what about your shadow then?” David shot back. “Your brother? You told me he died the morning after the tree fell on him, and you told Barbie it was four months later. You keep something locked in that fridge in your bedroom, and I know you worked with the Mott’s Funnel guy, I saw pictures online, but you’ve never once mentioned—”

  “That’s no secret, dude. I’m legally not allowed to talk about Mott until our issues are resolved. He recruited me to Princeton but now he’s too concerned with celebrity, and so okay, what else? My brother? Okay, he got paralyzed. I watched him die. I literally walked out of the situation without a scratch. I thought I was invincible. Not like how little kids think they’re invincible until they break a leg—I mean I really thought I was invincible for real. I got a little weird so they put me in inpatient, but I could see what was going to happen. I saw time running out. And I set out to prove it. That’s chronostrictesis.”

  “Wait. So. What?”

  “You want to know what’s in the fridge?”

  “Jesus, I don’t know. Do I?”

  “Come, I’ll show you. Enough public self-congratulation anyway. It’s bad for the ego.”

  David followed Mathias to the high school parking lot. On his way out, David scanned the field. One by one, David saw people going off like popcorn, those who’d taken the ayahuasca tea. Mothers and teenagers and old people vomiting into pure snow, lying back, finding something holy. They’d be fine. Blinking, David watched the mass baptism, the infinitely pretty explosion.

  — Ø —

  A long, weird bunch of hours. It was close to midnight when they returned to The Egg. Mathias told David to leave Christopher Walken idling in the driveway, which David found strange. But in the foyer were Mathias’s frame backpack and stacked boxes and coolers. Mathias barely entered. He grabbed a large insulated cooler in each hand like dual suitcases. Mathias turned to David and said, “Grab one, will you?”

  David grabbed two and followed Mathias to his car.

  “What’s in those coolers?”

  Without turning back, Mathias lifted up the one in his left hand and said, “Blood.” He lifted the one in his right hand and said, “Semen.”

  Was Mathias leaving? For a second, David was scared to death he was leaving forever.

  “Where…” he stammered. “Where are you going?”

  Mathias arranged boxes inside Walken’s trunk, then took his pointer finger and poked it into the space in front of him, connecting invisible dots on an invisible map.

  “First, Altoona, to see my lawyer,” he said. “Mott is settling. I need to sign papers. Then Atlanta”—his finger curled—“Oglethorpe University. Crypt of civilization. I’ll be gone a week, maybe two, if there is such a thing anymore.”

  He said this like it was normal. David had so many more questions but, closing the trunk, Mathias climbed into Walken and turned on the radio, which was preparing listeners for the New Year’s countdown. David chased him to the driver’s-side door.

  “No, dude, you need to stay. We’re in this together.”

  “We’re getting close to the Null Point, David. I can feel it. Now, we’re ready to prove it. Mott will make the announcement and it’ll be corroborated and nothing will be the same. Plus, we’ll have more money. The settlement is sizable, but I can’t talk about it until the Ts are crossed.”

  “Let me go with you?” David asked, so pathetically confused.

  “You need to be here. I’m leaving you in control.”

  “What am I in control of?”

  “You know how to organize. You are… the Marketer! That’s your superhero name.”

  “Fuck that. That’s a stupid, terrible name.”

  “Okay, then how about… Salesman! Like Batman, Superman. Hey, FUFFman!” Mathias was getting excited. “I never caught that before!”

  “I am Infrared,” David said.

  “Okay fine, so you’re Infrared. You’re still in control. There’s always the chosen ones. The survivors. The USV, your thesis, is about gathering them. Saving the chosen. Or put it this way, you’re in control of building the ark, and I’ll like help you get everyone on board before the flood comes, right? We’re mixing metaphors, but whatever, the point is we keep going.”

  “I don’t think I want to be in control of all that.” David was trying not to cry.

  “Sure you do. But you’re Infrared, so you want to be in remote control. Get it?”

  David got it.

  “So own it!” Mathias said. “Ultraviolet is supposed to be the mad prophet, so I’ll just wear the straitjacket and own all that crazy. You can continue to operationalize what we’re doing at The Egg, sharpen it to a point. But we do this together. We evolve or perish together. We both need to commit if we’re going to sell this USV thing on campus and beyond. I’m the front man. You’re my mysterious number two. But you’re secretly the puppet master. That’s how it’s gonna work.”


  David started to argue, but Mathias was kind of right. David did want to be in control, but behind the scenes. He wanted to exert influence on mankind, but he didn’t want all the responsibility, you know? He was ready to chart their course forward and lead everyone to the Promised Land, but he didn’t want to be the guy out in front with the staff. Ultimately, he knew it was selfish and sexist, but he still wanted to save the day, the way superheroes do. But saving the day is so impersonal.

  Saving the girl, though?

  Superman had Lois. Spider-Man had Mary Jane. Batman had Rachel. Black Panther and Thor and Wonder Woman all had their mortal beloveds. It was an old but true trope. David had been faced before with damsels in distress and failed to save them. The USV was his next best shot.

  “Ten… nine… eight…” chanted the radio DJ. David wished Haley were here right now, standing next to him, maybe willing to kiss him as “Auld Lang Syne” played. As he thought this, he realized he was leaning in the car window, awkwardly close to Mathias, and the countdown was hitting its own Null Point. David wondered if Mathias might try to kiss him. And it’s not like he’d be into that, but they were sharing something special, weren’t they? Wasn’t this a moment to honor?

  “…three… two… one…”

  Mathias looked at David, raised his arm, and from below lifted a pistol. He pulled the trigger.

  Something bit David’s shoulder and he flew back, thinking, This is it. But his life did not flash before his eyes. He looked down to find himself covered in neon-yellow paint goo.