They Is Us

by Tama Janowitz

  “I don’t know.” Tahnee shrugs. “I guess. Here, you wanna steet?” She throws the jar in Cliffort’s direction. Julie winces again. Tahnee knows the stuff can explode if it hits the ground the wrong way. “It definitely takes away your appetite.”

  “Naw, I don’t like that stuff. I’m going out to shoot this thing with your little friend –”

  “My sister –”

  “Your sister? You two don’t look alike –”

  “We have different dads.”

  “Is that right? And what’s your name?”

  “Tahnee.”

  “Tahnee, come out when you’re ready to try out this Michiko Kamikaze. You gals ever shoot a Kamikaze before? It’s not very accurate and it’s pretty stupid but that’s what makes it entertaining. Julie, think you can handle it?”

  “How loud?”

  “For a minute you can’t hear anything. And it’s not like what you see in movies, you know. This Kamikaze is made of extrudo, not metal, but even so there’s a kickback on it. I want you to hold it with both hands – you want to watch me first?”

  “I guess so.”

  On the far side of the dead grass, a football field length away, Cliffort has set up a paper target. When he shoots the Kamikaze it is so loud Julie nearly has a change of heart. “It sounds like a bomb or a rocket launcher or something!” Cliffort misses the paper target completely; he shoots too low and the bullet explodes into the marsh, spewing a twelve-foot high cloud of grass, dirt and marshland muck.

  “You see, it’s not so easy. Now you gonna try?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Come on, you gotta try or you’ll never be good at it.”

  Tahnee shrugs and winks at Julie; she knows how good she is. “Come on, Julie, like Dad always says, It’ll be like throwing loaves to the fishes!” Julie is surprised that Tahnee is calling Slawa “Dad”, something she has rarely done.

  A huge plane is almost overhead. The planes fly over in the morning, and in the afternoon and into the night. All the time, planes are coming in overhead or taking off. The housing development is directly under the flight path to the airport. Cliffort stands behind her and puts his arms around her from behind to show her how to hold the Kamikaze. His hands are moist. “Right. Remember what I said, use both hands because when you pull the trigger it’s going to come back at you so don’t be scared.”

  Julie isn’t prepared for Cliffort to actually push her fingers down on the trigger. Or does he? Certainly it seems like something is squeezing her hand and pulling the weapon up at the same time. Maybe there’s a gyroscope inside. The force of the explosion propels her backward and the noise is so loud for a minute she thinks she is not just deafened but blinded.

  When she looks up, about to chastise Cliffort, she sees he is nowhere near. High above, a glinting light coming off the airplane catches her eye. “Holy Shi’ite!” says Cliffort. “You got a hit!” It is true. What she thinks at first is merely sunlight glancing on the plane is actually a fire, spreading rapidly.

  Within seconds there is another explosion as the fuel tanks go up, and then a vast black cloud, followed by things falling out of the sky: sheets of metal and twisting bits of melting plastic, glass and foam and trays and electrical wiring; suitcases are hitting the ground now and exploding as they hit into flowers of underwear and umbrellas, shoes like seed pods, clouds of talcum powder pollen.

  It’s all happening slowly – or perhaps quickly – a rain of hot blood and mucous; teeth and iceberg lettuce; plastic trays of hot creamy chicken and green beans mixed with entrails and chocolate-vanilla ice cream, the kind that comes in little paper tubes with an attached imbibing device. The fire is huge. Not as much falls as Julie might have thought – had she ever thought of such a thing happening – black handkerchiefs are waving everywhere until Julie realizes these are charred… things on fire, or just burning out, maybe newspaper, safety instructions, foam seat cushions or plastic toilet seats.

  Drifts of blackened skin still attached to hairs waft across the sky, dander reduced to pepper falling from a grinder. They are immobile, paralyzed by the sight. Something wallops Julie on the head. “Hey, look!” Tahnee yells, darting down to pick it up. Something glints, gold and ruby-red. “A finger! Wid de ring still attached!”

  “Are you crazy?” shouts Cliffort Manwaring-Troutwig, “Run! Get out of here! Run for your lives!”

  7

  By the time school starts, Julie is quite ill. She may have made herself sick with worry; or it may be physical. Her hands have swollen to twice their normal size, blistering from within as if they have been in a microwave oven. She still works in the lab after school; at least this way there is no time to brood about the tragic accident and how she has only herself to blame. But how can she not think about it? My gosh, hundreds of people died, nine houses were destroyed, should she confess and tell the police? She can’t believe it: she alone is responsible for the tragedy, children now without parents, parents without children, insurance companies who were supposed to provide for the widows and orphans going under.

  She is evil, and probably evil incarnate, evil personified, even though she had no intention of ever doing anything wrong. Her head hurts all the time, she has inhaled the terrible fumes and now her hands are blistered and getting blacker almost like she has frostbite or gangrene. She has cried so much her eyes are permanently swollen.

  On the other hand this year is the big Eighth Grade Test and she should be spending her after-school hours studying. She likes her English teacher, Miss Fletsum, but Miss Fletsum isn’t the easiest teacher; she’s had her before, she’s one of the tough ones. “Pay attention class! We must do more preparation before the day of the big test! Name three hits by Rogers and Hammerstein and two by Rogers and Hart.” No one raises a hand. “This test can affect your entire life! So, think children, think!” Miss Fletsum strikes herself dramatically on the side of her head. “Ow, sorry, head!” The children laugh and no one pays any attention for the rest of the period.

  Miss Fletsum is funny. Of course Miss Fletsum is also a little strange and sometimes, often, actually, she announces to the kids that her head isn’t really hers. Once, during a minor breakdown (she had to take a couple weeks off, afterward) she had actually gone over to Mystique and tried to pull off Mystique’s head, insisting that somehow Mystique had taken what was rightfully hers.

  At least now she is on different meds. “Children! The United States is lagging far behind the rest of the globe and that is no small laughing matter! Who starred in Now Voyager? Name five rules for owning a successful fast-food franchise! You’re going to have to know these things to pass the test! Essay: what it must be like to live in Nature’s Caul. Who are the sort of people who get to live there? Compare and contrast.”

  The class sighs and whines.

  “Remember your topic sentence, guys!”

  All the kids are drugged because they are hyperactive with saudiautistic tendencies and/or saudiautism. And if not openly saudiautistic then they have Sasporger’s Motif, Wharf Planchette, Florie’s Palsy, ADDA or vitamin deficiency caused by petrochemical solvents causing depression.

  A depressed child is not a happy child. A depressed child cannot focus. “Focus, children. Fluorescent lighting,” Miss Fletsum says. “Spelled f-l-u-o-r-e-s-c-e-n-t.”

  “Miss Fletsum, that’s not what our spell check says.”

  “What?”

  “It spells it flourescent.”

  “But – but –” Miss Fletsum is spluttering. “That’s absurd! That’s wrong!”

  Miss Fletsum likes to make sure the kids know and can use clichés and idioms, as well as famous quotations. She has told the children more than once that she is an accident. She is given to statements such as, “If the shoe fits, wear it – but it will be uncomfortable outside the store,” and “Still waters run deep, unless it’s a puddle.”

  Julie knows she is lucky to have Miss Fletsum as her teacher. All the kids like her, apart from her wacko t
hing about her head not being the right one. Those lapses can be dangerous. But then, she is old, and something might have started to go wrong for a long time.

  Miss Fletsum is so old she started teaching in the days before there was mandatory retirement; Miss Fletsum is one of the last members of the Teachers Union; Miss Fletsum lost all of her savings in the Walbuck’s scandal. Miss Fletsum says, when she was growing up, people could actually read, whereas nowadays they are all spoiled because the computers are able to put everything – books, articles, whatever was formerly printed – into wide-screen high-definition hologram format.

  “I will never be able to stop teaching!” Miss Fletsum says dramatically, and once more she tries to get Julie’s class to learn to read. “‘In the great green room,’” begins Miss Fletsum once again, “‘there was a telephone, and a red balloon, and a –’”

  The class groans. “We can’t do it, Miss Fletsum,” says Daqoyt, “our eyes don’t work that way! How many times do we have to tell you?”

  “And besides,” mutters Cryhten, who sits next to Julie, “why should we, there are no books any more.”

  At least Julie is going to get extra school credit for working as an intern. It is still lonely, though. Dyllis is nice, but she is mostly working in a different lab these days, and when she is around, Dyllis spends most of her time trying to find dates on the computer.

  She likes women who are muscular, with large clitori, an interest in restoring antique yachts and an appreciation of classical music such as Bartók, Aaron Copland and Stevie Nicks.

  How will Dyllis ever meet anyone? She is so so lonely. She misses her friends in Vieques so much. There, in the cool evenings, everyone gathers in the central square; they can never go far because of all the undetonated shells that litter the whole island, but it is enough to walk, hand in hand, with a friend, around the zocala, or sit at a café and eat a dish of fried plantains or roasted pepnuts. Here, during the day, she is alone in an air-conditioned mausoleum, and at night she drives three hours back to her grim apartment, where she has to keep the doors locked and the windows shut at all times.

  Dyllis knows she talks too much, but there is no way to stop herself. Even when she tells herself, most firmly, to be quiet, still the words pour out in a never-ending river until she is trapped, helpless, behind the waterfall, unable to emerge. Even when she is alone the words keep coming, though, fortunately, if she is walking down the street, everyone assumes she is plugged in to her site.

  Julie never sees anyone else in the building.

  For security reasons, Bermese Pythion has some kind of policy about employees never interacting. If Julie stays late, dinner is delivered into the lab through a slot in the door, on a tray with a menu to describe the contents. It might be poached quail eggs with strawberries and edamame, served with a haunch of civet cat in a nut crust. Or chilled candy-corn soup with blue aji dulce peppers and quinoa grits. Once there was a glacé encompassing uni, eel and snake, accompanied by multi-textured tofu strands with a sauce of mirin and raw squid-ink foam. The labs at Bermese Pythion are known for serving fine cuisine. Other people come in at night, or in the evenings – at least three shifts per experiment, people whose paths never cross.

  Sometimes animals, like the adorable kitten with eyes so huge they took up most of its face, mysteriously vanish. Or in the morning things are dead in their cage. Or worse, hooked up to electrodes or blossoming with strange growths.

  The fall passes slowly. Each day Julie listens to the news, wondering if today will be the day the authorities discover it is she who killed all those people on Flight 21894. Now she is at the mercy of her sister, who has got her doing all her chores, her homework, and threatens to blab if she doesn’t obey her. Her dad is gone; her mother hates her.

  Anything is better than being at home. Why wouldn’t she prefer to spend all her time at the lab? The lab is kept cold and she takes a sweater with her, though outside it’s usually blistering by six in the morning. It’s hard to believe that when she leaves for the day she will not be able to breath in the searing heat. The temperature has been between a hundred and a hundred-and-twenty farenheit for months.

  According to scientific records there has never been such a long, hot Indian summer since record-keeping began. The newscasters say previous estimates regarding global warming are incorrect: unless there is a sudden ice age, the warming of the planet will be far faster than the rate of seven degrees a century. Home air-conditioning isn’t really possible. Nobody around these parts can afford current electrical rates. Anyway, there are power blackouts almost every day, for hours at a time.

  In the lab it is cold and, with no windows, always illuminated by artificial yet natural means, lighting that replaces and provides the same wavelengths as the sun. The animals are never going to be able to see anything more than the metal cage walls that surround them. It isn’t right. She wishes she could save them all, even the horrid ones.

  There are plenty of animals she can’t deal with. The pigs continue to frighten her, though she tries to look on them with compassion. It is something in their expression, a look both human and malevolent, and the big boar is still there, more lascivious, more craven. He has masturbated himself until he is bleeding. Fortunately the pigs are too large for her to even think about taking, and how could she possibly have kept one? Each, daily, produces hundreds of pounds of steaming excrement.

  Insects: Hair-A-Ticks, which are ticks engineered to lay their eggs in a person’s scalp. And each egg hatches into a tick that grows a hair. The hair pushes its way up through the scalp. The tick lives its life beneath. When the tick dies, so does the hair that it has grown; then the females emerge to lay more eggs. The problems thus far, though, apart from the unpredictability of what color the hairs would be – red, blond, black, white or often a combination of all of them – is that some of the head ticks begin to migrate beneath the skin, so that over the years hairs can grow on the nose, arms, the palms of hands, the chest, the neck, the back and buttocks.

  A person just interested in getting hair on their head might end up completely hairy, like a gorilla. According to Dyllis, a topical hair-removal ointment could be applied, though rather unsuccessfully. And if a tick came from under the person’s skin while it was still alive and growing the hairs, it could implant on someone else if, say, that person was the next to sit in the same seat on a bus or a couch.

  Naturally she wouldn’t want these: but, as the weeks pass, though she knows it is wrong, she smuggles out more animals, small ones, caterpillars that will become moths with a five-foot wingspan, or a galaxy-nosed mole.

  One of the lab technicians must have begun to notice: a sign went up on the wall, saying that whoever is taking things out of the lab is going to be caught and punished unless he or she returns the various creatures that had been taken.

  Is she going to have to go to prison? This isn’t out of the question. She hasn’t seen another human being, apart from Dyllis; even when she cuts down on smuggling out the animals, new signs are posted each morning, with more threats.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Dyllis. “You got a lot of thiefs around here. Somebody took my skin-plant, ju remember?” Dyllis has covered her tracks. It’s awful, the animals mewing or crying, in a state of permanent bewilderment, unable to reconcile having, say, the temperament and body design of a duck – but without a beak and webbed feet.

  Marsupials without pouches that spit venom, blood-sucking lamprey-puppies – she is always getting in trouble for giving them the wrong food. Or she gets bitten. Each day Julie is more profoundly depressed. Nothing she does turns out right.

  “You know, Julie,” Tahnee tells her, “I could really use a recommendation from the lab where you work.”

  “What?” says Julie, who has bicycled home, though it is really too hot, and now as usual is preparing dinner. “But… you don’t work there.”

  “So what?” says Tahnee. “I’ll come in for a couple of days while you’re there, then
I can write up whatever you do and submit it for credit and get Mom’s friend to give me a report.”

  Julie would do anything for her sister, she always has, and says, “Of course, if you think it will be fair.”

  “Aw, give me a break. It’s not fair that you blew up a hundred and eighty-nine people, is it?”

  “It was an accident. It was Cliffort.”

  “By the way,” says Tahnee, “I’ve been spending some time with Cliffort trying to convince him he should keep his mouth shut for your sake. I mean, I explained, even though you’re a minor, they would still put you in jail. Reform school first, then prison. I mean, if you listen to the news, the President is looking for somebody to punish. I mean, like, his ratings are going down, you know what I mean?”

  Julie can’t speak. Wet feathers jam her throat or perhaps tufts of rabbit fur and lard. Whatever it is, she is choked up. For weeks she has been trying to convince herself the plane crash didn’t really happen; she hasn’t watched the news. High from steet, the plane dropping from the sky, the stench of jet fuel, the body parts, did not seem so different from a video arcade game or a program on HGMTV. Only shreds of that afternoon occasionally tear loose, then she shoves them back into her head, where what’s left of her brain, a gray pillow, has a hole that keeps letting out the stuffing.

  “You’re a good little sis,” says Tahnee. “If I can get the credit, that’ll be one less course I have to take before I graduate. Maybe you can even write up the report, and I’ll just tag along for a few days, like I said, so in case I’m questioned I’ll have some idea.”

  Tahnee spends the afternoon perched on a lab chair watching Julie work. “Come on, Tahnee, don’t you want to help me? These animals really crave human touch, and they need the cages cleaned! There are so many, I usually can’t get to everyone.”