They Is Us

by Tama Janowitz

  “Oh, A. I’m sorry, I hope I’m not bothering you calling again.”

  Nuts, it’s Murielle. “What’s going on?” he says.

  “I just don’t know what to do! These flies, or moths, you know, they’ve eaten everything, I have a feeling they’ve mutated and it’s not just synthetic fabric they’re eating now, I mean, it’s like, anything plastic, the vinyl siding, the rubber on my shoes.”

  He has an idea. “You know what? I’ll come out to take a look.”

  “Oh, Jesse, really? I feel so terrible, to interrupt your work. I mean, I could just close up and come to you… There’s practically nothing left here anyway.”

  “No, no, I have to go back to headquarters at some point, something’s come up. Besides, you want to know the truth? I miss you. It’ll be a little while, sweetie, but just hang in there.”

  After he hangs up he puts in a call to the Head of Security over at the laboratory in Jersey, asking him to look into the possibility that some of the genetically modified animals might be missing. Since they are patent-pending the whole thing is very alarming. Another company could have stolen the secrets. He’ll be heading back pretty soon, he says, and he hopes the matter will be taken care of by then. Any animals – stolen, or escaped – that cannot be recaptured should immediately be euthanized; a lot of them aren’t particularly safe anyway. Example: Murielle Antrobus, her kids used to work as interns, now her nearby home is infested. Her place really should be exterminated before the infestation escapes.

  How long, he wonders, will it take his clone to lose thirty pounds? He’ll lock him up in the gym and have slimming meals sent in a couple of times a day; if the kid stays off the booze, the weight should come off pretty quick.

  At least, it always had for A.

  17

  Orpheus and La Dolce Vita

  By Phyllis Janowitz

  Elect me president, why not, why not,

  I promise you’ll be driven in servile

  limousines to watch croquet balls tumble

  on unimpeachable greens. Your daughters

  will cavort with cellos through mellow

  Afternoons, while you, reclining,

  compose concertos on fresh hay.

  This will keep your thoughts away

  from mortar and from butter; when you

  sketch with sticks on dusky walls,

  depicting antelope and buffalo

  lurching gracefully over nothing, no

  piles of stock and venomous ilk

  will coil in your way. I promise

  each citizen an equal sum to write

  lyrics, sonnets and loony tunes,

  to put a bee in every bonnet humming

  in iambics; strophes and tropes adding

  root and bloom will exude exotic

  aromas in a jungle of golden freesias,

  a garden of tropical fruits. My dear

  brethren and sisters (I will say, raising

  long arms as if to fly), do we not belong

  to the same flock, all of us pariahs,

  white and black? Once, fast asleep,

  did I not awaken in a bed which rocked

  like a ship going down, a rumble like

  loose lions in the dark? The term

  “earthquake,” missing from my brain, by

  its lack increased the residue of shock.

  Oh elect me, if not president, then

  present dick, then take stock and dead lock,

  your local tic tic toe, tickets toc.

  If I am elected we will play together

  a game called the learning of names:

  Porbeagle – a small shark of northern

  seas noted for it for its voracity. Pooh-

  pooh – to make light of. Trumpet wood –

  a musical tree of the mulberry family

  with hollow stems and shield-shaped leaves.

  Oh let us, benevolently, look after

  the charges of that astonishing mother

  nailed to the beak of the barque;

  she has given us slippery words to tend,

  squirming infants swaddled in vulture skin

  who know nothing about political aims.

  We can unwrap and release them

  to seed in sweet water. We can train

  the small minnows to swim. Ah,

  we can do whatever we like with them.

  A full orchestra is playing the Presidential Suite as the President and Scott walk down the aisle at the Temple of the Intelligent Designer (Christian-Orientation). Scott wears white tie; the President in black. The newscaster explains how Mr President and Scott chose the minister, Reverend Murray Washington, who is head of the Ministry of Family Homeland Values and a former CIA operative who left the CIA after taking a science course which led to his conversion to the Church of Intelligent Design.

  “This is really a star-studded event,” says the announcer as the camera pans the audience. “T. Dakota Gunnerson Jr., Kelvin Winter Redstone. I see behind them Barbra O’Neil-Gandolfini, DJ Woofty Woof Bambatta, Little Theresa of The Flowers, Amber-Daisy von Thiessen-Leoni.”

  Grandpa turns off the hologramovision in disgust. “Elect me President” he mutters, “Why not?” The whole darn country is watching this stupid show, what a lot of rubbish. The collective unconscious has been drugged, a faint whiff of chloroform lingers on the surround – else why would it have been unconscious? “Back in the good old days,” he announces to no one in particular, since no one is there and he has been left alone again. “Back in the old days.” Then stops. What exactly had been so good about the good old days, anyway?

  Except he knows things were better. Or at least not as bad as now. He has always said, they never should have drilled that hole through the earth’s core; ever since then things had gone askew. But why is it no one else seems to have noticed? And whenever he brings it up, they all nudge each other and wink and he knows they are thinking, there he goes again on one of his paranoid conspiracy rants. He is not paranoid, something really is wrong!

  He had tried to raise his daughter with old-fashioned values, but what the heck were they? And anyway, he obviously hadn’t succeeded or else she wouldn’t have trapped him here in this wretched little house, all alone except for that constipated dog who, he could swear, kept muttering things to him. He knew better than to tell anybody, or who knew what kind of meds they would start him on. Here, his own flesh and blood worked at that fancy Retirement Home, he had seen the place, there was shopping and fine dining, indoor track and field, all kinds of night life, what the heck did she keep him here for, some kind of punishment because he had once borrowed a lot of money from her? He hadn’t yet been able to pay back. Why had he needed to borrow money from her anyway? Then it comes back to him, back in the glory days when he had his own Monument Design company, drawing plans for the most intricate gravestones which were made right on the premises. That was before the whole business went high-tech and he scrambled, unsuccessfully, to stay in business while all over the place, thanks to that indestructible plastic that could be etched with the person’s holograph image and various buttons you could press. “Hi, my name is Wyatt Corey Durango, and I was born in 2034 and died in –” etc. The general text could be prepared, basically, at any time prior to the event. “Press One to hear my life story. Press Two to hear the genealogy of the Durango Family. To view a slide show of the life of William Corey Durango, press Nine. If you’d like to leave a message, press Five, followed by the pound symbol. For Spanish, or to repeat this menu…”

  Now she’s angry because she wasn’t even going to be able to sell his house, which she had made him sign over as collateral, because since the whole damn place is about to be swallowed up into the sinkhole. That isn’t his fault!

  He begins to rummage through the one suitcase they had let him bring with him; she had thought it was his clothes and toiletries and a few old family photographs – hah!

  Dearest Almuncle

  Thanks for your repl
y, though it was a little bit late, but all the same am happy to hear from you.

  Sir, I really appreciate all you have said in your mail and which is fine, but sir, if I may suggest, can you let me have your contact details to enable me forward it to my late in-laws lawyer and he will be in the better position to let you know all that the transaction may require, because I know that it will cost both of you some money as he rightly stated to me, since they will go to the High Court to make changes of ownership into your name as now the beneficiary to my late in-law. Please it is just the favor that I am asking from you.

  Kindly reply now.

  Thanks

  Lady Aishat

  Almuncle rummages for a pencil, one of those good old-fashioned writing utensils, and a scrap of paper, on which he replies hastily, before anyone returns and sees what he is doing –

  dearest lady,

  so do you have room to put me up in your home? do you want me to bring anything from new york city, like, i don’t know, some bagels or something? new york is kind of known for its bagels, you know. or maybe you would like some t-shirts that say I ♥ New Jewsey? if it is a problem for me to stay with you, i could bring my own sleeping bag and sleep on the floor – that way i won’t get your sheets dirty! at this point i am hoping to arrive sometime early next week, what i’ll do is, when i get to amsterdam, i’lll take a train to hoek and from there get a taxi right to your day care center. or do you think it is within walking distance? also, what is the weather like right now? should i bring one ‘evening wear’ outfit in case there are clubs or parties we might be going to, or will it all be kind of casual? either way, i look forward to seeing you next week and hope we can work out all the financial stuff once I get there –

  best –

  Almuncle

  And so on and so forth. After all, what the heck did he have to lose? He was fairly certain that this offer, unlike so many others, was sincere, if only because of the picture Lady Aishat had sent him, which was goddamn sexy, though in a demure rather than provocative way. A nice old-fashioned gal.

  Of course then there was the matter of finding a stamp. Mail was always safer, if you could ever get someone to collect a letter. Fortunately in the bottom of the suitcase he had saved some, over the years; nineteen cents, twenty-two cents, thirty-four-cent stamps, on and on, a couple from each era. Only now realizing that in order for there to be enough postage to the Netherlands, my gosh, that would be… what, a hundred eighty dollars or so? And no room on the envelope: he would have to find something larger to put the letter into, but then, of course, the postage would go up, and so many of his stamps were two cents, or three. He shuffles down the stairs. There’s what’s-his-name and what’s-her-face, smooching away on the sofa.

  “Hi, Grandpa Almuncle!” It is Julie, nervously she breaks loose from Cliffort and jumps off the couch. “What are you looking for, can I help?”

  Almuncle is distracted and forgets what he was doing. For a moment he remembers how, when he was young, grown-ups appeared so very old; someone his age must, to Julie, appear like a completely different species, a kind of ancient reptile on the verge of extinction.

  “Believe me, it may seem unbelievable,” he growls. “One of these days you people are going to end up just like me, hah! That is, if you’re lucky! Yup, your breath turns bad, your skin all dried out and wrinkly.”

  How odd it all seems now, how quickly the whole thing went by, none of it ever seeming really life-like. A kind of facsimile or replica. And perhaps the next time around, things would be different. But if there was a next time, what, indeed, would be the point if he couldn’t remember anything from this life? He would simply have to start all over again. “Who’s this inflated amphibian, what are you doing here, sir?”

  “Grandpa? It’s Cliffort, remember? Hello!” She is waving at him, he must have zoned out, what was he doing, anyway?

  “Mr Antrobus,” says Cliffort, “Maybe you’re hungry. I’ll go fix us a little snack, oookay?”

  Now Julie is alone with her grandfather. She tries to hoist her pants. “You promise you won’t repeat this to anyone?”

  “What’s that? No, no, of course not.”

  “So… well, Cliffort was showing me how to shoot, only he didn’t know that I had, like, straight As in munitions and stuff? And so, I think it was because he put his hands on mine, and, and, anyway, it was right after I pulled the trigger that the plane crashed – I didn’t mean to do it!”

  “Oh my gosh, so you were the one who pulled the trigger that brought that plane down? That is terrible. So many people killed! That is something you are never going to be able to forgive yourself for, so many lives destroyed and not just the people that you killed, but all their families!” He loves people, Almuncle thinks, it’s just his own family he can’t stand. Geez, one little nanosecond of fun, one little squirt of jism and he’s supposed to feel related to these offspring and their descendents forever? Even a damn dog wouldn’t bother.

  Julie begins sobbing. She had been so certain Grandpa would reassure her and say it wasn’t her fault, or at least make her feel better. She never would have confided in him if she thought it was going to be like this. “But I… I never…”

  “You never what? You never considered there would be repercussions to your actions? Julie, I don’t think this information is something I can keep to myself. Not when it involves the deaths of so many. I am going to have to have a think. What shall I do?” Meanwhile Julie’s got that gosh-darn red spotted cockaroach climbing over her shoulder waving up its feelers in alarm. “Oh for heaven’s sake, why don’t you keep that thing in a box, you know it’s going to get squished. Here,” he rummages through his treasures, “keep it in this.”

  Snuffles. “What is it?”

  “It’s what they call a matchbox. In the old days you rubbed a wooden stick against the side to make fire.”

  “One stick? I thought they rubbed two together.”

  “Whatever. It was a long time ago, anyway, before people had plumbing.”

  At least her snuffles have diminished. She holds a blistered, blackened finger up to her shoulder. What the heck is wrong with her? The roach steps onto it and she carries it down to the matchbox.

  “Oh, don’t tell anyone, Grandpa, please! You promised! And… and besides, tomorrow’s the day of the big test, can’t you at least wait until after it to decide, the big test will decide my entire life, just about!”

  He agrees he will wait until after it is finished to decide what he should do.

  The big test is the one that all the eighth graders have to take; from the results only a few would be selected, though selected for what, Julie – nor anybody else – doesn’t seem to know.

  Anyway nobody from her school ever was selected, has ever been selected. Being selected is for the rich people who live out West, so why do they even make them take the test? And some of her friends are feeling as sick as she, though others are like, yeah, whatever. Knowing it is all hopeless anyway.

  Of course with her mother, it’s, like, you’d better do well or I’ll kill you; but then her mother would always add, “I don’t know why I bother, you’re going to flunk, I’m sure.”

  A lioness swats her baby for no reason that the cub can determine; so it was with Julie and her mother. But even if she had done fantastically her mother wouldn’t have been able to come up with the money for whatever it was that being selected would cost. She can’t sleep, between worry about the test and what her grandfather is going to do; Julie can hear him and Cliffort talking in the kitchen. Finally she remembers Tahnee has a few pills in her top drawer and she takes a couple of these, which do have a calming effect, so calming, in fact, that she oversleeps.

  By the time Julie arrives at Robert Downey Jr. Junior High she has already missed first period, homeroom. At school the Christian Fundamentalist Survivalist kids are at war with the Iscarians, who believe that Judas Iscariot is the good guy and Christ was a promiscuous Jew, a belief that has become mor
e and more popular. Strip searches are conducted daily on the kids to make sure no munitions are brought into the school. It can take an hour, waiting on line, girls separated from boys, sniffer dogs, and so on.

  On the other hand, in case the Homeland is invaded, every child is given an assault weapon, which you are supposed to keep in your locker. Of course no one does, most of the lockers are too small to hold them, anyway, you can keep it at home. You are supposed to attend weekly practice, but it is so boring. There are ways to fake credit in the course or at least make up for it by going on a two-day sleep-away camp two or three times a year, where, like, you sleep in these bunkers and all the kids get high and stay up all night and almost always some kid gets his or her head blown off or drowns.

  Robert Downey Jr. Junior High was built in the early part of the twenty-first century at a time when there was an unusual numbers of shoot-outs and bombs, and thus had been designed prison/Stalinesque in style, originally supposed to be fifty stories high with offices and stores on the top floors; this had never happened though, nobody wanted to rent office space way out here and the school didn’t have enough money to keep the whole place heated, lit, etc. so now only the first three floors are in use.

  Julie always thinks the sprinkler system in the ceiling was constructed so the place could be flooded if things got really bad or the kids rioted. Then the halls, the cafeteria, the classrooms where no windows can be opened – would fill with water, a giant fish-tank or sewer system, with the kids clawing their way up to the ceiling for the last gasp of air. Trapped even without a flood, so trapped, the smell from the cafeteria wafting down the hall; ancient food steaming for days atop the steam trays; untouched string beans, watery, overcooked; instant mashed potatoes, Salisbury steak, tuna salad, and all of it reeking of peanut butter. Some years back something had gotten screwed up in the laboratory where they grew the school food. Some of the kids majoring in the Chef’s Institute work there, and they say that peanut butter enzyme – or flavoring? – had gotten permanently embedded with all the starter-yeasts so there isn’t one thing that doesn’t taste like peanut-butter. The kids joke about it, peanut butter and hamburger day! Peanut-butter sushi day! There had been a clean up over the summer but… it still hadn’t worked, even with new starter-food spores and growth-medium from the suppliers.