The Late Bloomer

by Falkin, Mark;

  KJL: I’m sorry. What did you just say to me?

  KGM: Not your fault. I don’t know. Maybe they want to keep us.

  KJL: C’mon. Keep us? For what? I don’t think their intentions are sinister. I really don’t. I think they’re very confused.

  KGM: Yeah, but…it doesn’t feel right. It never has. I’ve offered to help. We’ve offered. They don’t take us up on it.

  KJL: But I don’t—

  KGM: They’re too different now. I think what we are is in the way. They’ve been battling against something since day one. Now that I’m here, this doesn’t feel right. I’m telling you.

  KJL: Kevin, then why didn’t they just destroy us when they had the chance? Why did they stop that night, kill Bastian, and leave us? Just us?

  KGM: If I knew that…Maybe they want us to reproduce for them. Create an underclass, a slave race.

  KJL: Oh, you’re being silly.

  KGM: I’m not trying to be silly.

  KJL: They brought me here, they brought you here, why separately, I don’t know. Clearly they fear you, but respect you on another level. Otherwise they would have brought us together. Oh, this is such guesswork. I don’t know.

  KGM: Why bring us at all? Have you tried to talk to them about why?

  KJL: Of course. I’ve asked and asked. They don’t answer. I don’t think they know.

  KGM: I don’t think so either.

  [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KJL: I am not defending them! I’m just not seeing the facts the same way you are. You haven’t been here. You haven’t seen.

  KGM: They’ve been saving you. You’re pregnant. I think they used you to lure me down here. These repeated dreams where I’m sleeping. They seem so real. I dream I’m sleeping in this chrysalis thing and I’m tossing and stretching. Gestating.

  KJL: Yeah, and…honestly, Kevin.

  KGM: What? You’re looking at me with a duh face.

  KJL: You’ve been having dreams of me being pregnant. A typical man, you’re terrified of fatherhood. Hel-lo? Attention. Calling Dr. Freud. Dr. Sigmund Freud. Please pick up a white courtesy phone.

  KGM: Heh. But, I was dreaming that even before we did it. Know what I think?

  KJL: What?

  KGM: I think they need to keep us alive and breeding so that when they get old enough they can crossbreed with our offspring and…it’s like they’re haploids and we’re haploids. This beginning stuff.

  KJL: You’re guessing.

  KGM: Of course I’m guessing. And you’re not? You want to stick around and find out? What life will we have here?

  KJL: At least we’ll have one.

  [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KGM: I’ve never said I’m sure. Not about anything. But, if they really needed saving, you’d think there’d be a sense of urgency. They’d ask.

  KJL: Looks like they’re celebrating down there. They’re gonna pop the question tonight: Sir…

  KGM: Of course, they’re Dickensian street kids. Pardon me, but suh…

  KJL: Right. Heh. Suh, will you ’elp us?

  KGM: [laughing]

  KJL: Why do you have to see this as bad? You’ve been advocating the theory that this is all evolution. An abrupt jump.

  KGM: I never told you that.

  KJL: You didn’t?

  KGM: No. I told this that. [thumping the microphone]

  KJL: Huh. No, in the car you said…Oh, shit. Let’s say they do need us to mix with them, to state it crudely.

  KGM: No other way to state it. Let’s not be politically correct here. Talk about old world.

  KJL: So, let’s just say. Why is that a bad thing? What are our choices?

  KGM: I don’t know. I’ve not known anything for sure since the day I was born.

  KJL: Except that your mother loved you.

  KGM: Okay. Sure.

  KJL: And now you know that I do.

  KGM: [pause] Back ’atcha, kid. I’m making pistol fingers and winking one eye.

  KJL: Be serious for a moment.

  KGM: Kodie, there are whales on fire up the beach and into the night more numerous than I can count. Hundreds of thousands, maybe a million, kids on the beach among them, surrounding us. It’s serious.

  KJL: Yes, but you’re not.

  KGM: That’s because I’m scared. When I’m scared I get unserious. You need to know that about me if we’re going to repopulate the earth.

  KJL: So say it then.

  [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KGM: I love you, Kodie. How would you ever not know that? [pause] You’re smiling self-righteously.

  KJL: I do. It’s just nice to hear you say it. [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KGM: We sit above them on the seawall, watching the fires, the silhouettes of children moving around them, noiseless. A silent million children groping for something in the dark. Winter’s come here to the beach and they are cold in the sand. She puts her head on my shoulder and we watch them move under a sky of stars and a moon so pure and bright that it makes a silver trail on the ocean leading to the shore and us. A pathway to the fathomless deep.

  KJL: Wanted to be a writer, eh?

  KGM: Still can be.

  KJL: Who’ll buy your books? Doubt they read much.

  KGM: I will write for myself. The craft is its own reward.

  KJL: Ah, the mythical artiste.

  KGM: I will write love sonnets for you. Batting your eyes again.

  KJL: I kid. I’d love to hear one of your sonnets.

  KGM: In time, me lady. [sighs; pause] These kids are humorless. Boring. Ain’t got no soul.

  KJL: Ever heard of a collective soul?

  KGM: One-hit wonders?

  KJL: No dummy, the—

  KGM: Yes yes. You’re being pseudo-intellectual. You don’t know crap about it. You’re just dropping the concept on me you read online from clickbait.

  KJL: You’re totally right. Cosmo Online. O Magazine.

  KGM: She wraps an arm around me.

  KJL: [Snort]

  KGM: She laughs.

  KJL: Dear reader can hear that I’m laughing.

  KGM: Oh. Right.

  KJL: Speaking of souls. You remember when Bastian said he saw that ghost in the Driskill?

  KGM: Yep.

  KJL: Think he was lying?

  KGM: Why would he?

  KJL: So you believe he saw that woman ghost on the top floor.

  KGM: Yes, I think he saw her.

  KJL: So, you believe in ghosts.

  KGM: Didn’t say that.

  KJL: You’re saying you think he thinks he saw her.

  KGM: Yeah, that’s right.

  KJL: But you don’t really believe in the truth of the matter asserted.

  KGM: Run that by me again.

  KJL: Dad was a lawyer. Sorry. What Bass said she said to him is hearsay.

  KGM: Right. I guess. You’re losing me. I’m only a pseudo-intellectual. A little slow.

  KJL: He claimed to have witnessed something. He told us about his experience. But you don’t believe him.

  KGM: I believe he saw it. But whether or not it was really there I don’t know for sure, no.

  KJL: You ever see George Washington?

  KGM: No.

  KJL: Um…you ever see gravity?

  KGM: Uh, no.

  KJL: But you believe George Washington lived and you believe gravity to be a real phenomenon.

  KGM: Yes.

  KJL: Why?

  KGM: Because I read about them in books. Saw it on the TV.

  [laughter; sounds like she slaps him o
n the arm]

  KJL: Because someone told you. Right?

  KGM: I get you.

  [pause][sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KGM: Why do you ask about that, though? Bastian’s ghost.

  KJL: Dunno. I’ve had a lot of time here to myself. It’s just been rolling around in my mind. He was so certain. I believed him. I guess it’s just kind of weird that you don’t.

  KGM: Didn’t say that.

  KJL: It’s just…you. You don’t believe this…

  KGM: You’re waving you’re arms around above your head—

  KJL: —Stop it. You don’t believe that all that’s happened is any more than some evolutionary-slash-extinction event. A natural occurrence.

  KGM: Didn’t say I don’t believe. I’m not sure, okay? Jespers was a scientist. He discovered something, or thought he did, and he brought others in, but what happened that morning? I don’t think he or any of them saw that coming.

  [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KJL: The agnostic who peddles through graveyards. The agnostic paddling down a flooded river at the behest of nubile throngs.

  KGM: Sticks and stones.

  KJL: You’re a mystic. That’s what you are, Kevin March.

  KGM: Oh, shush you.

  KJL: I mean, they made you come here on a boat! [laughs] And you’re like oh, okay…

  KGM: You left me that note!

  KJL: They made me, apparently. I don’t recall, Senator. But I’m glad I did. I didn’t tell you to come by boat.

  KGM: They didn’t give me a choice. You’re saying there’s a reason.

  KJL: There has to be one. A vision quest. Preparing you. On a donkey from the desert.

  KGM. Oh, c’mon.27 There’s no risen Lazarus here.

  KJL: Not what Bass thought. He was a dead man.

  KGM: But he wasn’t. And neither were you.

  KJL: Whatever you say. What you say and what you believe are different things. [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KGM: Kodie, look…I was trying to get out of Austin in a police car. They stopped me. Your note. Your handwriting. There’s the kayak. No other way out. What was I to do?

  KJL: Nuh-uh. You were driving around in a police car?

  KGM: It’s all on here. [tapping at microphone] Later, okay?

  KJL: You honestly think there’s no reason they stop you from going by car but then do nothing when you go by a kayak they obviously set out for you? That they’re just scared and acting bizarre?

  KGM: You tell me what it is when their freaking skin connects.

  KJL: What? What do you mean their skin connects?

  KGM: When I tried to drive out of Austin in my police car, over on Forty-Fifth and Airport, they huddled and drew together and as I rolled toward them the…white stuff jumped between them like webbing, started pulling them tighter. To form a wall.

  KJL: Jesus.

  KGM: Yeah, that’s what I said. They really didn’t want me leaving that way. I mean, I saw that28 and I freaked out, threw it into reverse.

  [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KGM: Cars, roads, all the old-world ways…they don’t…I never told you this, but the morning of, I was sitting up at Mount Bonnell and I saw this wave come up the lake. Just this one rolling wave and it kept on going north, under the bridge. I know it came from here. I heard that awful sound, and then that wave came upriver.

  KJL: But there’s that dam there…[fingers snapping] what’s it called, uh…

  KGM: I know. This is what I’m saying. I was meant to see that wave from that vantage. I knew right then that I would go back down the river just as that wave came up. That I would come to meet whatever it was that made it come up. And that I’d do it alone.

  KJL: You just admitted it. Meant to see. You’re shrugging and looking down at your lap. You’re nodding.

  [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KJL: That’s why they didn’t bring us together. You had presaged this.

  KGM: I’d dreamed it. Last summer.

  KJL: Okay, you dreamed it.

  KGM: Vaguely. Whenever I did, Johnny came into my room peeing down his leg, sleepwalking and mumbling.

  KJL: Kevin. They key off you. If things don’t go as you saw that it would, they can’t let it happen.

  KGM: Sounds pretty woo-woo.

  KJL: Whales on fire? A million kids down there. Pretty woo-woo. [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KGM: So, there I am, on that boulder and I’m questioning things pretty mightily because I had just smoked a bowl, you know? Her comely silhouette nods in the dark against a thousand fires, the smell of charred whale flesh and burning blubber oil all around us. The constant ocean curling in, hissing, the gulls’ laments, the boom and scrape of the dead behemoths against the pier reaching out into the dark sea.

  KJL: Nice.

  KGM: [laughter] I didn’t know the world was ending, per se. I just knew something had changed, it was big, and that I’d be here at the river’s end before too long. Then, I didn’t even know the Colorado came here. I just knew I’d be going the other direction that wave came from. So here I am.

  KJL: Prophetic mystical you. Graveyard cyclist, paddler of swollen unknown rivers.

  [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KJL: It’s like the earth was hit by something and the wave was the aftershock.

  KGM: No asteroid, though.

  KJL: No earthquakes, tsunamis. Killer virus. Lions tigers bears.

  KGM: Just white stuff emitting from your lungs, cementing in your windpipe. Billions. Within an hour or so of dawn.

  KJL: [long exhalation]

  KGM: Lions tigers bears don’t make you commit sui—

  KJL: Let’s not even…okay? That’s one thing I’ve thought about a lot here in my museum home behind glass. I can’t understand it. It makes me very very sad.

  KGM: Okay. Me too.

  [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KGM: Hell if they weren’t adamant about me coming by river.

  KJL: And you came. [sniffing]

  KGM: I came for you. You’re nodding. [KJL sniffing]

  KJL: I left a note. [her voice breaking up with crying]

  KGM: You did.

  KJL: [through crying] Love you.

  KGM: Love you. [KGM sniffing]

  [long pause][sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KGM: You cold?

  KJL: A little.

  KGM: Let’s go up to the nature center. You can show me your digs.

  KJL: Oh, they’re impressive.

  KGM: C’mon, Maggie. Bet you’re hungry huh? Speaking of—

  KJL: Oh, they always leave me something. I’ve eaten a whole lot of flame-broiled fish. And sometimes fruit. Good, too. They can cook, the mutes.

  KGM: Fruit? Where they getting that?

  KJL: Don’t know. South Texas. Lots of agriculture down here.

  KGM: It’s November. There’s nothing on trees right now. Harvests are way over.

  KJL: Dunno.

  KGM: What, they’ve raided grocery stores and farm storage? Not very new world of them.

  KJL: Dunno.

  KGM: How are they surviving? Where are they crapping?

  KJL: Oh, well, that’s over there. The stone-age mutes at least know a thing or two about pits and fire.

  KGM: You don’t say.

  KJL: How do you mean?

  KGM: The bodies.


  KJL: Really?

  KGM: Big ones, outside the cities. I watched them doing it.

  [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KJL: Doubt they’ll leave a care package for Maggie.

  KGM: Yeah, doubt that. Let’s walk.

  [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying; sounds of footfalls on sand, on rock, sandy shoes scratching on cement]

  KGM: You sure it’s mine?

  KJL: Kevin.

  [scratching on cement stops; sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  Yes.

  KGM: Nobody else even possible?

  KJL: No. Stop it. Turn that off.

  KGM: Hold on. Let’s keep it rolling for the record. ’Case I gotta go to court to fight paternity and child support.

  KJL: Kevin . . .

  KGM: She said with anger.

  KJL: [sighs]

  KGM: How far along?

  KJL: We did it once. Rainy day at my place. That long.

  KGM: How…do you know?

  [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KJL: I just know.

  KGM: Well, I mean, how? Did the kids take you to a drugstore to get a pregnancy test kit?

  KJL: No.

  KGM: So, how? Explain it to me. The assumed father must know these things.

  [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

  KJL: I’ve been pregnant before.

  KGM: Oh—

  KJL: Yeah.

  KGM: So, you just, know.

  KJL: Yeah. They’ve been taking extra special care of me because of it, I think. They know. Kids know a mother. It’s in their body language. A general genuflecting.

  KGM: It’s only been a few weeks. Can you really be so sure?

  KJL: Brutal morning sickness.

  KGM: You’ve been spending your days with whale carcasses. Could make you wanna barf.

  KJL: I’m craving stuff I don’t like. For example, you know I’m a vegetarian. But I’m wanting steak. Werewolf-hungry for it. I’m peeing a lot, shortness of breath, tits hurt. Missed my period. Let’s see, what else?

  KGM: Okay, all right. Condom failure, huh?

  KJL: It happens. Also, get this. That morning, the day of, when you came to find me at the store, besides the baseball bat, the other thing I had in my hand was a pregnancy test.