by James Newman
Three generations of Chinese stood behind the counter. Behind them jars and bottles of dried herbs, tablets and medicines. Coiled centipedes and pickled snakes in bottles of alcohol, benzodiazepines, opioids, Alka-Seltzer and menthol inhalers line the shelves. Tree bark, dried roots and sacred leaves, the smell of dust and carbolic, rodents scurrying in dark places, as a ceiling fan rattles and hums.
Thiamine and vitamin C, 1000 milligrams and a Chinese Leopard brand cough syrup, scopolamine tincture along with ethanol alcohol. Reached to take the Leopard brand, a warm sensation tore through my head and through the hand like an electrical current. Hand whipped away from the Leopard brand, a startled snake quivering like Alien Hand Syndrome. Trying again, something inside pulsed, the pulsing increased as fingers came closer to the bottle unable to make contact with it I fell to my knees. A disco in my head, a nightclub full of thieves and pimps and Moroccan whores, the lights flashing, disco ball, shards of light, stabbing like a junkshop stiletto. Chinese shout at one another as the light intensifies with a sudden desire for darkness, a longing for solitude, a dark lonely room; isolation. The youngest picked up the bottle of Leopard brand and moving to the other side of the counter crouching down handed it to me. Hands would not take it. Crumpled to the ground in defeat, the young Chinese took the purchase and replaced it on the shelf before placing the two dollars on the counter. Stood, took the money and swiveled on my heels and walked out of the pharmacy, the implant pulsing as I walked through the zone.
This thing won’t let me buy drugs.
Entering the Red Zone, I put the pieces together, slowly, like an awful jigsaw puzzle. Ugly pieces, hideous connections, the doctor spoke of a brain implant, Kurt’s body destroyed at the foot of The Sea View, the spider in his grip as he fell, Hugh’s collapse at The Mermaid.
The nearest bar was something called The Poker Den. Inside a single strip light flickered. The English ambassador drank rum at the bar while toying with the Express crossword. Eyes squinted in concentrated drunkenness. The world is peopled, we all know, with folks pretending to be nice to each other. Smiling and handshaking, bullshit compliments, and large black cloaks opening as the smile above widens, knowing full well that the animal instinct inside them is to hurt and destroy perceived enemies with that polished blade inside the cloak. Replacing the perceived enemy is the ugly animal’s primal goal. The ugly animal is of course human. Divide and conquer. Wave a card trick in one hand while slitting a man’s throat with the other. The animal instinct is to reproduce and slaughter, and not feel guilt while doing so. The moralists, the Churches, technology all try to turn the animal around and change the way it barks and the way it humps lampposts and the way it reads poems in dirty bars, heads spun, hands shook, the animal snarls displaying cruel white eye teeth. Headaches were cultivated. Manifestos nurtured. The barmaid wore pigtails and frowned as she wiped the bar with a dirty rag. I ordered a Tiger Sweat, and what else could I do?
Lights flashed, the implant, the spider throbbed, and buzzed, head, mini explosions. Disco lights, a spear impaled through my brain, chest tightness with the hunger of insects in dry places, the dry clicking of wings. An invisible band of leather tightens the chest. Birds sing as the sun goes slowly down in forgotten places. Paid for the drink and left the full glass there on the bar.
Turned to face the ambassador and said, “What have they done to my brain?”
The ambassador smiled. “Time to give it a rest, old boy,” he said, sipping on his drink and smiling coldly returned to his crossword he did.
“Anybody ever tell you about human rights?”
“Overstated, I’d say,” the ambassador replied meekly returning to the crossword, a left eyebrow rose once more. “What has six letters, begins with an F, and is often used as a derogatory adjective?”
I stood and walked out of the place.
Searching along the Red Zone... Who? Where? When?
What else could I do but use, use with food?
Took a right and then another and entered a restaurant peddling British style fish and chips.
A dark skinned native walked over and took the order down. Battered sausage and chips evoked London days. Watched the youth languidly drop the food into the fryer. Tribal earing and a maze of tattoos probably cooling off by the fryer, a brutish stint inside behind him now. Youth had that downward smile brought about no doubt by the comedowns of methamphetamine and whorish wayward girlfriends. No doubt, I was overanalyzing.
The order arrived. Put the knife through the sausage to reveal an uncooked pink meat. Shards of ice glistened inside the batter.
“Hey, boy, come over here,” spoke in the local tongue.
“What now?” the kid said sullenly.
“What did you do to my sausage?”
“What?”
“I said what did you do to my food? It’s raw.”
“You want to order more?”
“No, I don’t want to order more.” Stood and made an attempt to confront the youth, but again the lights and the mind reeled, fell back into my seat. Lights flashed and danced before my eyes. Paid the money and returned to the street.
Eyes scanning.
I can’t fight with this thing in my head.
Made it to the office. Six rats had been trapped, two were dead from poison, the others slowly dying. Collapsed into the office chair and fell into an angry slumber. Spiders wrestled with scorpions, centipedes crawled across the ceiling. The doorbell rang. The same counterfeit shirt as before. It seemed like weeks ago but it was only a couple of days. Ushered the client inside the office. Sloane looked at the various rats in various stages of decomposition and gagged into a handkerchief.
“It’s complicated,” I explained. “I went back to the trombone-players apartment. My money says he’s sleeping with her and what’s more, there’s more than a little drug experimentation taking place. I had to work under-cover, win their confidence. My advice is to get her out of town. To one of those detox temples. She’s messed up. Frankly, she might not make it on her own in the city. I’ve seen the start of the spiral too many times.” I sat down and opened a desk drawer. “And there’s this,” I recorded the audio. Pressed a button on my life-enhancer and the file bleeped over to his.
The client chewed it over. “I’m getting out of town,” he said. “I’ve seen enough already.”
“How is she?”
“I have no idea. I haven’t seen her.”
“Really?”
“No, I take it she has made her choice. I just needed the evidence. Now I have the evidence,” he said.
“Right.”
The bell on the door rang as the client left the office. Took another look at the dead and dying rats.
I guess she HAD made her choice.
TWENTY-SEVEN
ROOM 303.
A window looking over Happy Street.
First came the tremors, then the shakes, then the sweats and cramps, and an overwhelming impossible thirst. Then the visions came. The ghosts of my past haunted the room. Mother was crazy and tearful, dressed in a filthy towel dressing gown, smoking an 8 am cigarette and drinking a coffee liberally spiked with Bells. Father was wearing a suit and a tie, leaving him that morning, his final words – “You’re old enough to take care of her now, kid.” Brother, who had died in infancy, his cold hands touching mine as he slid away to the other side. The White Flamingo and the trail of dead women, old Vern, Katrina, Shogun, Francis and Monica hovered around the hotel room both warning and mocking with awful grotesque gestures and inaudible words. The mouths moved, but from them came no words, no, just a constant humming and this, this stench of unavoidable doom. The abused keep secrets and the abusers make sure they are kept. No one understood the undertrodden like the undertrodden. Clock hands slowly turning painful seconds a cruel reminder of the impossibility of an afternoon; cold sickness had me then.
On the second day, I called Kelly who brought fruits and boiled chicken-over-rice Singapore style with stock soup made from t
he boiled carcass and bones.
Kelly massaged the knots in my legs and back. She waited until my eyes closed and the breathing became slow and regular before she left the Penny Black Hotel as quietly as she had arrived.
The third day awoke with sun shining through the gaps in the blinds chancing shadows to dance across the room, flickering like prison bars.
Fourth day fell back on the street sick and thirsty. Water mixed with rehydration salts and electrolytes, coconut water and chicken noodle soup bought from the noodle stand beside the Siamese twin’s bar. I’d walk past that bar and wonder about all the possibilities inside it. Gordon’s gin, Jack, good old Jack, Snake wine and sour Baileys. Beers in an icebox and a pool table upstairs where the hostesses had been known to bury as many hearts as balls. The bar was stuck in time, the same paisley wallpaper peeling from the walls since ‘72. A few customers were still stuck behind that eight-ball trying to figure out the next move, out of pocket, wondering if to take a jump from their hotel balcony or take a flight back to the place where it all went wrong.
In Room 303, the wallpaper danced its usual dance and the television had nothing much to say. By the fifth day, the anxiety had fallen down a level manageable.
I was ready to hit the street.
TWENTY-EIGHT
MY FEET led me on that third day to the Street of Dead Artists and to the old shop with dusty photographs displayed in the window. A ferret approached the shop window and standing upright on its two hind feet, stood erect, twitching.
Lonely couples stranded in the city.
Black and whites; sepias, bleak postcards from the edge; lost missives of despair.
The old man opened the door. I followed him inside. “You must work the case. It is the only way. The method and the person to remove the device lays underground. Out of sight of the Eye and Ear of the City.”
“The Resistance... And Trixie?”
“Find her. See if what they say is true. How can you trust the word of the street? Find out for yourself. Here,” he passed over a book, “it is a rough translation of the epic. Take it with you. Work the case, read the book at night before you sleep and maybe the answer will come in one of your dreams.”
“Thank you.”
“Travel with care and danger. Do not take the easy path. Take the path that the French boy took up until the path took him to the edge.”
The sun was gently falling below the large FUN CITY sign in the hills. Kurt was leading me deeper towards the unknown, towards Jimmy, and towards the Punch, towards the Push.
Made it into the Siamese twin’s bar where Hale was playing darts by himself. I tapped his shoulder. “News on your kid, Hugh,” he smiled. “Rich kid was a big hit on the nightlife scene but had recently vanished from his social circle. Like he couldn’t pick up the glass or these terrible headaches would grip him,” Hale threw the first dart hitting a double twenty.
“There’s something going around,” I said.
“Well, the body was taken from the hospital and claimed by the embassy only after a matter of hours. The case was of special security concern according to a friend at the consulate. Looks like some kind of cover-up. Another friend at the hospital managed to slip me a copy of this.” Hale threw a two shot, took a long pull on his beer, and handed over an envelope. I opened it and took out a head x-ray. I put it up to what light there is in the Siamese twins and looked at it.
“Any ideas,” Hale asked.
“Well, it looks to be a foreign object implanted into the central cortex. Either that or he swallowed a metal chopstick.”
“Possible?”
“Unlikely,” I continued, “I’ve read about these brain implants. They have them for nerve disorders such as Parkinson’s. I wonder if one could make a person catatonic.”
“Just a case of knowing which buttons to push,” Hale threw his last dart landing on the triple twenty. He clenched his fist and smiled victoriously.
“Send a picture of the x-ray to my life-enhancer account, Hale. I need to pay a visit to the theater. Find out what you can about the implant and especially about how to have it removed. Who has the technology? Who has the knowhow? Where was this thing developed?”
Stood and walked through the doors, outside in the street a youth walked past with a Burmese python wrapped around his neck and upper body. A stall sold hotdogs to a battalion of hungry citizens, up above them, the Eye watched down knowingly.
TWENTY-NINE
SOME MEN were portraits. Others were caricatures. Kurt was more like a sketch. I listened to his record from ear buds wired to the Whisper2000. Walked the streets around the beach. His apartment building stood eerily quiet. I decided to keep treating the case like a missing person’s case. A part of him, like Hugh, had been missing. I was searching for the person he used to be. The one he was before the change that led to his fall. No doubt, he had received the implant. Had he tried to have it removed? The only way to find out was to follow his movements, be one with his interests. Follow him. Attend the plays. Fall into the City’s art scene.
THE THEATER BIZARRE
8 p.m.
If you hope to make progress on a case, either a missing person’s case, or a suspect suicide case or any case, you have to breathe like the subject breathed, live as he lived. Follow his footsteps.
The Theater Bizarre was one of the few outdoor places in Fun City where, due to a crafty piece of legislation, the actors were immune from immoral credit deduction. It took the shape and form of a Shakespearean theater with a stage at the front ground level with tiered seating to the front and both sides. The audience was a mixed bag. Next to me sat a woman with wrinkled skin the color of olives. She would have been hot something twenty years ago, but now she was sucking on the filter end of a career in seduction, dwelling no doubt, on her dogged past and all its losses. In front of her, two small Japanese women with backpacks sat with eyes pinned to the stage. A Finnish netball team in matching sports shorts stretched out cat-like flexing toned muscles and smooth tanned skin layered with a fine layer of blond body hair. A few freaks peppered the attendance. Some I recognized from the Very Special People Bar. One, a large African male dressed in a bright orange safari suit with a desert fox on a short leash. Now and again, he would whisper something into the fennec’s erect ears, causing the animal inquisitively to cock its head to the side as the handler nodded sagely at the wisdom from the sands.
The theater was open at the top and lit partially by floodlights and partially by the starry Fun City night. The actors were about to start. Members of the crew issued demands and made final adjustments to the set.
It was about to happen.
I glanced at the program.
THE RAT TRAP
A group of angry rodents discusses the traps, both real and metaphoric that are laid out for them. In the tradition of the situationist plays of the nineteen thirties, this postmodern production examines the animal, human condition, and deconstructs our views on the civilian status quo. Written in collaboration by Elizabeth Stride and Harry Cripps this production has been performed all across the world as part of the Traveling Truth Continuing Circus Troupe.
The curtains open.
Five men dressed in rat costumes, flapping ears and furry bodies stand equally spaced in a circle around a large human sized rattrap. The trap is baited with hundred dollar notes piled inside and held tight.
RAT ONE: It’s a trap.
RAT TWO: This I can see. But is there a way of manipulating the trap?
RAT ONE: Perhaps.
RAT THREE: Why doesn’t one of us see if the money can be removed from the trap without the trap being activated?
RAT ONE: Are you volunteering?
RAT THREE: No, I am simply discussing the options.
RAT ONE: Do we even need the money? After all, we are rats? Are we as stupid to think that if the trap tells us that we need the money then the money must be worth something?
RAT TWO: All money’s worth something to somebody?
RAT THREE: Perhaps this is how the class system works?
RAT ONE: Sure, right. The poor and hungry rat is told that he can liberate the contents of the cage. He can free the money. The only cost might be that of his own life and what is that, the life of a little rat, in the whole big picture?
RAT TWO: Is this abstract thinking?
RAT THREE: I think so. I’m not sure. I’m just a rat.
RAT ONE: (Breaking into song) ...We are rats because we are told that we are rats, by the makers and baiters of these here traps. A rat is a rat is a rat...
RAT TWO: Yes, maybe we are not rats after all?
RAT THREE: Maybe we are...
SOUND EFFECTS of an alarm bell ringing. Industrial techno music fills the theater and the three rats begin to bump and grind. Lights flash as the sound system rocks the theater.
The three rats strip off their costumes, and look at one another. Human beneath the costumes, two male figures and a female figure dance suggestively. Next, they strip off their clothes, pelvic thrusts and feminine groans fill the auditorium as the rats fuck in the must degrading positions imaginable.
ALL THREE RATS: We are what we are. Don’t let them tell us what we are!
SCENE TWO: Three humans sit around a table at The Savoy. They drink cocktails and nibble at French cheese.
A string quartet plays Bach.
HUMAN ONE: Are they arguing about who gets the money again?
HUMAN TWO: But of course, it’s all they ever do. Then they get bored of arguing and decide to become drunk and vulgar. It is how the lower classes roll. It is vulgar and loathsome but we need them, old boy, that’s the problem.
HUMAN THREE: Haven't they noticed that they're all subject to the same economic fate whether they get the money or not?
HUMAN TWO: No, no, no, old boy, they only worry about things our newspapers and TV stations tell them to worry about. And we all know who controls those (chuckles.) They will wake up hungover and scheme over how to grasp the impossible again.
HUMAN ONE: Excellent. They're just a dumb as ever.