Crystal Eaters

by Shane Jones

  Remy bounces Mom in her arms as she runs. Hundred barks at the end of a street lined with trucks that sell food to long lines of impatient people. A man with a chrome cart sells a product called hot dogs that float in bins of hot water, little puffs of steam rising each time the lid is taken off. The chrome cart has a glossy red hot dog with legs and the hot dog is smiling as a salivating mouth from the right chomps away at the hot dog’s bun-clad body. Remy thinks They put that in their mouths.

  Another rumbling is felt through the soles of their feet, this one larger, this one knocking people to the ground who curse the sky while trying to stand back up. They look to see what new buildings are rising. They scream and laugh and cry. Everyone in the city is insane. Everyone is touching technology. Free space in the city doesn’t exist. Every inch is filled, and from a cloud’s view, it’s all moving like a tidal wave of concrete and blinking lights toward the village.

  “Moms should never be allowed to die because Moms are forever,” says Remy, seemingly to no one, only concentrating on finding the hospital, her eyes trying to read the letters painted on windows. There’s a store that sells just dog food.

  “What?” says Dad.

  “Moms are a void never to be filled.”

  “What are you saying? Slow down.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Are we close?”

  “Just come on.”

  The hospital is a towering white building of glass windows with a glowing +. It’s so white it blinds through the red sky, the blowing filth of the city. Hoards of people stand outside the entrance. It’s hurricane windy but many don’t care. A woman in a wheelchair smokes a cigarette with her hair flying around her head like a baby’s handwriting. She stares blankly ahead until she sneezes blood and smoke and loses her cigarette. A man dressed in green lights another and places it between her lips.

  The earth shakes and blurs and Remy fights back tears as she runs holding her dying mom.

  A half-naked man with his face covered in black crosses stands on a wooden box and yells, “THE SUN IS COMING TO CLEANSE US ALL, HALLELUJAH, THE SUN IS COMING TO CLEANSE US ALL,” and the man selling hot dogs slaps the air. The half-naked man grins and drawn on each tooth is a black cross and the hot dog vendor looks scared. He continues to yell, “THE SUN IS COMING TO CLEANSE US ALL, HALLELUJAH, THE SUN IS COMING TO CLEANSE US ALL.”

  They run down street after street and Remy bleeds as people take pictures and upload videos.

  Another ground trembling, another slight tilting of the universe, another inch the sun pushes in.

  A collective moan as the sky vines with cracks.

  “The sun is to blame,” says a woman named Sharon or Carol or Tammy or Julie or Amy or Mom or Cathy or Kelly. “But you know something, I don’t really know.”

  “Everyone is a falling number,” says Remy. “Get inside, protect yourself.”

  A boy named Joey, the son of Sanders who has recently begun airing political ads claiming victory over the village says, “What’s that?” and points.

  In the center of an intersection a fountain of dirt sprays the sky with a rush like a stream grown after a storm. Men and women scatter away and clog up doorways. A man drops his phone, starts to go back for it, but is pulled away by his wife. Roads split and the earth tilts and those still standing don’t wait to fall. From inside the fountain a giant yellow insect crawls upward.

  “COME ON!” says Remy. “PLEASE COME ON!”

  They sprint down a final area of sidewalk and reach the hospital, the fountain in the intersection still in partial view from the hospital entrance. Mom is going to be saved. There’s a hotel attached to the hospital and there’s a church attached to the hotel and all three are in a race to consume the most sky. Two men dressed in green standing at the sliding glass doors take the blanket and pull the fabric down to reveal her face. Mom will be Mom forever. They call, without emotion, for a stretcher. The woman in the wheelchair smoking, hair in the wind a fighting nest of odd angles, laughs at the sky and then coughs in a way that makes Remy think she’s near zero. The two men look at Remy, ask if she’s okay, and she nods. She hasn’t seen what her feet look like. Mom is safe now, don’t worry about me. One of the men looks Dad up and down, Dad trying to catch his breath, he’s so out of shape, his stomach hurts, his back throbbing. But he also feels a strange kind of opening, something like success because they’ve made it.

  “She’s red because she’s losing her final crystal,” says Remy.

  One of the men turns and looks at her. “What?”

  “She’s a red giant.”

  “What she’s trying to say,” says Dad, “is that she needs an injection, or whatever, to increase her count.”

  “Okay,” says the other man, looking so totally lost that he smiles. “Wait, what?”

  The stretcher arrives. They place Mom on it and enter the hospital. Dad stays outside because he can’t stop looking at what’s happening back in the intersection, the fountain growing taller, getting louder, more people screaming. He’s completely distracted by something he’s never seen before, that no one has seen before, all that dirt blowing into the air with this thing, this yellow insect, coming up and out of it.

  “Wha,” says Dad. “HOLY.”

  There’s another eruption and triangular shapes of street bloom outward from inside the fountain of dirt and the yellow insect rises. It makes a high-pitched whining sound as it struggles to pull itself from the hole. Those on the ground crawl on their stomachs toward building entranceways where people scream to hurry, their heads filled with sci-fi endings. The wind shatters a bank’s ATM window. A man crouches, holds his head, looks for his ATM card with the password LIZ&MONTY. The sun bends pavement. Laughing teens run in place, the wind holding them in place as they sink into the road. The yellow insect drags itself from the hole and becomes a machine with clumps of dirt spilling around it.

  “How is that,” says Dad.

  Two black crystals fall off the back as the yellow machine rights itself with two final flops. The engine buckles with the changing of gears, the whine relaxes to a growl, and a part, looks like a rusty pipe, falls under a tire as the machine moves forward.

  Z. is hunched over the wheel, covered in gunk, dirt still raining down all around him. A few rocks clang off the metal roof. He screams for everyone to get out of his way and swats the air wildly in front of him. The tires leave two trails of dirt clumps shaped like hexagons in the street as he drives, trying to remember where the prison is. Dad steps back, turns, and runs into the hospital.

  Inside, orderlies and patients and doctors and janitors pressed to the walls allow a clear path for Dad to follow. Ahead of him is Remy. The walls are an endless smear of green. Dad has the weird expression of a man terrified but smiling, catching up to her and the wildly swerving stretcher disappearing around corners, then reappearing again and scaring old men glued to the walls, clutching their metal poles on wheels. He runs and feels himself come alive.

  Doors fly open and inside are doctors with rubber-gloved hands. They turn their heads, their bodies not reacting. Free-standing fans blow hot air.

  Then they take Mom in a sudden group effort. A hand grabs Remy’s wrist and she slaps it away, runs to the table where they lay Mom, but Remy is pulled back again, this time by hands all over her body.

  “Easy,” says Dad.

  The doctors in green move in smaller and faster packs around the room. They not only unwrap the blanket, but also put Remy on a table, who fights them off with flailing fists and feet – the feet what they are trying to inspect.

  “Hey,” says Dad. “Be careful with her. Don’t touch her if she doesn’t want you to.”

  Mom on the table is all bone. Her mouth is open under the white lights, her body motionless with electrical cords being attached to her red skin. There’s so many white sheets. There’s so many gray cords and clear bags with clear liquid hanging from metal rods like the old men in the hall had.

  The doctors in gree
n speak a different language.

  A red light beeps in drip-like rhythm.

  A black machine hooked up to Mom warms up with glowing green numbers – 76, 55, 40, 32, 80, 100, 74, 38.

  Dad asks if those are what her count will be.

  The doctors in green ignore him and inspect Remy’s bloodied feet with tweezers. Again Dad speaks up, doesn’t shut down, tells them to stop hurting her. Remy attacks them. She’s so strong. Remy goes limp and slides off the table and runs to the door leaving behind bloody footprints.

  “Give her one hundred,” says Dad. “Please give her one hundred.”

  1

  Driving in a straight line at a steady rate of speed, oblivious to his surroundings, machine maxed out and containing black crystals, Z. leaves the intersection of screaming people, burning buildings, blowing garbage, and heads to the prison. He finds the path the Brothers previously walked and the prison comes into focus through the swirling dirt in the final sky.

  The guards see him coming from the prison windows. They’ve waited for this. They run down and open the gate. Little Karl drops his book.

  He stops the machine and the guards circle around and begin inspecting the crystals. The only shine to Z. is a few clean teeth in his smiling head. One guard takes a razor, peels a layer of crystal off, and places it on his tongue. He smiles, says it’s the right stuff, and Z. says as long as it’s the right stuff he’ll take them home.

  Jug knocks on a crystal to hear if it’s hollow, fake. He says this must be what remains and the ground trembles. He pats the largest piece and gives Z. a thumbs up.

  The Brothers exit the prison shielding their eyes. Some limp and many have bruises ringing their necks. They straighten their curved backs and stand upright in the sunlight and then they do something Z. has never experienced before: applaud. The guards, his Brothers, and the village inmates walking from the prison all clap, whistle, and shout, and Z. bows and puts a hand in the air like Okay, thank you, thank you very much, you don’t have to do this you can stop now, but he’s so overwhelmed with emotion, he’s been through so much, that his eyes fill with tears as he listens to the applause. He lets it wash over him. He notices how young the guards are. There’s admiration in their eyes, and they keep shouting his name, and one guy makes an odd hooting noise while jumping and pumping a fist, and some guards slap Z.’s back and two guards, one for each leg, try to lift him up but they’re too weak. Jug says he will be remembered forever now and the applause grows louder, seems to shake the ground. Jug will get his applause later. Z. takes another bow and smiles, this time blushing, not crying, this time thinking I did it, yes. He tries to guess the ages of the youngest guards.

  Tall, scrawny, blond ponytail with top shaved head, Pants McDonovan exits the prison last. He claps and squints in the sun he hasn’t felt in years. He licks his lips and tastes dirt and to him it tastes good, real. His skin looks dented. Black pools under both eyes, no sleep. When he sees a piece of black crystal he thinks about chomping down on a big edge right there but his lungs burn as they adjust to the air and he stands with both hands on his chest.

  The guards carry the crystals inside. They walk hunched over in wide stances slobbering and pushing their crotches against it. There’s enough for a lifetime and it’s what they’ll do, forever. They’ll add inmates to keep the game going. Jug thinks about the party they will throw for him with no limits on coffee or donuts.

  “Saw your Dad,” says Z. “I was driving so fast and there was so much dirt and I’m so tired, but I think it was him walking into the hospital. We did it.”

  “How is everything not on fire,” says Pants. “Are you sure?”

  “He was standing outside the hospital next to a woman in a wheelchair.”

  “My head hurts.”

  “We’re going to be remembered.”

  “But I don’t feel alive.”

  “I never thought in a million years the black crystal existed. You should feel more than alive.”

  “What’s a hospital? Was he okay?”

  “It’s a place people go to get injected with crystals,” interrupts Bobby T., who stands but keeps losing his balance, his legs bruised from being hacked with batons, the ground again shaking. “I read that in Death Movement. He’s in trouble.”

  “Listen,” says Arnold, interrupting. “A hospital is suppose to help people. And Bobby T. is right, you should hurry.”

  “Where is it?”

  0

  Remy kicks a doctor in the throat. She’s been kicking doctors in the throat. The doctor falls backward and slips in her blood. She spins and ducks from the grip of the others. She reaches for the door again.

  Here he comes, dazed, light-headed, worried-eyebrows, never seen a place like this before, Brother.

  “Who is this?” says one of the doctors. “Is he friend or family? SECURITY!”

  “Adam,” says Remy.

  His orange jumpsuit is covered in black holes of sweat. He walks with a limp. His hair is matted with crusted blood from landing on a concrete floor. Transparent skin. His overall look is what you’d imagine someone to look like who spent days in solitary confinement, little light. Remy wraps her arms around his thighs and they both want to believe that their counts rise. They both want to slip backward in time, and together, here holding each other in the hospital with everything around them fogging away in green dream, they feel like children again. Adam pats Remy’s head and kisses her. She imagines each pat adding one inside her. She feels so good in the swirling moment that the outside world is obliterated, it’s just them now, they are together and bright now.

  Adam looks at Dad and smiles, then sees Mom on the table and realizes nothing is wrong with Dad at all, it’s Mom, that’s why they are here. It’s been Mom this entire time. He’s known this. He walks to the side of the table where she is, where a few doctors continue to work. One doctor stands against the wall. He’s on the phone with the police. Each step is floating, as if walking through connected tunnels of dream. Adam touches her face with the backside of his hand and combs her hair to the one side it wants to go. He leans over, almost falls onto the table, and the doctors give space.

  He slides his arms under and around her body, the hospital sheets cool against his skin, dirt cracking off his forearms. He lifts her from the table until his body and her body touch with her head resting on his shoulder. She weighs nothing. She is nothing. Against his ear her breathing sounds like mouth-blown mud. She smells sour with something inside burning and leaving. All her life, all her numbers, have led up to this point, this hospital reckoning. She’s trying to remember all the good moments. She’s trying to make sense of it all.

  Remy walks over and supports Mom’s head with her hands.

  “It’s okay,” Adam says to Mom.

  Her breathing gets louder.

  “I’m here,” he says.

  He’s a good one. He’s a good one he’s a good one I knew he’d be a good one he’s a good one.

  Her body jolts forward.

  “No,” says Adam. “I have you.”

  There’s a Mom breath so deep that her chest expands into his chest. He feels the connection, the beating, the whatever it is inside them that makes them what they are. Two of the doctors nod and unhook wires.

  “Call it,” says a doctor snapping off his gloves. “What’s everyone doing for lunch?”

  “11:11 on her.”

  “I could eat.”

  Remy points to her feet.

  Red slush. It flows from Mom’s back and oozes off the edges of the table and drips warm on Remy’s feet. She’s never seen a color so bright. The twin horses appear in the center of the room and tell her it’s time to go and she opens her eyes for the last time against Adam’s chest and her mouth falls open. Hundred the dog howls from the sidewalk surrounded by cops looking at the sky. Remy taps Adam on his shoulder, who is connected to Mom because he still holds her, he can’t let go, and they are connected to Dad who stands on the other side of the bed squee
zing Mom’s hand and it’s true, the sun is here.

  Two Dollar Radio MOVING PICTURES

  On an overcast Wednesday afternoon, Patrick N. Allen took his own life. He is survived by his father, Patrick, Sr.; his step-mother, Patricia; his step-sister, Patty; and his twin brother, Seth.

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