Conscience

by John Skipp

  ...and for a long flowing moment, hilarity ensues, and it seems like all of us are in on the joke. Everybody laughing, from the boys to the ball...

  Then someone kicks me in the back. And it all turns bad.

  And I let go of the ball. And Rex growls for real. And the two of us are down in the dirt, looking up at the mob that’s assembled...

  ...and this is the thing: they are still having fun. It just got ugly for us, but they couldn’t be happier.

  Because a minute ago, they were up against each other. But now, they are united against a common foe.

  Long story short: Rex takes off with the ball. A couple boys chase him. The rest proceed to kick my ass.

  It takes thirty-odd seconds for Rex to double back, drop the ball in mid-leap and latch his jaws on David Marcus.

  Whose parents, quite naturally, call the cops.

  And since Daddy is lit when the cops show up, punishment is already well underway. Which makes it easy to subdue Rex, who’s been beaten so hard he can barely walk, much less evade the needle that takes him down.

  In conclusion: I have no great love of people. Which is why I’m on this train.

  And you all can kiss my ass.

  TWO

  So now here we are, thirty-seven years later – on board the Southwest Chief, freshly departed from Las Vegas – and I am thinking about the job. My little labor of love.

  In another seven hours and change – choo choo! – L.A. will rise up from the desert, and we all will crawl inside it. None more so than me: serpentine, all reptile brain, my quarry already locked and sited.

  I have given myself seventy-two hours to pull this off. It’s not a lot, but I think it’ll do.

  It only takes a second, after all, for a motivated person to turn the world around.

  And I am nothing if not motivated.

  To quote the soon-to-be-late, great Liam Pathe: “Allign your sites. There is no greater magick. To aim yourself fully at one objective – devoting all of your heart and soul – is to invoke the generosity of the universe. There, truly, all of your prayers will be answered. The connections you seek will suddenly make themselves clear. And the moves required will reveal themselves.

  “If you perform them, with truth and conviction, you will achieve your goal.”

  Thank you, Liam. Don’t mind if I do.

  Because I am a second hand, ticking off time. Aware of every tic that talks. Reading the world off my fingertips, like braille.

  But I am not blind.

  I see every fucking thing.

  I see, for example, old Drake behind the counter. 1:40 in the morning, and the bar car business is slow but steady.

  Drake is poised. A little prim. I figure him at just past retirement age. Amtrak: The Last Generation . Born in the late ’40’s. Learned his manners as such. Classic. Old school, all the way.

  He is courteous and servile, detached and efficient. He does not get ruffled by unreasonable requests. He has more patience than I can possibly imagine.

  In all the years that I have ridden these trains, he has served me drinks a thousand times. On the D.C.-to-Boston route. Through the deep South. Chicago. Once, into Washington State.

  Every time, he has greeted me in exactly the same way. And it isn’t that he doesn’t recognize me, because I’m sure that he does, as surely as I recognize him.

  It’s that he totally doesn’t care.

  How many faces has this man seen? How many orders has this man taken? It would boggle the mind if the mind could still be boggled.

  Which is why I have a certain respect for old Drake, as he rings up another Miller Genuine Draft for The Kid.

  Who is another story entirely.

  The Kid is just a little goddam beam of pure sunshine. He glows as he moves. You feel his smile down in his shoes. He is just so frickin’happy to be here that you couldn’t escape it if you tried.

  I’ve been clocking him since Lawrence, Kansas, when he and his buddies sort of frolicked onboard. They were freewheelers from the git – little hippie throwbacks, as yet unwashed – but The Kid is too much. He’s like the icing on the cake.

  Maybe twenty years old (I must confess: I am skeptical of his I.D., having glimpsed it in line, as he bought his first round). A nice Charles Manson hairstyle. Ratty clothes, from collar to sole. Jeans and flannel and bright red Converse All-Stars, all of them riddled with holes.

  Not unlike his pretty story, which I know all too well...

  Tomorrow night – if you’re buying the bullshit – a major planetary alignment will occur. This will then result in the finest moment that we – as a species – have ever known.

  War? Unthinkable, from that moment on. Greed and avarice? Done for. Jealousy? A vestigial tale. All the sins and crimes of terrestrial mind?

  Yesterday’s news.

  As of tomorrow night.

  Because this is a New Age that’s dawning. The newest and bestest New Age of them all!

  From what I gather, God will finally speak. Sounds great.

  Am not holding my breath.

  And do you know who else is spouting this hilarious nonsense? Aside from The Kid, I mean?

  Why, the great Liam Pathe! Which, of course, pricks my ears.

  As The Kid bows to Drake, then heads back with his beers. He smiles at me, in passing. He’s been doing that all night.

  I nod, impassive, but the fact is this: I am interested as hell, and weirdly pleased by the fact that he and his posse are nestled at the table cater-cornered from mine.

  Because – as they prattle on about energies shifting, and a new global consciousness arising, and a light bulb firing up at the core of every single human being – I am reminded once again of my purpose here on Earth. The reason for which I was born.

  And I think, twenty years ago, I would have been one of you clowns. Little soul-antennae upraised. Grasping at every shred of hopeful information I could get. Digging around in the pop arcana for pearls of wisdom that would save my life: Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Kahlil Gibran, fucking Carlos Castaneda.

  Soaking up the dreamy dream. And counting on that to save me.

  And, man, if I heard that the Cozmic Event of the Century was about to go down – in celebration of said alleged transformation – you can bet your ass I woulda been there with beads on. Hoppin’the next train to Los Angeles. Chasin’down that Holy Grail on a stick, God’s big fat glowing carrot.

  I would want to be near the stars. The chosen ones. The anointed ones. I would want as much of that fabulous stardust to rub off on me as I could possibly get.

  Which is to say: I was you, motherfuckers. And I will never be that thing again.

  As I think this, I am staring off into the desert blackness, under a slivered moon. Not much to see there, but my own pale reflection. From the window’s point of view, my eyes are black holes.

  I look past them to The Kid and his pals, also reflected. They are drunk, which makes us pretty much even. Except for the fact that they’re young, naïve assholes, with all the wrong clues.

  I can’t stand this much longer.

  So when The Kid says, “Listen, I really gotta pee, but let me tell you this...” I swig the last of my Jim Beam. And I am out of my chair by the time he says, “...the funniest thing won’t be the look on his face when he realizes nobody wants to fight his war. It’ll be the look on his face when he goes, ‘Fuck! I don’t wanna fight it, either!’”

  By then, I am pushing the little pad on the door that makes it slide open – it’s a science fiction world – and am heading down the corridor. Most of the train is asleep by now, with row upon row of darkened seats. I slip past the slumbering hordes, a shadow in their midst.

  And all the while, I am running this scenario through my head.

  I am waiting in the bathroom when he opens the door. The sign said VACANT, so of course he is embarrassed and surprised. “Come here,” I say, and drag him forward by the collar for emphasis. Then close the door, slide the lock, and jam my pistol up
his nose.

  He starts to snivel, and I watch as all the joy drains from his eyes. It’s not the tears; it’s the constriction of his pupils. It’s like they suck all of the light right out of him. And I watch it. Smiling.

  Very close, now, to his face.

  And I say, “Listen very closely, and believe me when I tell you: all that shit that you’ve been saying? It ain’t never gonna happen. Not tomorrow. Not in a million fucking years.”

  His head is pressed against the door now. “Do you wanna know why?”

  And he shakes his head no, insofar as he can. It’s a response that I completely understand. It’s the no of denial, the no born of prayer, the no of sheer terror.

  It’s the no that I want.

  “Because,” I say – and I lick his nose for emphasis – “news flash. THERE WILL ALWAYS BE PEOPLE LIKE ME.”

  I suppose I could elaborate, but I don’t see the need. If he came here to pee, well, then, mission accomplished. It is sluicing down his Levis; and let me fucking guarantee you that the angels no longer have the tiniest interest in wearing his red shoes. Turning orange as we speak. A word for which there is no rhyme.

  And I think all this, as I enter the bathroom. Close the door, without locking it. And await his arrival.

  Then I think about the job, and realize just how easy it would be for me to blow it. Right now. With this one impulsive act.

  It would not be the first time. But it might be the last.

  So I take a deep breath. Think of bigger fish, a-frying. Let my gun sink back into its holster.

  When I open the door, The Kid’s standing there, smiling.

  I sleep like a baby, all the way to L.A.

  THREE

  At 8:45 – nearly right on time – we are disgorged onto the platform that leads into Union Station. Already, the sun is high in the sky, which looks deceptively blue and clear.

  But there’s a jumbo passenger jet, flying low, just above us; and when I look up, I can barely even see the goddam thing. That’s when I know that I’m back in L.A., where all the angels got lost cuz they can’t see through the smog.

  Bags in hand, I take the long sloping ramp down. I travel light, as always: the better to flee from you with, my dear. My favorite old nondescript suitcase, packed loosely with my last remaining truly personal items. And the duffel bag of expendables, specifically purchased for this job.

  Once inside the broad corridor, I turn right, away from Union Station proper. There aren’t that many people here, which strikes me as strangely sad; in Los Angeles, the vanity license plate capitol of the world, trains are barely relevant.

  Me, I like trains. They crack me up. Headlong careening link sausage machines, racing along on their steel rail veins, conveying the fat of America straight through its imminent bursting heart.

  On the other hand, L.A.’s disinterest works entirely to my advantage.

  As such, I head directly for the subway entrance, and disappear beneath the surface of the city without a ripple.

  If you don’t believe that we now live in a science fiction world, take a ride on the L.A. subway.

  Forget the hilarious turnstile-free “trust system”, where the odds are one in five million that a cop will actually ask you to show him your ticket, on any given day. Forget that the whole thing was actually designed by Lex Luthor: part of his elaborate scheme to acquire beachfront property in Arizona (as outlined in Superman, starring poor fucking Christopher Reeve).

  My recommendation? Stand at the front of the very first car, flush up against the window, as close to the driver as you can get. Then stare out the front window.

  And treat yourself to what I like to call the “Time Tunnel Effect”.

  Because here’s the deal. Almost all of the tunnels comprising this little subterranean feat of derring-do – tunnels built over fault-lines, fercrissake, by the most optimistic retards since Jesus Himself – have a really cool space-age curvature to them. They are rounded, and they glisten when subjected to light.

  And this is the capper:

  All along their length – symmetrically-spaced – are these glowing lights. Maybe twenty yards apart.

  And what they do is, they emanate these neat concentric rings down either side of the tunnels. Rings of light. Loops swooping by, enveloping you. Swallowing you, over and over.

  Fifteen white, then one blue, on the average. With the blue lights denoting EXIT signs, for the grunts who work the tunnels.

  The effect is entirely hypnotic, and I find it strangely relaxing. To stare into the tunnel is to lose yourself; if you’re really looking, you are barely thinking at all. The murmur of the mind recedes into that distance.

  Almost before I know it, I’m at Sunset and Vermont. Subway Item of Interest #2: every station on the L.A. subway system was designed by a different guy. Which means that each one has its own motif, its own distinct identity.

  Sunset and Vermont is the most futuristic of them all; and as I disembark, I am once again staggered by that fact. I make a point of facing backwards as the long sleek silver escalator takes me up to the ticket-purchasing level, and I stare up at the enormous “model of a molecule” – three-dimensional, multi-colored –- that functions as a mural for that first floor promenade.

  If I were truly deep, as opposed to merely clever, I would know what that molecule represented. Maybe you know, and I’m just not paying attention. Or maybe – and more likely – it’s not based on any real molecule at all. It’s just a big, colorful installation piece that says, “Hey! Check me out! I’m a molecule! GET IT?” Simulating depth, in true Hollywood style. Designed to make cretins and stoned people go, “Wowwww...”

  Whatever the case, it is frankly impressive; and the walk from the escalator is even more so. For as I enter the ticket-vending arena, the ceiling looms gargantuan above me, with a glistening celestial disc at its summit that reminds me of the death-dome in LOGAN’S RUN.

  Remember LOGAN’S RUN? It was this stupid ’70’s faux- hippie-shit movie that I used to really love. The premise was that, in the future, everything would be groovy if we just killed off everyone the second they hit thirty.

  This fed right into my youthful bullshit, because I never believed that I would actually reach the age of thirty. I believed that I was both destined and doomed to die early, in some important way.

  Now – sixteen years past the cutoff point, still alive, and having done nothing important – I just kind of hate that stupid film.

  But – as I said –- it’s now a science fiction world. We can clone. We can fly to the stars. We can vaporize all life, right here on Earth. We can strategically bomb – with pinpoint precision – one block out of a trillion, at the cradle of civilization. And leave the rest intact. But utterly out of its mind.

  We can feed the world (but we probably won’t). We can talk to the world (but we’ll probably lie). We can light up the world (until the oil runs out).

  So, tell me: what CAN’T we do? Well...

  We can’t get along.

  We can’t agree on a single thing.

  We can’t set aside our vendettas, no matter how many thousand years old they might be.

  I could go on, but the great sleek palatial escalator drags me skyward: up toward the street, and the world I know.

  The same old same old, in future tense.

  On Vermont, I pass banks full of other peoples’ money. Walking north, with a strip mall for losers on my left. Hunger gnaws now, and the question becomes: do I really want a Fatburger for breakfast?

  No. Casa Diaz is just to the right, around the corner, at Hollywood Boulevard. A chicken burrito sounds nice. I shrug past the professional class, the bleary-eyed bohemians, the homeless milling like zombies in a George Romero film.

  The food is simple, cheap, delicious. I inhale it, leave swiftly, tipping a buck on my way out the door.

  On the other side of Hollywood Blvd., the “cool” neighborhood begins. Which means that these people think they’re cool, and maybe the
y’re right. How the hell would I know? They are trendy in ways that I’ve long since lost track of; but the underground standards – pale skin, black clothes, freakish hair, and the like – have not yet lost their currency here.

  For every four-foot broken-down maid from El Salvador, there is a counter-balancing poseur. For every bus-riding lower class suit, there’s a turquoise feather boa or a shock of pink hair. I must admit to rejoicing at an Anarchy symbol, though I instantly hate the asshole who so smugly adorns it.

  I hang onto that hate, let it warm me as I turn off of Vermont. Half a block from the main street, the neighborhood takes form. Lots of nice little houses, full of people I can’t stand.

  A dozen palm trees later, I slip on my gloves and open a dull gray gate. The lawn needs mowing. The porch could use some work. I walk up the front steps, come to the door, set down my bags.

  I ring the doorbell with the barrel of my gun.

  It takes about a minute for the guy to answer. He’s in threadbare pajamas, his thinning hair mussed. His eyes, though glazed, are phenomenally blue. They look at me blankly. I assess him in kind.

  Maybe fifteen years back, he’d had some pheremone charge. A little stud juice. A spritz of testicle nectar. Even now, he’s still got that poster-boy profile.

  But his hangover looks easily fifteen years old, and it is plastered all over his face.

  I see the little boy buried underneath it. I recognize him at once.

  “Davey?” I say. His face crinkles with concentration.

  I don’t wait for him to figure it out. Instead, I just wave the gun quickly in front of him. By the time his eyes register the barrel, it is jammed in his gut; and I am forcing him backwards, into the living room, kicking my bags through the door as I go.

  “What the FUCK?” he exclaims, as the door slams behind me.

  “You’re the fuck,” I inform him. “I’m the fucka-you-up.” He starts to say something. I don’t care what it is, so I promptly backhand him with the butt of the gun. He becomes substantially less kissable, in that moment: cheekbone snapping, rear molars dislodged, a wet spray of red flying out of his mouth. I see little white enamel chunks hit the cheap carpet and stay there.