Grey

by Jon Armstrong

  "He's here!" he said, once we had gone through a black door to the backstage. Hulking boxes of equipment sat everywhere. The floor was covered with lines of taped-down power cords. The workers were all dressed in blue leotards with words on their chests—pyrotechnics, lighting, fluffer, sound, security, continuity, costume, makeup, and so on. Several stopped before the director and me and cheered.

  A woman with the word food on her chest said, "They're just serving slut cakes now. You've got a minute."

  "Good!" he said. "Good, we'll be right back!"

  He led me to a decrepit elevator—obviously the PartyHaus was just refurbished for the public—and we headed up to the fifteenth floor. When the door slid open, the director held the doors for me. "Here we go," he said, pointing to a sign. "This way."

  Soon we came to a door with the number 15-T. He opened it and we entered.

  At first I thought it was a huge bathroom. It was fifty feet wide and all surfaces were covered with some sort of cobalt tiles. Around the perimeter were thirty or so black metal toilets. The far wall was glass that looked out at the distant lights of Ros Begas, and in the middle sat several boxy pastel couches and chairs. On the center cushion of a lacy gold and pink sofa sat Mr. Cedar. He had one leg folded over the other, his hands in his lap. Even in the light, I could see how supple, smooth, and soft was the material of his jacket. After all the Ültra nonsense, it was like the beautiful and calm eye of a hurricane. Under his jacket, he wore a pure white cotton shirt that I suspected had been ironed by Isé–B, as it had that distinctive combination of formality and insouciance. As for neckwear, his tie was a deep shade of magnesium. On his feet, his thin-soled shoes were a midnight brown.

  Standing, he bowed and said, "Greetings."

  To his right, partially hidden in the darkness, stood his assistant Pheff, and behind him was a six-foot-tall black case covered with latches and several glowing dials. They had brought it!

  "Thank you," I said.

  "We have to hurry!" said the director. "Big hurry. Show's about to start."

  Pheff began unlocking the box with both speed and care. Clearly, they had guarded the suit to make sure it didn't fall into the wrong hands. Once he had opened all the locks, he pulled a lever, broke a seal, which released a slow hiss of gas, then he swung open the door.

  "Love it!" gushed the director, his eyes wide. "Incredible! I just love it!"

  "Thank you," said my tailor, coolly.

  Inside the box, on a top-of-the-line Silver-Dream Chanel-Royce hanger was a wide-shouldered, orange suit. Even as I could see Mr. Cedar's impeccable tailoring, the supple lines, and the gentle roll of the lapel, it was a fierce-looking thing. It shimmered as if with heat or some catastrophic potential energy.

  For a long beat, I stood staring at it, mesmerized and afraid.

  "Finally, color!" said a familiar voice. Turning, I saw Xavid. He wore a huge blue and orange color-blocked suit with bloody seal pelts hung here and there like hunting trophies. His face was covered with operatic-styled makeup and his hair was braided and looped into a complicated mess like the collapsed skeleton of a crashed blimp. "Your father," he said, stepping closer, "will be exceedingly proud." Then he spoke to everyone. "I need a minute with Michael. If you could all excuse us."

  "He has to dress for the show!" said the director. "We're about to start."

  "I have an extremely important message from his father." He waved his hands as if to urge them out. "Thank you so much! Just one minute. There you go."

  As Mr. Cedar, Pheff, and the director headed out, I stood facing the box, and worried that Father had found out about the suit. What could I do? Could I grab it, run, and then just throw it at him? Or was this about Xavid and what I now knew about him and his identity thievery?

  "I'm so glad you're back," said Xavid, stepping before me and smiling. "We have a big show after all." Now he narrowed his eyes. "I'm not sure what happened to you out there. Contradictory rumors are going around." He paused, as if I was going to explain anything to him. "In any case," he began again, "like I said, your father will be most pleased with your suit. We're all glad you're giving up that tedious grey shit."

  "What do you want?" I asked, impatient.

  "Listen to me," he said, his voice turning hard and angry, "from now on and for the rest of your life, you are forbidden from leaving the compound. You are forbidden from speaking to the press. You must ask me before you do anything! And you will do exactly as I say." He began to dig into a pocket. "If not, he'll go get the rest." He then tossed a small glass vial at me.

  I caught the thing and held it up. Inside, floating in a clear fluid was a small human toe. The nail had been painted a metallic charcoal.

  All the blood cells in my body seized. My muscles froze. Then a single synapse jumped from one nerve to another and eked out a single message: Nora.

  The toe was hers. The freeboot beast had cut it off.

  "I can't tell you what happened in the past," continued Xavid, his voice light and dreamy. "I don't even know, nor do I care to know all the mistakes your father made. That's the past and Xavid doesn't worry about the past. Now, what's expedient is to gain control of this enterprise. It's like a massive colony of algae that has choked itself and I know that I will do an extremely good—"

  "Shut the hell up." I didn't say it loud, but he heard the boiling anger in me. His eyes, like two small, frightened fish in the aquariums of his lenses, darted toward me and held. Stepping past him, I stopped before the nitrocellulose suit. "Get out," I told him. "I have to dress."

  Eighteen

  Nora was right—I wasn't her Michael anymore. I wasn't the dancer, or the crazed half brother I had been when I ran at the satin. Instead, as I stood before the suit, and the orange ebbed and throbbed like the surface of a violent and stormy planet, I felt that I was nearing a final point, one beyond anger and revenge, a place of only action.

  I heard the door close. I had wanted to pummel Xavid's face as I had seen them do in the PartyHaus basement, but I knew he wasn't worth it.

  "Let's get you ready!" said the director, as he rushed back in. "Dressed for the show." Behind him came Mr. Cedar and Pheff.

  "The show," I repeated, thinking of the audience in the PartyHaus. When I'd thought about blowing up Father and me, I had not imagined an audience and wasn't sure I liked the idea. The problem was, this crowd would love the brutality, and I hated to imagine them standing and cheering our charred bodies. But I couldn't let it worry me. Whether they loved it, thought of me as a fool or a horrible and ungrateful son, and whether or not they came to understand what had happened, none of that mattered.

  Stepping beside me, Mr. Cedar spoke quietly. "The original material was too volatile. I doubted you would last the evening, so I rewove it, created a twill with two layers and functions. The top is both photo-luminescent and protective. The lower layer is . . . " He paused and twisted his beard hair once. " . . . quite hazardous."

  As he spoke, Pheff removed the suit from the box and took the pants from the hanger. I glanced from the fabric to my tailor. Maybe it was the glow from the suit, but the scar that ran down the middle of his face was more visible than usual, and I swore it looked like a nearly microscopic, flat-fell seam with two lines of stitches.

  His steel-grey eyes met mine and held, and while I sensed the same serene I always did, I felt something else, something much darker. My tailor was originally from the slubs, and although we had never spoken about it, he must have struggled, and I began to think that he had suffered much more than I had ever imagined, and probably experienced far worse than I.

  Turning, he pointed to the box and said, "The shirt and tie."

  From a separate compartment, Pheff took out a beautifully ironed shirt and an exact copy of Love Alone. Mr. Cedar presented them to me. I wanted to thank him, not just for what he had done today, but for all he had done for me, but it was so much, I couldn't fathom how.

  Pheff helped me slip on the pants, the jacket, and knotted t
he tie. The jacket felt wider and heavier, but much like any of my others. When I ran my hand over the slightly rough material, the orange turned russet as though my body heat, my presence, or maybe my intentions tarnished it.

  "A firm impact," whispered my tailor, as he mimed a punch at my shoulder.

  Then, bowing his head, he quoted, "Texture of her overcoat."

  His quote felt jarring—Pure H, grey satellite wools, coffee shops, and silence music seemed, like a distant and forgotten land. And the image that accompanied that copy was strange. A man and woman, both in elaborate clothes—a frock and vest suit for him, a high-necked ball gown for her—sit on a small, odd, two-horse carrousel. He faces right, she, left. From their somber, even perturbed expressions, they have been arguing. I assumed, and Joelene agreed, that they were no longer in love, but I couldn't imagine that was how Mr. Cedar saw it. Maybe he thought the couple on the carrousel was as doomed as Nora and I.

  "We're ready!" said the director, into one of his screens. "He looks great! Yes . . . we're coming down. Get ready to start the show!"

  The director and I rode down in a different elevator and he talked on his screens the whole time. "Tell Hiro we're ready. Check on the speaker power . . . they were running the line to the grid. . . . Are all the channel guests ready? Talk to Thomas and make sure he doesn't go over—"

  "Can I ask you a favor?" I tried to interrupt.

  "No! Don't look there. I put more vacuum bulbs behind the station . . . Clear out the backstage and . . . " He turned to me. "What?"

  "My advisor." With the show about to begin, I worried that I wouldn't be able to see Joelene again. "She was the one on the floor in the dungeon where you found me. It's a mistake that she's there. Could you please get her released?"

  His eyes searched my face, as if baffled. "I'll try."

  "I'm counting on you," I said. "Please remember."

  "Yes." He smiled for a moment but still looked confused.

  When the elevator doors opened, we were beneath the balconies, opposite the stage. From here, I could see over the crowd. The curtains were straight ahead. The air was dense with a hundred perfumes, the sticky sweet of fermented vegetables, vomit, and that ever-present sweaty, PartyHaus desperation. Different parts of the crowd were chanting, as though they wanted things to begin.

  "You'll walk out," said the director, pointing. "Straight down this aisle. Just go down and take a bow. Wave and smile. That's your father and the vips' table down front. You sit and watch the show. Just clap and cheer. We've got cameras on you, so no nose picking. Before it's time for the wedding, I'll come and get you, so don't worry." Into a screen, he said, "Cue the girls . . . music . . . lights . . . announcer . . . and go!"

  "And now," said a tremendous, deep-throated house voice, as a distorted drum began pounding, "it is my super-amazing and spectacular honor to welcome you to the thirty-third annual RiverGroup product show and Ültra extravaganza. As you all know, recent events have tried to cloud our future, but tonight's show will obliterate those clouds, all doubts, and all eardrums within a seventy-five-mile radius!"

  The audience howled. Nearby, I heard someone shout, "Execute my ears!"

  Meanwhile, along either side of the aisle, hospitality girls all covered with sticky and shiny liquids and semisolids lined up on either side and saluted. A thousand colored spotlights fluttered over them, like glowing confetti. From high above, tendrils of violet smoke poured down like a million octopus legs. Four feet above the crowd, the phalanxes of smoke were chopped up by the frenzy of the crowd.

  "Go!" said the director. "Go on!" He nudged me.

  "Don't touch!" I said, afraid he would set off the suit. I stepped forward and a blinding light hit me in the face.

  "There he is, Ültra children of pain, the famous, sexy, funny, exciting, clever, pliable, willing Michael Rivers. The greatest dancer in the history of the universe has on a fabulous suit that is just like the famous suits in HammørHêds' Adjoining Tissue. Let's scream our throats raw!"

  The crowd rose and cheered, and with the light in my eyes, it was just like when I had danced. The energy spurred me on as I continued down the aisle.

  "There's a rumor," continued the voice, "that he's going to get married tonight, but will he really end the drenched and debauched dreams of a billion insanely horny girls? You'll definitely want to sit through the exciting product upgrades and important business announcements to see if it all happens right here before your eyes!"

  At the end of the aisle, stood Father, cheering. He wore a dark blue short-sleeve jacket, made of something that looked as stiff and luxurious as recycled cardboard. The orange shirt beneath it had huge, bloated sleeves that hung like semi-deflated pumpkins. At his wrists were enormous cuffs and a dozen black snaps. Around his neck was a wad of rhubarb-colored paisley fabric that wanted to be a collar, turtleneck, and tie. It spilled down his front in a floppy, unappetizing mess. As for pants, he wore iridescent blue bell-bottoms with too-tight dark orange shorts over top. The front zipper was open and what amounted to a large, white, codpiece hung out. So swollen and fat was it, he appeared to be giving birth to two honeydews and a plumber's wrench. His wig, a stringy, purple thing, was long and dangled around his ears and down his back. Scattered in his hair were white blobs—mushrooms or marshmallows, maybe. Whipping his arms at the crowd to spur them on, he looked like a flightless, technicolor pirate.

  For a moment, I considered rushing him now and blowing us up. The problem was, too many innocent people were near, including Walter Kez—or whatever his name was. I wished I'd asked the director about the wedding! I hoped it was still supposed to be like the choreography I had seen before, where Father and I were alone on the stage. That would be the moment.

  I stopped behind an empty chair. The crowd hadn't let up at all.

  "Bombastic fantastic!" enthused Father, over the roar. "I got you a Poünd outfit like mine, but that's the greatest suit I've ever seen in the history of my life!" Turning to the others he said, "Look at him! It's like Adjoining Tissue! Remember that epic?"

  "An all-time classic," screamed Jun.

  "We're going all out!" said Father. "You have to hang with us now! You can't leave when he's getting Ültra again!"

  Around the circular, shiny ultramarine table, where rest bowls of puffy snacks, bottles of wine, programs, and what looked like motorcycle helmets, sat twelve others. Starting on my left and going counterclockwise was an empty chair, presumably for Elle after the wedding, then Walter and his uncle in his beetle-green suit and necklaces.

  The rest I recognized like I might have great aunts and uncles. Back when the rages were happening, I saw them every night, but now, it was just once a year at the product shows. Jun, the ceo from BrainBrain, who had become a soft, rounded little man, wore a black suit covered with little mirrors, green makeup, and vampire hair. He smiled at me and the flesh around his eyes turned wrinkled and dry. To his right were the lettt brothers. Both had muskrat faces—all pointy noses, toothy mouths, and bushy blond eyebrows. Their matching articulated aluminum shirts made them look like robot clichés. Looped around their necks was a half a mile of orange string. Beside the aluminum twins was the president of iip-2. Instead of Ültra, she seemed to think she had become a teenager again and was dressed like an Om Om girl in a brown suit with her lips cut open. The next two wore striped jackets, plaid shirts, and awful nonwoven ties. They had on so much crusty purple makeup they looked more like two freshly dug-up beets. I didn't know who they were or what company they represented. Finally, the man in the paisley robe, neon shirt, and a frilly tie that looked like soap suds, was ceo of slt. Ten years ago he had had an aneurysm at the PartyHaus and since then never missed an opportunity to tell me we were alike.

  Beside the slt man sat Father's woman. She had bright green hair and red-colored teeth. Through her transparent orange dress, I could see the phrase gender fatality scrawled across her breasts in what looked like dried blood.

  By this time, the crowd had settl
ed down. The people at the table said hello or sang lyrics at me, like the lettt brothers did.

  With their arms over their shoulders, they screamed, "One crusty bruise to remember her by!" Then they laughed triumphantly and got compliments from the others.

  The ceo of slt man winked, and said, "You and I . . . we're heart attack twins!"

  The Om Om woman got up, came around, and kissed me on the cheek. "I've christened him with my blood!" she exclaimed in her rasping voice. "Now, we're blood lovers." As if giving advice, she said, "You should cut Elle and suck her wound, like they do in Crüsh Töne."

  "No!" said Jun of BrainBrain, "Perfect Infinity Dëath by DïkCräkør! It's romantic how they poke each other with those splinters."

  As they all began arguing which Ültra disaster my honeymoon should be like, I told myself this would all be over soon, and I wouldn't have to see these creatures again.