“Never let deceit and selfishness infect us. Never become alienated from one another. Never mistake that kind of hubris for power.”
Phil opened his eyes again and looked around the table, a master sermonizer appraising his congregation. Phil had missed his calling, not being a radio announcer or a voice over actor selling product.
Tears poured down David’s cheeks as he absorbed Phil’s words. Phil saw David weeping, and smiled.
Phil’s voice went resonant and intent. “When people think about the teachers of love, they usually don’t put Nietzsche or Saint Darwin on the list.
“Throughout Nietzsche’s career he taught the Superman, attacking Christianity’s calls for pity and compassion as folly. Anti-life and preservation of weakness that should be winnowed from the gene pool. Nietzsche was damned by his association with those who misinterpret him as ludicrously as Saint Darwin was abused by earlier scoundrels.”
Phil stared at the table top, speaking low. “Saint Darwin didn’t say we should be slaves to evolution, he merely pointed it out as fact. It’s up to us whether we stand against the cruelty of man and nature, or use evolution as an excuse to victimize each other.
“Nihilists and convicts use Nietzsche’s teachings to justify pure power without remorse or pity. Some of us have fallen for that error before. It’s a dead end if we don’t have each other, brothers and sisters.
“Everything is a lie but love. It’s the only thing that will save us, or humanity is doomed. We will consume ourselves.”
Phil pulled his hands free from the circle and clasped them in prayer in front of him. Everyone else opened their eyes and let go of each other’s grasp. Tobias’s glare turned sheepish as he pulled his hand free from Everett’s.
Phil said,” In the end, Nietzsche exposed his true self to the world. On a cold winter day in Turin, not long before entering the first of the mental institutions in which he’d finish his life, Friedrich Nietzsche witnessed a man beating his donkey.
“An ass, a beast of burden, the lowest of the low. A master punishing a piece of property that happened to be alive and capable of feeling pain – a scene that has played out billions of times in the history of the world. Nietzsche’s response was immediate. He rushed forward and embraced the ass, shielding it from its master’s blows and weeping uncontrollably.
“In one of his last sane acts, the father of the Superman gave way to unrestrainable pity for the suffering creatures of the world, embodied in that lowly donkey. In the end, Nietzsche wept.”
Phil said, “I would die for this family.”
Phil’s performance had been convincing throughout, and this declamation seemed just as heart felt. This was a very charismatic man sitting in front of Everett.
At the other end of the table from Phil, Aaron echoed him. “I would die for this family.” Aaron got lower grades for stilted delivery; he didn’t ooze sincerity as effectively as Phil.
After Aaron’s jump in line the table went in order, counter clockwise, with each person in turn saying the words: “I would die for this family.”
Their deliveries were as varied as their personalities – loud or soft, clear or mumbled. But every one of them looked like they meant it.
To his left Celeste called out in clear bell like tones, “I would die for this family.”
And then all eyes were on Everett, who hesitated, his mind racing.
Phil stood, both big white hands raised to stop Everett’s delivery: “No, no, you can’t say it yet. We know it would be a lie, and you haven’t earned the right anyway. We have to prove ourselves to each other. There’ll be time enough for you to say those words if that’s what’s fated.”
“And now,” Phil said, getting a cheater’s head start by grabbing the bowl of mashed potatoes and ladling out a big spoonful onto his plate, “Let’s eat.”
There was good natured laughter and the meal commenced.
Chapter 28 : Making the Cut
After the feast Celeste confronted Everett, Tobias and David before they could join in and help the chattering, laughing diners clear the table.
“Phil wants to talk to all three of you,” Celeste said. “We feed anyone that knows how to act, but you have to pass muster with him before you can stay on.”
She gave one more distasteful sniff at Everett, but the garbage had dried and the scent was no longer as overpowering.
Phil’s study was on the third floor of the rambling house. The walls were lined with book shelves crammed with tomes. There was a wheeled ladder on a rail that you could roll around the circumference of the room to reach the volumes on the higher shelves.
Phil favored practical reading matter, at least in terms of mind fucking people. Among them Green’s “48 Laws of Power,” Gracian’s “Pocket Oracle,” and a couple Alinsky first editions. He had Chomsky and Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and textbooks on NLP. Phil’s working library was a war room for psychobabble.
Phil was seated in a wheeled orange office chair that had seen better days. Aaron stood next to Phil, and the three newcomers stood in an arc in before them.
Behind Phil a door stood ajar. Through the doorway was a tiny bedroom with an unmade bed, the private room as messy and disordered as the study was organized. Catching Everett’s glance into Phil’s disheveled pigsty sleeping quarters, Aaron reached back and drew the door shut, making sure it latched.
As Everett had hoped, Phil’s eye fell on Tobias first. Tobias exuded the glaring predatory hum he always did, and Phil’s head cocked to the side as he studied the little death dealer.
“Do you hate everybody, or just the Man?” Phil asked.
Tobias took a breath, ready to snarl one of his witticisms. He stopped with his mouth open, pinned by Phil’s accepting gaze.
“Not everyone,” Tobias said in a flat voice. “Leastways not all the time.”
Phil turned to David, studying the handsome gutter snipe. “You have the right kind of eyes,” Phil said. “’Eighteen going on eighty.’”
David was trying to be as hard as Everett and Tobias, as if they were a bonded triad of comrades. David was young, and his eyes shone at Phil like at royalty.
Phil aimed his attention at Everett, his gaze a honed weapon in the hands of a master. Phil turned to Aaron. “And this one, doesn’t he look a little saurian, like one of those velociraptors in Jurassic Park?”
Aaron shook his head. Phil appeared not to notice Aaron’s look of puzzled distrust as he turned back to Everett.
“You do look like one of those raptors, if it had just developed a genius level I.Q.” Phil smiled.
It would be a mistake to act stupid with this guy, Phil saw right through it.
Everett was a kid when he discovered he put off vibes that some people picked up on. Total strangers would stare at him in fear or rage as he made their alarm bells clang. Guys would walk up and attack him without preamble or conversation on a regular basis.
He’d learned to be more and more inconspicuous. Almost everyone he encountered now, their eyes just slid off the blandness he projected. But it still didn’t always fly, and it sure wasn’t flying here.
“Do you always hold back?” Phil asked.
Everett looked at the floor. It was urgent to establish rapport with this man now that attention had been paid. The line was unclear to that goal and he couldn’t afford a mistake.
Phil aimed his presence at Tobias: “You two are some kind of pair. Does he always hide behind you?’
Tobias snorted. “I’ve been thinking for a while that he’s past his prime. His game is weak.” Tobias glared Everett’s way with friendly malice.
Phil returned to his study of Everett. “No, you’re not a raptor, that’s the wrong image. There’s depths to you. You remind me of one of those Shaolin monks, all fake humble and quiet.”
Phil extended a closed fist, palm up. “Can you snatch the pebble from my hand, grasshopper?”
“Only if a pebble is there to begin with,” Everett said.
Chap
ter 29 : Job Assignments
Downstairs Aaron snagged David, claiming him for his own. Aaron muttered a few words to Celeste and then he and the boy disappeared.
Celeste beckoned to Everett and Tobias. “You guys made the cut, Phil likes you both.”
“They want you in the kitchen,” Celeste told Tobias.
“Sure thing, girl,” Tobias said with an admiring leer replacing his usual grimace. He reached out to pat her shoulder.
Celeste faded from Tobias’s attempted touch as if his hand was red hot. Her pretty face contorted into that of a Medusa, as if her gaze could paralyze.
“Nobody touches me without permission,” she said, her calm voice in contrast to her hectic expression.
Tobias booked down the hall toward the sound of clinking crockery, escaping his faux pas. By the time Celeste pointed her face at Everett it was calm again.
“Aaron has a different job for you,” she said.
She led Everett in the opposite direction and stopped in front of a bathroom. “I’ll put some fresh clothes outside the door. You can clean the shower while you’re bathing in it and getting rid of the stank.”
Celeste held out a bowl brush. Everett took it from her and stepped inside to say hello to the bathtub, sink and toilet that awaited.
Chapter 30 : The Zen of Shininess
Everett was on hands and knees scrubbing around the toilet base. As he finished mopping up the piss stains and pubic hair, Celeste showed up with the kind of creeping stealth he’d already come to associate with her.
She’d never be able to sneak up on him though. Her brain ran so hot and fast she thought too loud. He’d always be able to feel her approach.
She was a little hottie, but it was plain they weren’t going to be an item. Her sights were aimed a little higher – maybe at about Phil’s altitude, judging from the proprietary looks she kept sneaking when the big man was around.
“Not bad,” Celeste said, looking at how clean the bathroom had become. “A lot of people would pitch a bitch doing this kind of work. You don’t mind cleaning?”
“It’s good to make stuff shine,” Everett said.
A Zen like feeling overcame when you polished and sharpened a blade to a keening edge, or dragged a patch through a dirty barrel before making your gun gleam with oil. Since he’d been with Kerri he’d discovered that housework and ‘honey-dos’ gave him the same sense of accomplishment. And of course, people rarely screamed when you swabbed out a toilet bowl.
“Maybe you have a career in janitorial,” Celeste said, her eyes twinkling. She looked puzzled, and sniffed. “Do you smell something electrical? Never mind. Phil wants you soonest. He just got the word on the scanner there’s something going on in town, and you’re riding along with him.”
Chapter 31 : Citizenship & Donuts
A snack truck was parked in one of the out buildings. Everett inserted into the shotgun seat at Phil’s direction. A steel plate was set in the cement floor under the truck; it clanked under them as Phil backed out the door. They headed out the double gates, which were closed after by a couple guys Everett recognized from the dinner table.
Amicus felt even smaller now that full night had fallen, and they didn’t have that far to go. As soon as they hit the grid of streets adjoining the property, Everett saw two Amicus Police Department rollers parked at random angles a couple blocks ahead on the other side of Broadway. Their strobes were pulsing, their spots lit up the front of the house. People were moving around on the front lawn.
As they approached Phil said, “We try to stay on good terms with local law enforcement. They have a very tough job, almost impossible for a human being these days. We purchase a little good will by bringing them coffee and snacks when there’s a fire or some other emergency.”
“Spendy,” Everett said.
“If you’re here for any length of time, you’ll discover we have our assets,” Phil said. He glanced over, but Everett stared straight ahead at the crime scene as if incurious and focusing on the immediate.
A cop saw the snack truck approaching, and he smiled as Phil parked and killed the engine.
“Officer Redd,” Phil said, planting a warm helpful smile on his face mirroring the cop’s.
“Hi, Phil,” Officer Redd said. His eyes lit on Everett. “Who’s the new guy?”
Phil loomed forward in his seat a little, accidentally shielding Everett from the law dog’s inspection. “Just my latest protégé. He’s going to be very helpful to me.”
“Great, great,” Redd said, staring past Phil and Everett into the depths of the truck, more interested in its contents than anything else.
Phil stepped into the working area in back of the truck, “Open the service window,” he told Everett.
Phil rummaged around in the cupboard and hit some switches over the counter. Everett got out, popped the latches on the window and lifted it open on the fragile looking support pistons.
Officer Redd lurked at the sill next to Everett, crowding the open service counter. Everett faded toward the cop’s blind side without making it obvious.
Phil leaned both hands on the sill and ducked down to stick his big cranium out the window. “It’ll take a couple of minutes for the coffee to brew.”
“How ‘bout a donut to tide me over?” Redd asked.
Phil handed him an apple fritter and the cop seemed satisfied. He trotted toward the house even as he gnawed at the hunk of fried sugar dough.
“You’re a good citizen, Phil,” Redd called over his shoulder as he went.
“’Citizen?’” Phil snorted. “What does he even mean by that? You know we’re living in a New World Order, don’t you Henry?”
Up at the house, a couple of alleged malefactors lay prone on the grass. Two young white bullet headed males with their hands shackled behind them. A bored cop stood guard.
“Not very political,” Everett said. “Never given it much thought.”
“America isn’t even capitalist anymore, if it ever was – just a high tech feudalism,” Phil said, pleased to spin another web of words in the air. “We serfs can slave away for whatever Master we choose, but it’s still just an oligarchy, not ‘freedom.’
“They talk about ‘profit, and ‘productivity,’ Henry. All that means is we’re getting paid less than our work is worth. The stock market’s a roulette table where they daily gamble that the drones will continue working for less than a living wage – even if knuckling under to it means our children will serve the children of the wealthy, forever and ever, world without end, selah selah, Amen.”
Everett listened to Phil with part of the brain, but most of his gray matter was devoted to PoPo. It was surreal to be this close to a law enforcement manned crime scene without having been involved with it.
One of the cops finished donning a HazMat suit and entered the front door of the house. This was a meth lab bust, and this house could now be officially designated a toxic waste site by the EPA. As it had to be a rental, only the land lord would get fucked.
Phil had continued talking while Everett devoted his attention to mapping every cop’s location and spatial orientation in his brain. When Phil came up for air, Everett realized just how much this man was in love with his own voice.
“So what do you think about all that, Henry?” Phil asked.
“About what?” Everett asked.
“About what I was just saying,” Phil said in a stiff voice.
“Oh,” Everett said. “It’s food for thought.”
Chapter 32 : Hearts & Minds
Next morning they had Everett and Tobias peeling potatoes behind the kitchen. Everett sat on an upended plastic barrel, cutting off precise strips of skin and digging out the worst of the dark spots. It was soothing and enjoyable, getting the skin off without taking any more of the white potato meat than necessary.
Tobias paced up and down, whispering through the sneer inscribed on his bony face. His lips barely moved; his voice was pitched in a mumble that no one but Everett woul
d be able to make out. “All right, so we’re in. Now we wait? For what?”
“Don’t know,” Everett said.
He examined the potato he’d just picked up. Before he met Kerri, he was more accustomed to foods he could snatch up and gnaw at on the fly. With Kerri and Raymond came domesticated attitudes toward food.
If Kerri was doing the cooking here, she wouldn’t remove the skin at all. When he got back, he’d have her mash some potatoes the way he liked them. Lumpy, with the skins on and lots of butter.
Everett glanced at Tobias, noting his impatience. “There’s a line that needs to be taken, but it doesn’t exist yet. Can’t describe it any better than that. You need to chill, ‘Otis.’”
“Chill?” Tobias said, and hugged himself as he snarled. “I’m crawling out my skin, ‘Henry.’”
Tobias squatted, grabbed a potato and sniffed it, turned it over a few times with a sharp look of distaste. He tossed it onto the heap at Everett’s feet.
He stood and looked around, then back at Everett, who continued to peel one potato after another like an assembly line, with no wasted motions. Tobias noted how precise Everett’s peeling was, as if the paring knife was an extension of him. Every peel was identical in width and length, as if a machine were doing the work instead of a pair of hands. This bothered Tobias.
“We could torch the place up?” Tobias suggested. “Barricade them all inside somehow, and then it’s crispy critter time.”
Everett shook his head as he placed another peeled potato in the bucket of water to his left. “Too involved, too complicated, and too many ways to go south. Too messy. What would you say to the Fire Department and the Man when the neighbors 911ed? How would you deal with carting two tons of red hot gold out of the smoking ruins? You got a dump site in mind for cleaning up the bodies?”
“Clean up?” Tobias said, his snarl mutating into smarminess. “I’m a ‘leave ‘em where they lay’ kind of guy.”
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