Swallowing a Donkey's Eye

by Paul Tremblay

  To keep from screaming and then accusing them of blowing up people for whatever purpose that is their purpose, I say, “Private car. What is a private car, anyway?”

  My father says, “Hey, maybe those were your FART peeps down there.”

  Melissa starts the camera rolling. I feel her zooming in on my face. Sweat breaks out and I’m itchy, allergic to the camera lens. I say, “They’re not my peeps.” There’s really something wrong with me now. Instead of being rendered speechless in the face of more senseless death, I’m bickering with this guy like we’re kids arguing the merits of Cookie Monster and Big Bird.

  Melissa says, “Can’t use that,” and stops filming and whispers into some sort of hand-held recorder.

  The CM say, “Melissa’s the best,” then, “Came highly recommended,” then, “A pillar in her field,” then, “A true professional.”

  Father says, “What do you mean they’re not your peeps? Said so on TV. TV said you and the FART gang blew up your two-faced buddy and high tailed it out of Farm.”

  “Fuck you, you fucking sham, you fucking hypocrite, you . . . you . . .” I swing at him, he ducks and hides behind Melissa.

  He says, “Did you get that on tape?”

  “Missed it,” Melissa says. “My fault. Won’t happen again.”

  The CM say to Melissa, “No problem,” then, “You’ll get it next time.”

  Father says, “Man, I set him up for some true righteous indignation that the voters would’ve swallowed faster than their homogenized Farm milks and you missed it. Am I the only one here keeping our Mayor-to-be’s best interests in mind instead of our own career advancement, hmm?”

  32

  A SPIDER WITH YELLOW WEBBING

  They never bothered fixing or replacing my apartment’s elevator after the crash and Mrs. Lopez’s death. They just draped the elevator doorway with CAUTION tape. I pretended a big yellow spider lived in the elevator shaft and spun her yellow webs over all the doors so people would leave it alone.

  It was the beginning of summer, a few months after the accident. Mom spent those months watching TV or looking for a new job or taking long naps in my bed, sometimes staying there with me at night, sometimes not. I spent more of my days with my friend Jimmy, just the two of us running around the apartment building, especially on my floor. We’d pretend we saw the yellow spider and leave it dead flies we’d find in the windowsills of our bedrooms. The game was younger than us, but we didn’t care because everything else was older.

  There was one day when we were reasonably sure that everyone on our floor was out somewhere and we dared each other to step inside the web and act like we were trapped. Jimmy went first but didn’t stay in the web long. He pulled himself out of the tape, mumbling something in Spanish, breathing heavy, and blinking back tears. I didn’t make fun of him for being scared. Instead, I jumped in, took his place. I rolled myself up good, even covering most of my head. I worked at it, getting all tied up and tangled. I wanted to be in there tighter, more secure, and suspend myself off the floor if possible.

  Jimmy clapped and laughed and screamed. “Somebody help, the spider is comin’.”

  I imagined her legs tickling the walls of the elevator shaft, carrying her bulk down, toward me. She’d bring me inside and the shaft, her lair, would smell like death, like Mr. and Mrs. Lopez’s apartment did after the funeral, that dusty dry smell not of rot but of something missing, of neglect, of something that they had tried to preserve. The spider wouldn’t eat me right away, but stick a gentle fang into my arm and put me to sleep. Not a deep sleep, more like a waking doze. I’d still know everything that was happening around me. Then she would wrap me up tighter, into a warm cocoon, rub my belly and back, cozy up real close to me, so close I wouldn’t know what was cocoon and what was her, and whisper sweet lies about how everything would be okay and I’d listen and want to believe her. Then she’d leave me there, hanging and swaying in the warm but dead shaft for days and weeks and months. I’d miss her when she was away and I’d miss her when she sat silently next to me. I’d long for more of her sweetly whispered lies.

  “Hey,” Jimmy said, and he pried the tape off my face as he pulled me out of my spider daydream. The tape sagged and drooped because I’d stretched it all out. “I’ve got a dare for you.”

  I was both relieved and mad at Jimmy. “What?”

  “Lean against the doors with all your weight and close your eyes, and I’ll count to ten and then press the button.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe the doors will open. Maybe they won’t.”

  “They won’t open.”

  “I dare you.”

  I could’ve said no. It was obvious Jimmy was trying to make up for his near tears while in the tape. “The doors ain’t gonna open. That’s dumb.”

  “Then do it.”

  “I’m doing it.”

  Although it was a hot summer day made even hotter in the third floor hallway with its trapped and cooked air, the metal elevator doors were cold against the bare skin of my arms. It was too cold for any spider to be in there. Too cold for anybody.

  Jimmy peeled his long bangs off his forehead. “Close your eyes and I’ll start counting.” He hovered his finger, already pointed out, just above the dark elevator call button. The button was black and cartoon big.

  I closed my eyes, listened to him count, and pressed my back hard against the double doors, sticking my spine right on the rubber where door met door, trying to pry those suckers open with my vertebra, with my bones. If those doors did open there was no way I’d be able to catch myself from going in. All the weight I had was pushed up against the doors. I kept pushing even after he got to ten and pressed the button.

  33

  WHEREVER IT IS WE’RE SUPPOSED TO GO

  The CM press buttons and open the rear-doors of the elevator car. They file out fast, like Farm’s hummingbirds, and then they have a hovering conversation with two bouncers.

  After, the CM say to me, “They’ll lead you to the car,” then, “Good luck,” then, “We’ll be in touch.”

  Then to Melissa, “We look forward to the dailies,” then, “Keep the camera rolling.”

  Then to my father, “Keep him safe,” then, “Don’t work him too hard down there.”

  They scurry back into the elevator chatting to each other in low tones. The hummingbirds are full of nectar.

  My father says, “I’ll sure miss them. Didn’t even get a chance to try and convert them. I’m a sucky missionary, you know.”

  Melissa hangs a card around her neck: some sort of television credential with CBC holo-logos and official looking signatures. She says, “Rolling.”

  My father says, “I knew you were going to say that. I’m psychic, you know.” Fucking guy is flirting with her. Mom is homeless, deported, or dead and he’s flirting with the cameraperson. The goddamn priest is old enough to be her father!

  You know what I mean, goddamn it.

  The bouncers take us through an employees’ changing area (and we are ignored by most of the changees but there are a few who flash their tits and wag their dicks at the camera, and my father yells, “I see you’ve already been blessed, my children!”), then through a small and empty cafeteria, to the shipping and receiving docks out back, three of the four truck bays occupied, then out a door and once outside I choke and cough on the acrid smoke from the bomb, or maybe it’s just the daily/nightly/minutely output from the City Works smoke stacks only a few blocks away.

  There’s an idling black limousine parked adjacent to one of the empty docking bays, one of those SUV hybrid-limousines that probably has more interior space than the dorm room in which I’d spent my Farm years. The bouncers open the door and Melissa gets in first, keeping that camera aimed at my coughing and eye-watering face. This camera stuff is going to get old real quick.

  I climb in and the filtered air inside is a saviour. My throat unclenches
and I let cool, clean air into my lungs. There’s at least twenty square feet of walking room inside, and tinted windows, white shag rug and lamps and appliances and multiple flat-screen TVs. My father climbs in next and sits across from me, sits with Melissa. He pats her knee and smiles. Of course he does.

  I’m alone on a big white-leather bench seat. I notice my father patting his boot, presumably checking on his gun, his insurance policy. Melissa is as expressionless as her camera.

  I get the urge to fuck with Daddy-dearest. Embarrass him on TV, if I can. Don’t care if that helps or hurts the polls. I say, “Your little toy still there, Padre?”

  He says, “You’ll find out when I shoot you in the ass. Is there a mini-bar on this berg or what?” He finds a fridge and dives in. “There better be more than just wine, or I’m going to be very put out. Look at this junk. Orange juice? What, are we going to get fucking scurvy or something? Ah, here we go.” He pulls out a bottle of a murky brown liquid.

  A driver appears at our door. He wears a cap and an overcoat that strains against his chest and belly, both of which distend out so far that if he fell face-first, he’d automatically roll onto his back like he’s wearing a reverse-turtle shell. My father hands him a note. The driver reads it. Then there’s a look on his face. The look: is this chocolate or shit on my hands?

  The driver says, “You sure?”

  My father nods.

  Driver says, “We can’t leave until the ambulances and cops clear out of the Zone,” and walks away, as if that is a sufficient explanation. But it’s not sufficient for me. Not even in the neighbourhood of sufficient. I mean, are the cops still after me? Is that what he’s implying? Couldn’t they set this up so I don’t have to go into hiding? If I’m going to be the CM’s puppet candidate, I want to get some candidate treatment and privilege and entitlement. Yeah, I’m a fraud.

  Padre offers Melissa and me a shot of whatever it is he’s drinking. We both pass. He shrugs and we sit in the idling limo. Waiting to go wherever it is we’re supposed to go.

  Melissa quickly explains that one of the features of The Candidate show will be a ‘confessional’ segment. Me, my father, or anyone else who end up a player in our campaign will talk one-on-one with the camera, confessing to the audience. She says it’s standard fare for reality television. This appeals to me. Reality television having its own code of conduct, a strict set of rules and regiments amid the supposed reality and chaos.

  Melissa says, “Pretend you’re not here and listening to any of your father’s confessional.” Then she aims the camera at my father and says, “You’re first, and talk about something juicy.”

  He says, “What are we going to talk about? Prep me, baby.”

  Melissa shuts off the camera and preps him. I’m indignant! Appalled! And not that I needed any more evidence that I’m the dog and pony of this dog and pony show, but here we have it. She tells him she wants to hear about why he left my mother and me. She wants him to talk about his God-gig and where we’re going.

  I say, “Forgive my naivety, but isn’t this supposed to be spontaneous and, um, real?”

  Melissa says, “We’re on a tight schedule and I’ve got certain shots and pieces I have to get for the network. You know, bonus incentives and the like. If it helps, think of this as a docu-drama instead of some schlocky reality show.”

  “It doesn’t help.”

  Sweet as Farm’s engineered and uber-processed honey, my father says, “Whatever you need from me, Mel. You just name it. I’m here to help.”

  So much for that reality TV code of conduct. And I’m thinking about joining Father Fuck-up with a drink now.

  Melissa says, “Whenever you’re ready, Joseph.”

  Joseph. She calls him by his first name. Oh, bartender?

  He clears his throat, adjusts his night-vision glasses, and runs his hands through his slicked-back hair.

  “Rolling.”

  “I alternate weeks between my Church and the Pier. When in City, I do morning and evening masses Monday through Saturday, only a handful of old biddies attend those, and then three Sunday masses. More folks attend the Sundays, but it doesn’t take a mind reader,” and he pauses and points at his temple with his right hand, “to know that most don’t want to be there. You’ve got the brats Grandma dragged to the service, they kick the pews and fold the prayer booklets into funky shapes, then there’re the cold-fishes, the ones that just sit there and don’t say the prayers or sing the songs during mass, their faith doesn’t extend past the weekly ritual, the Sunday habit they just can’t kick even though they don’t believe in it anymore. Those people depress me. They’re too much like me, I guess.”

  He takes off his glasses and closes his eyes. Goddamn, he’s hamming it up. Feigning anguish and deep thoughts. I’ll give this family-deserting priest some anguish.

  He throws the camera a quivery smile and says, “Ah, but that’s Catholicism. It’s all about taking the bad with the good.

  “When I’m not in City, I work and live at the charity I set up down in the Pier: Home. I’m not going to try and describe it.” Another dramatic pause. “You’ll see it soon enough. I’ll only say that my life’s work, and my dedication or even obsession with Home, is why I left my family, your future Mayor, and his mother, all those years ago. I know I’m less than perfect, especially in the husband and Daddy departments, but Home ... it is who I am.” Two tears, one from each eye roll down his cheeks. He’s a one-man special effect.

  He puts his chin in his chest and wipes his eyes. Then he looks up laughing and slashing at his throat, giving Melissa the international cut sign. She puts the camera down.

  He says, “Tell me that was gold, Mel. I know it was.”

  She says, “Pure gold, Joseph.”

  “Nice! Nailed it.”

  I have a lot of people inside of me. They’re all me, of course, but they are different. There’s a seven year-old who was crushed to hear there was no Santa, the angry teen who thought signing up for a stint at Farm would save his mother and him, the nine-year-old who loved to climb those fire-escapes even after catching mom and dad in the act of fucking, the six-hours-ago guy who still wants to kick this Mayor-scheme to the curb and go off on his own, the twelve-year-old who saw Mrs. Lopez’s dead body, the two-days-ago guy filled with despair at his elongated Farm service, riding with Jonah toward the perimeter fences, and dreaming of escape.

  In that huge crowd inside me there is that little pre-pubescent kid, the one who he abandoned. That kid takes over and says, “I hate you. You know that, don’t you? I just really hate-hate-hate you with everything I have.”

  My father says, “Don’t player hate, congratulate!” Then to Melissa, “My bad. The camera missed another one of those outbursts. This one’s on me, Mel. I should’ve told you to keep your camera rolling. Live and learn.”

  34

  FIVE NUMBERS DEEP INTO

  THE CONFIRMATION NUMBER

  We’re still idling in the limo.

  Melissa says, “Mr. Mayor, you want to follow this up with your own confessional?”

  “Fuck you, too.”

  “Fair enough.” She turns the camera back on. “Joseph, you two don’t look like father and son.”

  “Because I’m white and he’s black?”

  Melissa isn’t flustered. She says, “Besides the obvious, Father.”

  She calls him Father when the camera is on. I think about what I should call him, then I stop thinking about him when I see Melissa’s smart phone hanging in a holster on her utility belt. Is finding Mom as easy as a cell phone call?

  My father says, “He has my spirit, my joie de vivre, and my eyes, and possibly my mouth. Otherwise he looks just like his mother.”

  Melissa says, “Where is she?”

  My father looks at me. Glasses back on. “That’s the sixty five thousand dollar question. We don’t know, do we?”

  I say, “Can I use
your phone, Melissa?”

  She unholsters it and tosses it over. Camera, of course, now pointed at me. Hope she gets my best side.

  My father sings, “Who ya gonna call?”

  I say, “Somebody. Police, maybe. Report my mother as missing.”

  “I knew you were going to say that. Don’t do it, kiddo. If you report her as missing, that’s as good as listing her as homeless, or dead.”

  I look at Melissa for some sort of visual confirmation or denial on her part. But she’s all about the camera now. I try talking to her. “What do you think, Melissa?”

  She says nothing. Right, she’s part of the background now. Cinéma vérité, my ass.

  I say, “I want to know why her apartment is empty.”

  “I told you she’s fine. She left, is all.”

  “You know this for sure.”

  “We already talked about this. I haven’t spoken with her since before you left for Farm. But I know she’s okay. Trust me.”

  “Yeah, trust you.” I stand up and walk toward the front of the limo, away from him and Melissa. She gets up and follows me. Dad stays put. I dial information and ask for the police department, not an emergency line. I follow automated directions skipping past menu options that include curfew schedules, updates to anti-terrorism laws, street blockade schedules, Ad-Walker complaint-lines, homeless sighting hotline, and ways to make donations to the policeman’s ball fund. Finally, it’s press 9 for the report missing persons line.

  I tell the police secretary my mother’s name and her former address. Camera still rolling, I say to Melissa, “You’re not going to broadcast my mother’s name and address, are you?” She gives me an off-camera thumbs-up. Which is great. Only, I can’t tell if that’s a yes or no.

  The secretary says, “No, we will not broadcast your mother’s name and address. That’s not how we do it.”