Swallowing a Donkey's Eye

by Paul Tremblay

  I say, “Where’d you hear that?”

  He says, “Nowhere.” He doesn’t look at me when I talk to him, even though we’ve cleaned vomit, blood, and shit off each other for a week now. He closes the incinerator hatch, his Popeye forearms black with ash. He says, “I made it up.”

  I say, “It sounded nice.”

  “Thank you. I want to say something important to the ashes. Something that’s never been said. But when the time comes, I can’t think of anything. So I just let the sounds come out and hope I get lucky.”

  I nod my head. This makes more sense to me than anything else I’ve heard since I’ve been down here.

  Quaz straightens as much as he can, pushes some of that black hair out of his eyes and looks at me. One eye is bigger than the other and his mouth slants, so I can’t be sure, but I think he’s smiling at me. He says, “You know what Father says when he’s out here with me?”

  “No.”

  “He tells me a joke, to try and make me laugh. He says, ‘Quaz, I have a joke for you. Do you know what someone who lives in City says to these ashes?’ I say, ‘I don’t know, Father,’ even though he says this to me all the time. He says, ‘Those assholes, they all say no fuss, no muss.’”

  45

  COME ON AND SEE THE SHOW!

  “Where’ve you been today? They cancel the show?”

  Melissa has been AWOL for a few hours, which was fine by me. Gave me a chance to search for my mother by myself. And she didn’t get to videotape me leaning up against a post and puking on my shoes after I stepped on a desiccated torso and head (though by appearance, not a matching set, as if that matters) during the morning run for bed-fillers.

  She doesn’t turn off the camera. She never turns off the camera. “The Candidate has been the highest rated show for eight straight nights.”

  “I know that. The CM call me every night with the stats.”

  She pulls her black baseball cap tight over her eyes, then takes a bite of a BLT. Mid-chew she says, “I was out with Joseph, filming.”

  “Is that code for you guys were out staging your own version of Thorn Birds?” It’s my turn to be the asshole. And I’m okay with it. I don’t like Melissa. I don’t like a lot of people and I’m probably not very likable myself, but I don’t like her. I don’t like that she’s making a mint off this mountain of human suffering. I don’t like that she doesn’t do anything down here but point that camera and watch and watch and watch. She watches like she’s not really here, like she has no other moral responsibility to affect the here-and-now. She’s nothing but an impotent and omniscient eye, documenting and detailing everything but changing nothing. No, I don’t believe anything will change down here because of her and The Candidate. The Candidate isn’t journalism or a documentary. It’s a show. A show isn’t real. A show panders. A show entertains. A show covers its eyes during the ugliest parts. If you don’t like a show you can change the channel and watch something else, probably a sitcom about beautiful rich people or flip over to the news where they tell you how the days’ events affect the beautiful rich people or click and there’s another reality show about beautiful rich people.

  Melissa says, “I know you don’t like me, but I’m going to tell you anyway.”

  “Why do you say I don’t like you?”

  “Your disdain is obvious.”

  “I don’t think that’s true. I think I hide it very well.”

  “Joseph told me you think I’m akin to a social parasite.”

  “Of course he did. I don’t like you because you call my father by his first name,” I say and get up from the lunch table.

  “Do you want to hear about where I was or not, Mr. Mayor?”

  I do. I want to know about the exploitation flick she made with Father Love-’em-and-leave-’em. I sit back down.

  Melissa says, “This morning, Joseph tipped me to a bunch of men in suits carrying duffle bags and guns climbing on the north side of Dump. He told me they come about once a week. He told me about what they did. I didn’t believe him. So I went out and interviewed one of the suits. Didn’t take long to find one once I knew where to look. We reached a binding verbal agreement to disguise his voice and black-bar his eyes should the tape ever be viewed, which isn’t likely. I know who and what I am down here. Anyway, I got lucky and found the leader of this particular group. He’s an affluent City businessman and he agreed to take me on their Expedition, as they called it. They had water, food, drugs, alcohol, even money in their duffle bags. They offered it to anyone and everyone in return for blow jobs. They turned away no buyers. I filmed it all. Later, this Expedition leader boasted that he sometimes took down groups who recruited serviceable females and young boys to be their pet prostitutes hidden away in the abandoned buildings of City’s North End. He said in a month he’s even taking down a Mayor-approved group of doctors who will trade duffle-bag goodies for blood. If it goes well, maybe they’ll come back for organ donation. He said none of this was a secret. He said waste not want not.” Melissa goes back to hiding behind her camera. She says, “For what it’s worth. I don’t like you either. You’re like a dog being led by the scruff.”

  I say, “I know that. I’ve always been the dog. But I’m still helping people down here. You? You aren’t in the background, you are the background, like everyone else.”

  Melissa stands and says, “Zooming,” and walks toward me, slow, like an animal stalking its prey, not that I’ve ever seen a real animal stalk real prey, just what they show me on TV. “You’re only here because you have to be.”

  “So what? You’re not telling me anything I haven’t already figured out.”

  She comes closer with the camera. Her progress is slow, but inexorable. If I stare, I can’t see the movement. I only notice the shrinking distance between me and the camera after not paying attention to it. She says, “I’m just making sure you understand that I’m the only person at this table who volunteered to come down here.” Melissa keeps going with her manual-zoom, the camera and the lens makes contact with me, right between the eyes, and she keeps pressing and pushing and zooming.

  46

  SOMETHING BLUE FOR PUSSY

  It’s my ninth day down here. The CM call right before Quaz and I do our bring-out-your-dying sweep of Pier and Dump.

  They say, “We need a big night on The Candidate,” then, “Only three days until the election,” then, “Your numbers have leveled off,” then, “You’re still behind by 15,” then, “Polls say the people still don’t identify with you,” then, “You need to do something tonight,” then, “Something new,” then, “Something bold.”

  I say, “Something blue?” but they don’t laugh. “I’m just trying to make it through each day without succumbing to a drooling and pants-shitting insanity. If me being surrounded by horrifying government-sanctioned death and suffering isn’t entertaining enough for the Nielsen families, then fuck them.”

  They say, “That’s the spirit,” then, “Show the camera that fire,” then, “You’ve been like a zombie for the past three days,” then, “Very boring,” then, “Very un-Mayoral,” then, “The I-just-want-to-find-my-mommy shtick isn’t working,” then, “Makes you seem weak,” then, “Ten percent of the respondents in last night’s insta-poll said you were a pussy,” then, “Harsh, but you did come off pussy-ish last night,” then, “We’re not going to lie to you,” then, “That bit where you paused to wipe your eyes,” then, “Very pussy,” then, “People aren’t going to vote for a pussy,” then, “But, we’ll take some blame, too,” then, “We knew we shouldn’t have aired that segment,” then, “Should’ve cut it,” then, “But don’t dwell on this,” then, “You can and will fix this,” then, “You have to show some fire,” then, “Some righteous indignation,” then, “Some angst,” then, “You have to inspire the people,” then, “You want them to want to call you their master and overlord,” then, “Not a pussy.”

  Pussy? I can’t talk
. I’m so angry my tongue has hardened into a fist. I grunt into the phone. I growl. I seethe. Last night I finally acquiesced to Melissa and gave her a real confessional. Me talking one on one with the camera. I used it like a milk box. I asked the camera if anyone had seen this missing woman. I didn’t have a picture, of course, but I described my mother and gave her name and old address. Then I told a quick anecdote about her taking in a stray cat despite our abject poverty. The fleabag hated me, took dumps on my bed and bit and scratched me at all opportunities. It hid under the couch in the TV room and if I was wearing shorts when I walked by it’d dart out from under the couch and shred my legs, then go back under the couch. I didn’t tell Melissa’s camera that part of the kitty tale, of course. Okay, a lame story. I’ll admit it. I was just trying to think of something quick to tell that would make my mother a real, live human being for all the TV-watching chimpheads out there. She’s not just a homeless or missing person; she’s not an abstract label.

  They say, “You still there?” then, “You’re mad, aren’t you,” then, “We don’t mean to offend,” then, “But politics is a bitch,” then, “You have to start growing a thicker skin,” then, “Or you’ll be eaten alive,” then, “Crying over Mommies and kitties won’t play in City.”

  I choke the phone and what I first say to them is this: “I wasn’t crying. When was I crying, goddamn it? What the fuck? I wiped my eyes after I sneezed for Chrissakes!”

  They say, “That’s not how it looks on the vid we saw,” then, “There wasn’t any sneeze,” then, “We saw all choked up,” then, “We saw I-can’t-go-on,” then, “We saw pussy.”

  Goddamn Melissa. She must’ve fucked with the tape, edited it to make it look like I was fighting back tears. Which I wasn’t. And now I’m thinking I must be a pussy because I’m arguing with the twin sociopaths not about how they’ve reduced the plight of humanity in the Pier to boring, but about how I wasn’t actually crying.

  They say, “Solomon is using it against you,” then, “Running new ads about how you abandoned your mother,” then, “He juxtaposes clips of you wiping your eyes and him flexing his arms and showing his fists,” then, “He says that this proves you don’t have the moral fiber to be a leader,” then, “Our numbers show it’s a more damaging tact than harping on your Farm escape and terrorist links,” then, “That got stale quick for him,” then, “He overplayed it,” then, “That’s right,” then, “Because criminals as Mayor we can have,” then, “But not teary-eyed pussies.”

  I want this election to go away. I’m sick of them treating me like anything other than a patsy candidate. I say, “How’s this for thicker skin: Fuck and You. If you motherfuckers were standing in front of me now, I would wrap one hand around each of your throats and squeeze until your heads popped off. Then I’d take a couple of cameras and stuff them down your necks until the fucking lenses poked out of your assholes. And voila, a reverse colonoscopy, and an appropriate political point of view for the TV audience.”

  “Ha ha!” then, “Ha ha!” then, “That’s our guy.”

  47

  WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK

  Quaz and I decide to search the levels above Home to change the routine if nothing else. I will not admit to searching a new area because the CM want me to liven things up. I will not admit it. This is just another day in the daily search for the dying and my daily search for my mother, which hasn’t gone anywhere. Despite the continued failure and what Father ESP says, I know she’s down here somewhere.

  I split from Quaz and climb a level above him. Every person I find, I ask two questions: Are you feeling okay? Have you seen my mother? I follow up the second question with a brief physical description. No one says yes to both questions. I climb a bit higher, into a shadowy and gnarled section of beams and find a dirt-old woman sitting in the crook of the cross section, perched like a bird. She fusses with paper, cloth, and the other garbage that makes up her nest. I visually scan her dried husk of a body for any obvious signs of terminal illness. I’m a regular Florence Nightingale.

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  She says, “Don’t come too close! I’m scared.” I try to tell her that I won’t hurt her, that I’m there to help, but she continues. “I’m so scared I can’t do nothing anymore. Nothing but sit in this corner. It’s terrible. I get the shakes and shivers. See?” She holds out her hands, and they are shaking. “I can’t sleep. I can’t close my eyes from the worry. I’m worrying myself to death, worrying City and all this wood that’s everywhere will come crashing down on my head.” She slips into another language, Russian, maybe, but I don’t know. Doesn’t matter because two things are clear: she doesn’t need Home’s help just yet, and she’s too out of her head to be of any help to me. I not-so-subtly try to slink away.

  She says, “Wait! You need to know it’s all going to come crashing down, squash us, drown us, mix us in with water and wood, and buildings and blood and bones. I try to tell them, but no one listens.” She talks faster than the CM and worries her nest the whole time. “That’s the truth. I don’t know much, but I know that. Someday it’s all going to come down. Someday soon.”

  Maybe I should take her back to Home, let someone else decide if she can stay there or not. I offer. She shakes me off and throws a can at me. I duck and cover, and slink away without asking her if she’s met my mother down here. I’m not that desperate even if I am that desperate.

  Quaz hooks back up with me on the way down to his level. I tell him about the old woman. He laughs and tells me that she threw a colander at him two weeks ago, and then we continue our search.

  We find a man lying on a wide, four-lane beam. Heavy foot traffic passes him by, no one cares enough to lend a hand, or even kick him off the post and into the water. He’s a skeleton inside a plaid cardigan sweater and gray nylon running pants. His skin is yellower than butter, closer to lemon. Hepatitis C, in spades. I don’t want to touch him, but Quaz throws Mr. Hepatitis over his shoulder and hump. Mr. Hepatitis is awake but unresponsive. He doesn’t resist. Our climb down to Home’s level is a struggle with Quaz catching the brunt of it. His arms and legs are shaking as we stagger into Home.

  “Welcome back, boys,” my father says. I don’t really see much of the old man these days. He pops in and out of the Wing to greet newcomers and to say bon voyage to the out-goers. Literally, that’s what he says to the deceased as we wheel them out, bon voyage! It’s no fancy eulogy or last rites, but appropriate, I think. Otherwise, he’s the administrative guy, the string puller who stays in his office and on his phone or computer. Only, when I go looking for him, he’s never in his office. He’s in his room, behind a locked door. The great and powerful Oz. If I sound bitter about this, I don’t intend to. I’m starting to almost understand what and why he sacrificed for this place.

  We put Mr. Hepatitis in a bed. His eyes open and they’re egg yolks. I ask him his name. He shakes his head, which is something very painful to do judging by facial expressions. He says something in a language I do not understand. Quaz recognizes it as a Hindi dialect. This means we have to find an interpreter. My father the father comes to see our new roomie and he approves our finding and bringing in an interpreter for our newest patient. We can offer our interpreter food and shelter for as long as Mr. Hepatitis is alive. This is not written in any sort of contract. Quaz goes out on an interpreter search by himself. Padre stays. Melissa stays, of course and ad nauseum ad infinitum. And I stay with the new patient even though I am petrified of him. He is a balloon filled to burst with his illness.

  My throat is dry and lips clamp tight. Breathing is shallow. My body is on Hep C yellow-alert. So when I try to say universally reassuring things in a universally reassuring tone of voice, I know I’m not convincing. He talks but I don’t understand. He sounds afraid, or maybe he’s agitated, angry. I can’t tell.

  My father says, “Comfort him, will you, please?”

  “How?” I say, but I know the answer.

 
“Pretend for a second that you’re not afraid of him. Smile. You know, whistle while you work.” He actually whistles the tune.

  So I’m supposed to be an oh-so-cute dwarf now, whistling while I work, and I imagine myself as one of the dwarves mindlessly whistling while I shorten my life span by breathing in diamond dust and those gases that killed the canaries (they won’t be whistling anymore!) or get crushed in a cave-in while in the last hour of my twelve-hour, minimum-wage shift, In the mine, in the mine . . .

  Father ESP says, “Lighten up and get a grip, Dopey. This isn’t about you. Fine, don’t whistle then. Just hold his hand, cradle his head, hug him, do something, Mr. Mayor.” He says all this in a light, airy tone, like he’s talking to a precocious toddler who is deserving of the highest praise.

  I want to say you do it. You give comfort to Typhoid Harry, I’d like to see you give comfort since I never got to see you do it back in the day, you know, when you were my father. But he’s right. This isn’t and shouldn’t be about me. So I give Mr. Hepatitis my bestest smile, reach into my pocket and pull out some latex gloves.

  My father says, “Gloves. Jesus. You’re being a pussy again.” Then he walks away, grumbling to himself.

  I take the latex gloves and make a balloon with udders, a fake cow. I make another one and bat them in the air above my head. I force some smiles and even a small chuckle but it sounds hateful. So I stop and grab this guy’s hand. He’s two-thousand degrees warm. He sweats and shivers. I talk. I don’t lie and tell him he’ll be okay even though he doesn’t understand me. I lie and tell him that I love him, like I’m supposed to. Then I ask him if he’s seen my mother.

  He bolts upright and throws up all over me. All. Over. Me. Green bile tinged with some pink in my hair and on my face and clothes and hands and arms, and I’m a dead man unless someone turns a scalding hot fire hose on me right now.