The Potential of Zeroes

by Eric Mattys

  A stray dog prances toward Max, hungry, but mostly disinterested. Max stares at the dog. “I’m mad-doggin’ ya, dog. Whattur ya gonna do about it?”

  The dog does four double-takes towards Max while trotting.

  “GRRAAAAAAAAHHH!” The dog darts away for a second before resuming course. “Fuck everything! I wish I could breathe in until I explode.” He takes a sniff of the marijuana plant. “That’s the plan. I’m going to try. I’m going to try to breathe in so deep I explode. Where’s that fucking tobacco shop? I knew I never should’ve thrown away my old pipe. That was stupid. Noo. Of course there will never be another time in my life where I want to smoke marijuana. Why do I have to be an idiot sometimes?”

  A pedestrian in a brown corduroy jacket and the air of a professor approaches Max. He’s too young to actually be a professor because his sideburns still have bald spots, and the jacket doesn’t fit properly. A cigarette dangles from the pedestrian’s lower lip. This guy might know where a tobacco shop might be. The wannabe professor looks away to avoid eye contact. Max asks anyway. “Hey man. Are you a devoted smoker?”

  The pedestrian steals the cigarette from his mouth. “Right now I am.”

  “Good. Very good. Can you tell me where I might find a tobacco shop nearby?”

  “I think there’s one about three blocks up and four blocks east.”

  “East?”

  He uses his hands to indicate. “Yeah. Away from the mountains.” The smoker pauses looking at the plant Max carries. “Is that…? Is that a pot plant?”

  “Nooo. This is my pet plant. His name’s George. Say hi, George.” Max looks at the plant expecting a response. When he doesn’t get one, he responds, “He’s shy.”

  The smoker looks away from Max quizzically but keeps walking. “Best of luck to the both of you.”

  Max walks past him. “We’re on our way now, George.”

  Max arrives at the tobacco shop, which has a sign above the door that reads “Mike’s Smokes” in generic cursive writing. He sets the plant down just inside the doorway of the shop.

  “What’ll it be for you, sir?” asks the thick-but-pristinely-bearded fellow behind the glass counter. He stoutly vocalizes his words with his brow perpetually clenched and wears a flannel jacket with very inconveniently combined colors: purple, orange, black, and more thinly, red.

  Max examines the man’s appearance. This guy resists change and buys his clothes from Wal-Mart because they’re cheapest there and color is not a concern. Fox News blares on a tiny portable TV behind the counter. Maybe he’s color blind. Gray-haired age peeks out all over like a sycamore tree covered in spanish moss. Time for some good ol’boy charm. Max smiles. “I’ll take some rolling papers and a pipe, please.” Totally normal, totally trustworthy.

  The tobacconist sets the papers and pipe on the table, but narrows his eyes as he sees Max’s smile. “I s’pose you’ll want some tobacco to go with it, right?” It’s a question, but there’s only one right answer.

  “Nope. Just the papers and the pipe actually.” Max rattles his fingers tatap tap tatap tatap on the glass case that holds a collection of fine lighters and exquisite tobacco. He looks back and forth between the barred windows and the tobacconist. There’s a whole world of changing people out there and this guy’s stuck fifty years in the past. Shouldn’t the free market encourage him to cater to the customer?

  The tobacconist’s face shifts from solid sycamore to a smiling babbling brook. “Say, if you don’t mind me asking, what kind of tobacco are you planning on using with these papers and pipe?”

  Max rears his head back. Maybe he’s not all fire and brimstone. “Well.” He rubs his fingers together and smells them. “It’s this really special,” he throws up finger quotes, “homegrown,” more finger quotes, “green,” yet another set of finger quotes, “tobacco. You know what I’m sayin’?”

  The tobacconist’s smile violently vanishes back to white bark. “You’re planning to use these papers and pipe for marijuana?”

  Max drops his jaw and puts his hand on his chest. “NO! No no no.” He wrinkles his eyebrows to match the dismay on the tobacconist’s face. “My uncle, he has this special… green tobacco… that he grows in his backyard. Entirely unrelated to marijuana. Entirely… In fact, I’m almost shocked and appalled that you might make such a suggestion. Do I look like one of those doper types? Are my hands jittery for my next fix?” Max shakes his hand violently to mimic an addict and then holds it completely still, parallel to the ground in front of his face. “Did I say ‘dude’ at any point during our conversation?”

  “No.”

  “You’re damn right I didn’t. I would never poison my God-given body with such vile chemicals. Marijuana is for those flower-pandering, tree-hugging pansy types who can’t handle the in-your-face toxic beauty of tobacco and nicotine that—”

  “Yeah…” The tobacconist looks away from Max and aggressively cleans out his ear with his finger in annoyance. “Yeah, I hate to interrupt, but is that your uncle’s tobacco plant sitting there by the door?” The tobacconist points to the plant sitting near the entrance.

  Max pauses for a moment. “Yep. He gave it to me as a gift. Can I go ahead and get this stuff in a bag?” Max has his money out.

  The tobacconist ignores Max and walks to the plant sitting inside the doorway by the window. As the tobacconist walks away, Max grabs the papers and pipe off the counter and leaves three twenties. The tobacconist takes a closer look at the plants. His hunch confirmed, he points a finger of wrath at the vegetation near the doorway. “That is NOT tobacco! I think you and your uncle should have a long talk because, right now, he’s making you a federal criminal! I’ll give you this warning, youngster. Marijuana will make you do crazy things. You understand? Now listen. When I was just a little younger than you, I had a friend, and he decided it’d be a,” he pauses to shake his head, “a fun time, to smoke some of this green tobacco, as you call it. He asked me to try it with him, but I said, ‘Hell no.’ Now, I’m a man of science, but I’ll be damned if my friend didn’t turn into a monster or a hell demon of some sort.”

  Max resists laughter. “Oh. As a man of science, how did you know he was a monster or demon or whatever?”

  “Because he was screamin’ ‘I’m a monster from hell! I’m a real live monster demon from hell!’ His eyes went big and got red, and he started tearin’ up everything in sight. He took a portrait of his mother that was hanging above his mantle, slammed his head clean through it, and said, ‘Now my momma’s a monster too!’ Scariest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  In no mood to exchange drug stories, Max asks, “Does this mean you’re not going to sell me the papers and pipe?” With the papers and pipe in his pocket, Max moves toward the door.

  “You’re asking me to sell you drug paraphernalia. That plant is marijuana and I will do no such thing.”

  “Have it your way then. I better get back to my uncle and explain the folly of his ways.” Max walks out with his plant, papers, and pipe. Where’s the nearest park?

  45

  Fate and Rotation

  From atop a park bench, Doobie hollers, “Now--you naysayers and naydoers and nonbelievers of the nonexistent, anaesthetized in your net gains, inept to network with the neurological nether regions of your innards--this is a warning! I implore your immediate introduction into the inescapable influx of doom, destruction, and death by dumb hands halved happily from the helpless by honorable horrors of self-preservation. Don’t let your cell phones, headphones, earbuds, and Blueteeth block the basic paths of communication. Why do you, with no blockades at all, keep passing me by? I’m warning you and you won’t even listen.” Doobie shakes his head and looks at the ground. New form of the same look-away game.

  He takes a deep breath and continues. “Succulent succubi stimulate stationary sleep syndromes, silence sounds of spite, spitting at expanding spaces between middle an
d maximum, meek and middle milquetoasted by media mogul millionaires who make money melting minds with moments of mistruth via squares of electronic box seduction—boob-tubes of bellicose belligerence beckon and bribe bereavement from beauty but bars between. Bare your brains briefly because fire falls frantic from these phonetics fecund with fury! Find your own final words while the wealth of the world wobbles, weakens and writhes, wrought-up under the wailing whispers of willing oblivion. Only hours until the infinite off… Bare your brains to your beloveds… BARE YOUR BRAINS BRIEFLY!”

  The Queen of the Universe sits at the next park bench about twenty meters away, her arm resting along the backrest, her head tilted downward with her eyes peering upward from under her eyebrows. “Dey ain’t gonna listen ta dat.” She frowns and shakes her head. Her other hand mingles with a golden veneer shawl with frilly strings on the ends.

  “Why not?”

  “Dey been told too many tings. Dey ears gone dumb.”

  “Who are you to tell me what they will or won’t believe?”

  “Dat’s what I mean. Who are you ta say I got answers and warnings? If you ain’t on TV or in some magazine, you just anoader crazy.”

  “I’m the crazy who can see where all the stars will land.”

  “Join da club. I control da rotation of da stars.”

  Doobie watches the Queen of the Universe’s fingers analyze and separate each strand of her shawl. Does she intend to dismantle the shawl or weave it anew? The Queen of the Universe looks up and notices Doobie’s downtrodden face. “Look. You got a message? Make it plain. Like me. I got a tag line. I’m da Queen of da Universe. I control da rotation of da stars. Take out da mystery.”

  “But there is mystery. The mystery is where exactly now is.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

  “No no. You can’t say ya don’t know. Nobody’ll follow somebody who don’t know. Start witchya name.”

  “My name is Doobie Hugh Lyte.”

  “Doobie like…?” The Queen of the Universe puts her thumb and pointer finger together, brings them to her mouth, and makes an inhaling noise.

  Doobie nods, exasperated.

  “Dat will be a problem. Why donchya make a name foryaself dat’s more serious, dat people will take seriously, like… Osiris? It sounds like ‘serious.’”

  Doobie squints.

  “Too mystical? How about Tom Brokaw or Jon Stewart? Dey are pretty serio—”

  “I will retain my own name.”

  “Fine. But remember, people don’t got time for ideas.”

  “Okay. I’ll try it your way.” Doobie returns to his oratorical post upon the park bench. “Attention worker drones, you will die. Television will not save you. I know the future. My words will cause the end of the world. New stars will burn everything to dust. There’s only a few hours remaining. Stop distracting yourselves. Be with your loved ones. Share your last thoughts.” Doobie repeats the same message. No one seems to hear. Doobie sits on the park bench dejected. So many years of silence for a planet that doesn’t even care. He walks over to the other bench and slumps next to the Queen of the Universe. Even with words, the isolation is the same. He looks over at the woman with the golden shawl. “Queen of the Universe, would you like to be my date for the end times?”

  46

  Fresh

  Max walks past the sign that reads, “Hungarian Freedom Uprising Memorial Park.” He sits down on the edge of the fountain and looks at the plant he aims to consume. So simple and unimaginative in form. “If the universe made more sense, marijuana would always have popping stars around it, or maybe it would have some kind of iridescent glow, or maybe it would just talk to you with some lounge singer voice. Like, ‘Hey. Hey you. You’re beautiful, people. Let’s share a secret.’ The marijuana bud would look around to make sure no one was looking ‘I can make you feel different and all you have to do is breathe.’ All I want is to make things different. I want to exist in one second. Be happy. Not remember all the other seconds. I want to be fresh, like a newborn.”

  A practiced party trick of the past allows Max to roll a decent joint with only one hand. Will this be good straight off the stem? Probably supposed to let it dry or something. Whatever. He plucks the simple green buds and places the pieces in the thin tobacco paper. He rolls the paper and the bud on the surface of the fountain until the unit forms a solid mass. With the spark from a lighter, he creates a glow at the end of the rolled up paper. Inhale, inhale, inhale with belly breathing like the meditating monks, until shoulders start to shrug, until the solar plexus begs for mercy. He inhales the sun. The world goes black and blank. The burning mass can’t stay there forever, though. He coughs out stars and blows the world back to light. Each cough feels like the sun running through his blood searching for an escape route through his skin or his eyes. The planet quakes at the imbalance of such an immediate concentration of mass and energy found and lost in Max’s lungs. Does anyone else see these coughing stars?

  Max pauses to regain control and consider everyone else’s reality. For them, it’s the same relatively predictable world. They probably think, “How sad. Some guy with one arm in the midst of a terrible coughing fit. I hope he doesn’t have tuberculosis.” Max hears his body tingling. No telling how long the coughing continues.

  He lays out on the yellowing grass, soaks in the blue heavens above, and inhales with the joint against his lips. All the clouds in the sky enter his lungs until a thunderstorm brews in his chest. Lightning strikes the top of his head from inside and at the tips of his fingers. He drowns in internal rainfall, which forces him to blow the clouds back out so forcefully that what were rain clouds in his chest go back to scattered fluff in the sky. It’s possible half an eon passes as he lays on the ground, but he knows it can’t be that long because he still has half a joint and the sun remains in about the same place in the sky.

  A bearded, old man interrupts Max’s vision. Max sits up. Is that God? Nope. God wouldn’t speak to humans with words. Something about “bare your brains”? Who’s that next to the would-be God? A lady linebacker? Don’t seem to be a threat. Max lays back down.

  The old man approaches and speaks. “I see you’ve already started the party without us, Maximus.”

  Max squints and recognizes the poetic homeless guy he saw yesterday at the shelter.

  Max smiles and rests on his elbows. “Time waits for no man, man.” He laughs until he forgets why. “But you should really try this.” He squints. “It’s ah… ah…” He nods continuously. Thoughts on a merry-go-round fail to get off the ride. Max passes over the joint still nodding. “... really… you know… something.”

  The old man takes the joint between his fingers. “I thought you might want to share.” Doobie brings the joint to his aged lips and makes the stream of smoke tailing off the end disappear while the embers glow brighter. Dad would be proud. The old man coughs ferociously, quivering like a frightened child between each expulsion.

  “What’s your name, old man?”

  Doobie winces and asks between subsiding coughs, “Does my name really matter?”

  Max shakes his head in slow motion. “No. I guess it doesn’t matter, but I don’t want to just keep callin’ you ‘old man.’ Ya know?”

  “My name is Doobie Hugh Lyte.”

  “Okay… Doobie… huh huh… awesome name... Who’s your friend?”

  “This is the Queen of the Universe. We just met.”

  “Does she have a name, or does she just go by the Queen of the Universe?”

  “You can call me Da Queen of da Universe, or just Queen of da Universe.”

  “My name is Maximus.” Max rolls himself up on one knee, takes the hand of the Queen of the Universe, and kisses it. “It’s an honor to meet you. Would you care for a smoke, Queen of the Universe?”

  “Nope. I gotta keep control.”

  “What are you controlling?”


  “I control da rotation of da stars.”

  “Oh.” Max pauses. “Do you think you could reverse it? I mean if you reversed every rotation of every star, would our world reverse, too?”

  “Hey. I’m just doin’ my job. If I started spinnin’ da stars da wrong way, who knows what else might go wrong.”

  “Maybe you could just spin my star back… Spin it back to before I was a ball of plasma…” Max closes his eyes and sends himself into space trying to spin the stars back on his own. “Spin it back until I’m a molecular cloud… Spin it back until… I’m the void between atoms.” He falls back to Earth again and opens his eyes. He stands up and Doobie passes the joint back to Max. “I guess I’m no Queen of the Universe.” Max laughs again and spins around in a circle as fast as he can. Max brings the joint to his lips again, still spinning. He and the joint form a giant cyclone vacuum promising to clean the whole world of everything out of place. All the problems in the world disappear inside his lungs for a second. No wars, no genocides, no greed, no rapes, no suffering quietly while best friends and cryptic lovers share same sexual space and time on the other side of a wall. The stillness burns. He exhales, everything floats back to its previous place. He spins and coughs until he falls over, resting and watching the world whirl.

  47

  Things Really Come Together

  Terese and Zeke exist as part of the spinning world, neither of them able to stop and watch. They are panicked gears rotating faster than they should. Frantically, they pace in straight lines, bouncing off invisible walls, contemplating the missing plant.