Buzz Cut

by James W. Hall

  On the far side of the control board, he saw a switch plate swung open. He ducked farther back into the hallway and peeked through the crack in the door. No one hiding there. He stepped inside and moved over to the control panel, bent to look. Only a bundle of wires. Some kind of meter or radio unit attached to them. Nothing he recognized. Then he noticed a small pair of wire clippers sitting on a shelf inside the panel.

  Apparently their thief was up to something else this time. A little sabotage maybe. Pipe a porno movie into every TV. Distract the crew with a professional blowjob while he ripped off the casino, walked off with his monthly fifty thou.

  When the decking creaked behind him, Sugar stiffened, took a careful breath, gathered himself. Then wheeled around. He made it halfway round before the forearm clenched around his throat, yanked him upright, dragged him several steps backward. The man was strong, flattening Sugar against his chest. His hoarse breath in Sugar's ear.

  "Okay," Sugar muttered. "Be cool. Okay? Nobody's done anything wrong here yet. Nobody's in trouble at this moment."

  Adrenaline flooding his bloodstream, everything revving.

  The man said nothing, maneuvering him into the center of the room. Then Sugarman heard the crackle of electrical current and glimpsed out of the corner of his vision the bluish flash of naked voltage.

  "Know where electricity comes from?" The man's dry lips touched Sugar's ear. "The word, I mean, not the thing itself."

  He didn't answer, kept himself tense against the man's considerable strength, making minor adjustments, exploring the possibilities of twisting free.

  "No? Well, I'll tell you. It's from the Latin electnim, which means amber. Amber, the yellow fossil resin. That seems kind of weird, doesn't it? Amber, electricity. Weird until you know the facts. That when you rub amber with your hand or a cloth, you get an electrostatic charge."

  Sugarman managed a grunt.

  "It's interesting, isn't it. Amber, rub, electricity. Yellow, fossil. All those other words floating around in that one word. You rub loose some electrons, they've been just sitting there, hidden away, doing no one any good. Until one day somebody discovers it, rubs it and pow. It's got a whole new life. A reason for being. Like you and me, same thing. The two of us, we rub against each other, static discharges, a whole new thing happens."

  He stroked his fingers lightly against Sugar's cheek then brought his hand around so Sugarman could see. Holding it inches from his eyes, the voltage sputtering.

  "I told you we'd meet again."

  "Why don't you turn that off? We can talk this over."

  "Nothing to discuss. You're on one side, I'm on the other."

  "Look, you don't need to be doing this. You're a decent kid."

  "You don't know me, old man. You don't know a fucking thing about me."

  "You're wrong," Sugar said. "I know who you are. And I know we can settle this. You need money, I think I can get you what you want, you don't have to keep doing this. Causing violence."

  "You offering me a deal?"

  "Yeah, a deal. Fifty thousand a month, like you've been getting. Neat and clean."

  "A deal like with a contract, lawyers, dotted lines?"

  "If you want it like that. It can be arranged."

  "Maybe I like the violence."

  "No, you don't."

  "Like I said. You don't know a thing about me."

  The current shut off. The hand moved out of view. Sugarman felt the arm at his throat relax a half notch. Sugar sucking in a decent breath. He could go creative, stomp the guy's instep, try an elbow, a gouge. Let his legs soften and drop dead weight against the man's grip. But he did nothing. Just hung there. The doe, the headlights. Knowing it was crazy. Knowing what was behind those headlights, the hurtling tons of steel. But standing there instead, risking it for a few more seconds. All the reasons for fighting neutralized by all the reasons for giving in.

  A second later he felt something touch his neck, two cold spikes. And he gasped, set his feet, and wrenched to his right, but the vulnerable moment had passed. The man was prepared and Sugar didn't break the hold, didn't even weaken it.

  "Time for closure, bro."

  A blast of heat roared up his spinal column and Sugar saw a shimmer deep inside his eyes. And he felt his body shudder then sag in the stranger's arms. Felt himself crumple to the floor. Mind still bright alive, head full of pulsing light, but his body gone. Lying there, eyes unseeing. Legs bent underneath him in an unnatural pose. Synapses chattering.

  Wouldn't you know.

  Just when Sugar had begun to figure out a few of the major life issues. These last few years growing more secure in his views, his few codes guiding him through a series of nightmarish moments. Guns going off. Splattered in blood. Amid all that he'd managed somehow to keep his feet moving.

  To know where he should go next, all he had to do was turn around, find his tracks across the snow, the sand, the dirt, whatever, turn back around, hold to that same course.

  But at the moment Sugarman couldn't see the footprints anymore. Couldn't see shit. A fuzz like TV snow inside his eyeballs. Sounded that way too, like one of those white noise machines some people needed to sleep.

  Thinking all this as his disinterested body drifted in the empty air, thinking that maybe he was hearing the meltdown of his own circuits. His nerve networks dissolved, his ganglia and neurotransmitters, synapses, all those fragile filaments broiled. His solids turning to liquids, the liquids to gas. As though this were what it sounded like, the thing that came for you. Not shrieking ghouls in black coaches, not God rumbling at the windy gates of heaven, but this simple electric noise. Rising up from inside your own body and reaching out for you and bringing you down into the depths of its terrible buzzing.

  CHAPTER 13

  That Saturday night the martial arts class was squatting in a circle on the wrestling mat on the gym floor at Coral Shores High, a dozen women and Thorn. It was late, around eleven. Rochelle on one side of him, a large woman named Randy on the other. Everyone in the circle was staring at Thorn. Everyone except Rochelle, and she was looking off at an exit sign in the west corner.

  Twenty feet away Rover sat primly watching the spectacle, his leash tied to one of the bleachers. Thorn wiped the sweat from his forehead, brushed his hand on his gray gym shorts, then rubbed his mouth against the shoulder of his T-shirt. He'd just finished describing his fight with Freddy Megawatt on the Flamingo docks two weeks ago. Midway through every class, Paula Parkins asked one or two of them to tell how their training was affecting their daily lives. Mostly the women spoke about the confidence they'd acquired. Once or twice somebody had recounted a physical application, rebuffing an unwanted advance in a bar, around the office. But nobody had described a fight.

  Paula Parkins was scowling at him through the dense silence.

  "I was afraid of this," she said finally. "It's exactly why I was reluctant to let you join this class in the first place. If it weren't for Rochelle's persistence, I wouldn't have."

  "Look," Thorn said. "It worked like it was supposed to. I put the guy down, convinced him to give up. Nobody got hurt."

  "That's a total distortion of the philosophy of this course."

  "It is?"

  "Tell him, Rochelle. Tell him what he did wrong."

  She was still staring at the green exit sign above the gym door. Thorn had spent a lot of torturous hours in this room a few decades ago. His two years on the wrestling team, getting bent double by guys stronger and quicker than he was. Leaving practice every day with his face swollen, abrasions on his cheeks that reopened the next afternoon. Major pain.

  Rochelle said, "You could have just walked away, Thorn."

  "I could've?"

  "Yes," Paula Parkins said. "You didn't need to fight. You elected to fight."

  "Elected? Jesus, this guy almost ran us over in his boat. I just barely caught Rover from going overboard, an alligator out there about to gulp him down."

  Rover heard his name and thumped hi
s tail twice.

  "So because he splashed you with his boat and ruffled your dog, you felt you had to punish this man," Paula Parkins said. "And you used the skills I've taught you to do that."

  She was only an inch over five feet but weighed almost the same as Thorn. Wearing her white judo suit, a pink belt. She was in her late forties with long brown hair. Never wore makeup, didn't do her nails. None of that falderal.

  She'd spread her feet, arms dangling at her side. Looked like she was ready to sling him against the far wall.

  "I was angry, yeah," Thorn said. "But I didn't hurt the guy. I put him down a couple of times is all."

  He glanced at Rochelle. Still focused on the exit sign.

  "You were exercising your competitive macho ego," Paula said. "That's a grotesque misuse of everything I'm trying to teach in this class. It's heresy. You fought when you didn't have to. You used what I've shown you to humiliate a foe."

  "If I'd wanted to humiliate the guy, I would've punched him in the goddamn mouth. Broken a tooth."

  "And now you're arguing with me. Now you're cursing and challenging my authority in front of my class."

  "Okay, all right. All right. I'm sorry."

  "We'll take a five-minute break," Paula said. "And, Thorn, as of this moment, you're no longer a member of the class."

  In one corner of the gym among the purses and street shoes a phone warbled. Several of the young women got to their feet and went over to see if it was theirs. Rochelle was still reading the exit sign, another hour and she'd have it figured out. After a moment Janice Hardy came back with Rochelle's phone.

  Rochelle took it, pressed it to her ear. She said nothing for a moment, then she extended her arm to Thorn. Eyes on his. "It's for you."

  Her voice was empty.

  He held the phone to his ear and said hello.

  "Thorn?"

  It was an older woman he didn't recognize.

  He said yes.

  "He gave this emergency number. And your name." Her voice was low. Barely above a whisper.

  "Who is this?"

  "Sugarman," she said. "He's been hurt."

  Her voice was frayed, a ragged breath tearing at the words. "He's on the M.S. Eclipse docked in Miami. There'll be a ticket at the gate in your name."

  There was a fluttery static on the line. Solar disturbances. A stray voice speaking to someone else about leasing a car.

  "Hurt how?"

  Rochelle was on her feet, staring down at him. Several of the other women had reassembled, the circle forming again. Ready to start throwing each other around with nonviolent ferocity. Paula stood near the exit door, fists on her hips, waiting to purge the room of his masculine presence before going on. Only Rover was looking Thorn's way, and he seemed slightly ashamed.

  "How was he hurt?" Thorn said quietly.

  "His heart." She paused. He could hear her swallow. "He might not make it."

  "Who is this!"

  Rochelle moved in front of him, a desolate smile on her face. The woman on the phone was breathing hard. Twice she started to say something, then cut herself off. He heard her draw a deep breath.

  "Who is this, goddamn it!"

  Bleakly Rochelle reached out a hand for her phone.

  "This is Lola," the voice said. "Lola Sampson. Sugar's mom."

  Thorn came to his feet. And the line turned to static.

  ***

  Out in the dark parking lot Rochelle leaned against the passenger door of his VW. Thorn looking past her at the steady flow of cars heading toward Key West. Rover sniffed nearby tires, practiced lifting his leg.

  "You're leaving?"

  "I've got to, I don't have any choice."

  "Why? Because you get a phone call?"

  "Sugar's been hurt. It's serious."

  "They told me this was going to happen. They warned me."

  Thorn stared out at the traffic. All day, all night, a ceaseless parade of rental cars.

  "Who warned you?"

  "My friends, my parents. Everybody saw it. But I said no. He's finished all that Hardy Boys stuff. He's settled down."

  She began to weep, raising a hand to stiff-arm him if he tried to embrace her. She spoke through her tears.

  "I should've seen it. The way you live. You were just indulging me, saying what I wanted to hear. Just keeping things smoothed over. That's who you are, isn't it, Thorn? You're going to be a boy the rest of your life. Doesn't matter who you're with, you're going to go off on your adventures whenever you get the urge. Treat me just like you did the wonderful Darcy Richards."

  Thorn drew a quick breath, felt his right hand rise from his side. Rochelle glaring at him, her chin jutted out as if she were daring him to strike. His hand dropped.

  "Don't talk about Darcy that way."

  Rover stood between them now, the headlights entrancing him. Thorn saw a couple of her friends from class waiting by their car across the row from them.

  He had to work for the words, his breath deserting him. "I don't have any choice, Rochelle. My friend's in trouble. He's been hurt."

  "Of course," she said. "You don't have a choice."

  "Rochelle, I'll be back tomorrow, the next day at the most."

  "Don't forget, Thorn, I've seen what happens. I know how the story goes. One thing leads to another."

  "What're you asking me to do, stay here, ignore my friend?"

  "I wouldn't ask you to do that, no."

  "Well, what?"

  "I'm not asking you anything, Thorn. You have to go. You don't have a choice."

  "This is crazy, Rochelle. I don't understand."

  "No," she said. "How could you understand?"

  "I'm coming back, goddamn it. I'm coming back."

  "You can't come back," she said. "You were never here."

  His hand twitched again. The traffic poured past on the overseas highway. The puppy sat down by Thorn's foot, leaned lightly against his leg.

  "Go on," she said. "Do it. Do what you really want to do."

  "I love you, Rochelle. I'm not going to hit you."

  "There's different ways to hit, you know."

  She stood there a minute more, chin out. Things tearing inside Thorn's chest, like strands of muscles stretched beyond their limit. Breath hurting, a dark flicker inside his eyes.

  After a long moment Rochelle swung around and marched away toward her friends. Rover jerked his head and watched her go. Then he stared up at Thorn, waiting for a command.

  Rochelle's friends huddled around her. A couple of them glanced in his direction as they comforted her. For months now he'd played the rapist with these women, let them hurl him across the wrestling mat. Performed his role even though it made him feel unclean, gave him an occasional nightmare.

  Week after week as he attacked them, they exposed themselves, the murderous dread and fury in their eyes. The same look Rochelle had given him just now.

  Acting out the rapist's part, watching their eyes harden, Thorn had come to know the savagery they expected from his race. And finally in the last few sessions, to his horror, some Pavlovian dribble of hormone had entered his bloodstream and called up his own lurking rage. He'd felt his throat tighten as he grabbed their arms, felt some hot tangle of passions rise unbidden inside him as he threw his body at these women. Felt the ugly growl of the animal inside.

  Perhaps Paula Parkins was right. Maybe Thorn was doomed to be a sexual simpleton forever. Driven by a need to test his virility. A man who could never be domesticated by lace curtains or lavish meals. His sexual wiring was faulty. Doomed to be attracted by nothing more consequential than a woman's slope of belly and swish of hair, her childbearing advantages. Driven forward by some grim and shallow need to replicate himself, pour his seed into the most fertile ground available. Unable to anchor to any enduring bond. Adrift in a sea of biologic impulse. No matter who lay beside him at the moment, no matter what promises he made to her, a part of him would always be listening for the next bugle call.

  As he peered thr
ough the parking lot at Rochelle and her friends, Rover sniffed his sweaty ankle, gave it a tentative lick. Thorn looked down at the dog. Rover was wagging his tail as he cleaned the salt from Thorn's ankle. A good dog. Damn good dog.

  Thorn stepped away from Rover, opened the door to the VW, dropped inside. He nagged the car to life, slammed the door, backed out of his space. Rochelle didn't look his way.

  Heading across the lot, Thorn glanced once into the rearview mirror. Rover had joined Rochelle and her friends, licking the sweat off their ankles now.

  CHAPTER 14

  As Thorn accelerated over Jewfish Creek onto the dark stretch toward Miami, the steering wheel tore loose from his hand and jerked hard left. He wrenched it back in line but it shimmied wildly in his grip. Must've knocked the VW's front end seriously out of line when he'd bashed Sugar's office door.

  In five minutes he was breathing hard. His T-shirt soaked, hands slippery on the ridged plastic wheel. The car was trying desperately to merge with the opposing headlights.

  After some grueling experimentation he found that below forty, things were bearable. Over forty he had to use both hands and half his weight to wrestle the car into a wobbling line.

  For the next hour he pushed the VW to fifty, then on to sixty, battled the sultan of swerve to a standstill. By the time he reached Cutler Ridge, it was after midnight and the muscles in his arms were failing, sharp spasms were breaking out in his lower back. And he still had another thirty miles across town to the Port of Miami.

  And now there was something else. Traffic. It was Saturday and even the highways in the outskirts of the city were packed. He'd read somewhere that on weekend nights, two-thirds of the drivers in Miami were crocked. He could see why. You'd need a good buzz to navigate those highways at that time of night. As many cars were doing twice the speed limit as were doing half of it. Drunks and dopers, geriatrics and teenagers stupefied on puberty, tourists who'd apparently arrived from some part of the world where driving was a branch of warfare.