Assimilation

by James Stryker

  But the pharmacist combined it all. He was everything and had everything Andrew wanted, and he’d barely been able to control himself.

  Be glad that all I can do is jump off the diving board – that the rage I could be feeling is stopped. I don’t know why that is, but you should be grateful for it.

  The first thing he’d hated about Oz was his appearance. Not the command or clapping his hands at him as if he were a dog. He hated how Oz looked and his clothes.

  “Hey, you, get your ass off my bench and come get your pills!”

  Asshole.

  Andrew had scraped the Simon-barnacle off and approached the counter. He’d planned to retrieve the medication with a roll of his eyes and ask Robert to start getting it again. He hated leaving the apartment and hadn’t wanted to pick it up.

  “You should get out more anyway, Nat,” Robert had said after he’d protested. “You’ve had your ankle monitor off for two days. I thought for sure you’d be spending all your time with Shelly since you don’t even have to ask my permission.”

  Monitor or not your authorization is still required, oh great Conservator. God forbid you lose track of my whereabouts for an hour.

  “I’d rather stay home and it’s on your way to work. Can’t you get it, Robert?”

  “No. I really want you to get out of the house. It will help you feel better. If you’re nervous about being alone, ask Shelly to go with you. Then maybe you two can do lunch afterward.”

  Why is spending two hours looking at a painting a waste, but the same amount of time swilling iced tea with Shelly is considered well spent? But calling Robert out on double standard bullshit resulted in the annoyed expression that made Andrew worry. Since you can essentially do whatever you want with me. I have no rights after all.

  “I’ll go alone.”

  “And I want you to call me when you leave. It should take you ten minutes to walk there, so I’ll also expect a call when you get home.”

  And track your slightest sniffle. Time occurring, note any contributing environmental conditions, and duration of sniff. Document in triplicate. Yellow copy to you. Pink to the CDC. White to keep.

  “Fine.”

  The pharmacist’s rudeness was actually a stroke of luck since it provided Andrew with an excuse to not pick up the medication in future.

  I may have to fill out sniffle incident reports, but Robert won’t tolerate someone being an ass to me. Think about that. Just pick up the meds, roll your eyes, and walk straight on out.

  But then Andrew looked the man over.

  He wore his white coat open and relaxed. Under it, a fitted light green shirt was buttoned across his flat chest. A pistachio colored tie with thick black stripes was knotted a couple inches below his Adam’s apple to accommodate the undone top button. The shirt was tucked into black slacks that hit his hips at the right spot. His pockets didn’t bulge or bubble. His slacks fell straight in a perfect cut, their uncuffed ends covering the top of his shoelaces and breaking around the ankle.

  And there was his face. The defined jaw and tan skin. How his sandy brown hair was mussed, but every loose strand still seemed perfectly arranged. A curved, black barbell pierced his left eyebrow. Though he was clean shaven, there was stubble on his neck. A formula in delicate black letters was inked beneath his right earlobe – Nc Hk (X,Z) = Hk – and disappeared under the collar of his green shirt.

  But worst was the confidence about him. The way he grinned and leaned against the counter. He was cool and contented, a man at ease within his own body. He never thought about how he moved. How he walked. How he breathed. How he spoke. He floated through the world – bold, handsome, and secure in his masculinity. Debonair. Charming. Perfect.

  Looking at this man who dressed how he wanted to dress, looked how he wanted to look, acted like he wanted to act, caused a high-octane rush through Andrew’s body.

  It threatened to pump through him again as he thought about the incident in the pharmacy days later. Robert had already left for work, and thankfully Simon had started his summer sport program. Or something. He hadn’t seen him since yesterday, but wherever he was it had to be better than being at home.

  It’s a relief to have one less burr on my ass, even if I did figure out a method to deal with him. Don’t think about the pharmacist anymore. It’ll upset you, and it’s almost ten.

  But he wasn’t sure he’d be able to focus on the frat boys with that son-of-a-bitch still hovering in his mind.

  Andrew remembered that before Oz had spoken further, he wanted to lunge across the counter and dig his fingernails into the man’s face. He wanted to rip the clothes from his body, pick up the cash register, and dash his head in. He’d pictured hammering the corner into his skull, the pharmacist’s brains slopping into his face in a pink gummy ooze. He could taste the blood.

  “Like what you see, doll?”

  Andrew had been screaming inside his head, his hands twitching to peel sections of flesh from Oz’s face. Fortunately, the same old dive sequence performed itself and Andrew maintained self-control as he hit the barrier.

  But barely. Only barely.

  The man who introduced himself as “Oz. Like the wizard. Only real, and more handsome” hadn’t comprehended that he could’ve said anything and not made Andrew as angry as he had by just existing. By looking how he did.

  When Andrew returned home that day, the fury had abated. But he needed to be alone, desperately. He was overwhelmed. Robert had been at work, but the boy was still there, ever lurking. Ever demanding in his desperate need for security.

  “Mom. Talk.”

  Simon looked over the couch as Andrew stood in the kitchen, manic to the level of shaking.

  “Mom. Talk. Now.”

  If he didn’t start speaking, the boy would rush into the room and degenerate into a sobbing mass around his ankles.

  “I am putting away the dishes. I’ve picked up a fork. I’m putting the fork away now.” In his anxiety, Andrew had jerked open the medicine drawer rather than the silverware drawer. The motion was delivered with such force that a round bottle rolled forward from behind a box of bandages.

  Benadryl.

  “Mom, you stopped talking. Talk.”

  “I am wondering if we have strawberries and yogurt.”

  One super special strawberry smoothie later, Andrew might as well have been alone in the apartment.

  With the picture of Oz looming in his mind, he’d shut himself in the closet and curled into a ball.

  That will never be me. I’m stuck in this body, in this house, with these people who’ll never know who I am. Who don’t even want to know. And if I leave, it’ll always be the same. I’ll never be at peace with myself. I’ll never be free.

  He rocked in the fetal position, the legs of Robert’s hanging pants bouncing against his forehead.

  Andrew had attempted to forget how he’d looked in Robert’s clothes. Since that awful day he’d spent hours in front of the mirror wearing his sweatshirt and jeans, trying to overwrite the horrible reflection.

  He hadn’t been able to replace it though. And after seeing how handsome and comfortable Oz looked in his own skin … Andrew compared him to the image of himself in Robert’s clothes and sank into the deepest despair he’d yet experienced.

  There was no hope for him. Even if he asked Robert to keep his promise and pass the conservatorship to CryoLife. If he started a new life as Andrew and managed to survive, he’d never be like this man. Only in his own head would he be whole, and what good did that do? No one could see the man he was. They’d see a woman in men’s clothing. A freak.

  Andrew had leaned his head against the closet wall.

  He made a beautiful woman. Natalie had worn modern, sexy things that embraced her curves. He’d seen it in The Natalie Files and pictures. He remembered wearing them. He remembered how she’d been proud of her body. Natalie felt like she’d been a trophy wife and more attractive than other women.

  I can’t do it. I can’t go back do
wn the path of trying to fill her shoes.

  But if he stayed in Natalie’s identity, he wasn’t a freak. Even if he continued to wear sweatshirts to hide everything, not brush the hair, or do the makeup. He was safe. Unkempt and raggedy, but safe. Depressed, but safe. And he’d endured it so far.

  If I can’t take it or hide it anymore at some point … If there are no more outs or options. Then I’ll do it. I’ll deliver myself. No fucking dive will stop me. Andrew had swallowed the lump in his throat. But today isn’t that day.

  He’d crawled out of the closet and adjusted his sweatshirt.

  And I’ll never go back to that pharmacy. I’ll kill that man if I see him. I’ll kill him.

  Back in the present, his cell phone alarm alerted him to the time. Ten o’clock. His fantasy life was about to hit its peak as the young men went off to class, or came home from their hangovers.

  Andrew clenched his teeth and shook Oz from his head. I won’t let you ruin this for me. They’re impossible dreams, but they’re all I have.

  He knelt in front of the bay window and drew aside a portion of the drape.

  “What the fuck?”

  Andrew fell backward and the curtain closed. He caught himself on his hands, and his wrists stung from the impact. His clear view to the Spanish colonial was obstructed by something on the windowsill.

  He sat on his knees again and cautiously peeled back the corner to find the object still there.

  It was a small four-ounce jar sealed by a navy blue lid. The jar was filled to its wide neck with a green-tinted liquid. And in the middle, suspended in the ooze, was a tiny gray brain. Two eyeballs floated in front of the miniature organ.

  Andrew let the drape cover the jar. He must be dreaming. He’d had one of those deep sleeps that’d become normal, and he was in the process of waking.

  But on a third peek out the window, the brain and its two cloudy orbs literally stared back at him.

  He looked across the street and studied the house, searching for the face of the prankster. The house’s occupants had obviously discovered his routine of watching them, and this was some joke. But no one darted their head around a corner to laugh, or pay the blue apartment complex any mind. The frat house stirred with its normal movement as if nothing had happened.

  Natalie would’ve fainted. She would’ve woken up crying and fainted again at the sight of the brain. But Andrew opened the window and brought the jar into the house.

  It was cool around the outside, and he could see the tiny wrinkles and veins on the brain’s exterior. When he looked underneath the jar, the organ bobbed with its tethered eyes as if to say hello.

  There were no markings of where or who it might’ve come from. Not even an indication as to the type of brain.

  It’d have to be a small animal. Maybe a dog? No, smaller than that. A rodent. A mouse or a gerbil brain.

  Who would be going around cutting out gerbil brains, other than college students? Maybe for an anatomy course of some kind, and this joke really was an elevated form of burning dog shit on the porch. Yet there was no one from across the street watching the scene of the crime.

  Andrew reexamined the object, searching for a clue. But there was nothing.

  He shut the window and set the jar on the coffee table. He sat on the floor and looked into its droopy eyes.

  He imagined paramedics freeing the trapped mouse from the vehicle and laying its limp body on a stretcher.

  “Our technician jumps into action. We provisionally connect the body with a machine to continue circulation and oxygen while the blood is replaced with a stabilizer reducing freezing damage. We then extract the brain. It’s kept in storage and cooled by liquid nitrogen.”

  And here was the end result.

  This is me.

  The sparkwheel in his head spun. This brain wasn’t a random, weird prank. It was personal.

  This is ME. Small sparks, but the wheel wasn’t quite hitting concurrent with the ignition yet.

  Who would do something so cruel? Robert liked to sneak up and scare Natalie, but he’d never make fun of her. And he’d been occasionally critical of Andrew’s many failings, but this type of dig was beyond him.

  And that’s what this is. Ridiculing me, insulting me!

  Simon was too immature to have done it. Shelly wouldn’t – she felt Andrew was still angry with her since their last conversation, so she wouldn’t chance further irritating the situation by teasing—

  In his brain the steel wire struck the flint as the lighter’s gas valve released. A flame shot from the end.

  The pharmacist.

  He had to be the one. He knew from preparing the medication. He knew from the damn number on the ID. And he’d gotten the address from the ID as well.

  How dare you?

  Andrew saw the room bathed in red. All he’d been through, all the pain he’d endured and would be forced to continue enduring. Trapped in this body. Forever imprisoned.

  And here was the pharmacist. Not only living and enjoying his freedom, but reaching through the bars and poking Andrew with a stick.

  Jab. Oz was probably hooting about it. Jab. Jab. Having a hearty laugh about his suffering. Jab. Jab. Jab.

  It crossed his mind to call Robert. To call the police.

  No. I don’t need them. Fuck your stupid conservatorship, Robert. I don’t need anyone. He stood and snatched the jar from the table. Grabbing Natalie’s purse from the hook by the door, he stuffed the jar inside. If you’re going to laugh at me, you’re going to do it to my face, you motherfucker!

  He marched outside the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

  Andrew wasn’t sure how he was going to kill Oz only armed with a mouse brain, purple purse, and house key, but he was damn well going to try.

  Chapter 12

  Oz was in the back of the pharmacy arranging medication at the top of a high shelf.

  In how many ways can a pharmacist organize twelve different brands of dick steroids in eight places on a shelf? He moved three bottles to the left and brought a box forward. There is an answer. Somehow. Somewhere buried. Maybe—

  He almost fell off the ladder when a technician burst through the door.

  “Boss man, that lady who gave you the finger wants to see you.”

  “Which one?” Oz looked at him.

  “There was more than one?”

  “You only work here part time, Barty.” He gave a wide smile. There’d been only one.

  “She looks like she rolled out of a dumpster.”

  “Oh, that one. I knew she’d come see me again. Is she alone?” Not that he was afraid of the man who’d previously signed for Natalie Keller’s medication. On the contrary, he felt pretty sorry for him.

  If a pharmacist should offer one of his bottles of dick steroids to a supremely unhappy man who obviously needs to get some, then how many ways could aforementioned pharmacist organize his remaining—

  “Alone and mad as hell.”

  “Show her back then.”

  “You better get off that ladder.”

  It was sound advice, and Oz backed down the rungs. Before Barty turned to leave, he loosened his tie and pulled it over his neck.

  “Hang it on the doorknob. And don’t poison anyone while I’m occupied.”

  The technician swaggered out with a laugh.

  When Natalie entered, she slammed the door shut violently. She looked in the same disheveled state, except she seemed to be breathing fire and wore her purple purse.

  “What a completely unexpected surprise. Mrs. Natalie Keller! To what do I owe the pleasure?” Oz held out his hand.

  She jerked the purse to her front and dug out a familiar small jar.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  “That’s a rat brain floating in a jar of alcohol.”

  “I know it’s a rat brain in a jar of alcohol!”

  “Well, if you knew what it was, why did you ask me?”

  “I want to know why you put it on my windowsill this morni
ng!”

  Natalie slammed the jar on a table. The gray brain inside hit the lid and bobbled around – tendrils of brain matter spinning like the inside of a snow globe. He was glad he’d come off the ladder.

  “Don’t break it. It’s special.”

  She stood glaring at him. The same rage contorted her face as it had days ago, and he wondered if he’d finally gone too far.

  This bag lady was about to go crazy. She’d chuck the rat brain at him and try to tackle him to the floor. He’d have to restrain her while Barty called the police. They’d haul her away screaming, but at least they’d probably hose her down at the station.

  So attack me, doll. You could use a bath.

  To his surprise, Natalie pulled herself together.

  “You’re a fucking freak. Leave me alone, or I’ll call the cops.” She turned to go.

  “Oh, we’re all freaks, doll. They made us that way.”

  Oz knew he’d hooked her when she stopped. He picked up the jar and held it to his eye, looking at the back of her sweatshirt through the murky alcohol.

  “I didn’t extract this rat brain. A friend of mine did. Nicest guy you’d ever meet. Sunshine lodged in his ass. Squeamish of his own puke. And then, bam!” He returned the jar to the table and clapped his hands together. “Tractor trailer rolls his car off a viaduct. Three years later he wakes up and is fixated on death and dead things. Scraping them off the side of the road, pulling out their organs. It consumes him. He’s a freak. Though more tolerable, in my opinion.”

  Natalie glanced over her shoulder.

  “He gave me that rat brain to remind me of better days. I thought it might remind you of them too. We brains in jars.”

  When she fully turned, she examined him again, but without the same furious intensity. Her eyes picked him apart before meeting his gaze.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m not in league with those CryoLife fucks. I don’t want anything, I just remember you from before. You came in here two years ago with this revolting stench of happiness. You polluted my fucking pharmacy for days with your reek of perfection. And now look at you.” Oz motioned to her with his hand. “You look like that woman’s miserable younger sister. You don’t give a shit about yourself, or that kid. You’re not you. And you know it.”