Assimilation

by James Stryker

“No greenhouse in your basement?” She folded her arms.

  “Are we forgetting that I’m a licensed pharmacist, doll?” He put his hand to his chest as if offended. “That could’ve been a prescription. The poor man might have glaucoma. And out of the goodness of my heart, I drove out here to deliver the only thing that brings him relief from his pain.”

  Riotous laughter came from behind the door, and an oily herb and blue cheese smell leaked from the room.

  “Such pain,” Natalie said.

  Oz gave a sly smile as he picked up the smaller handgun. He handed it to her pointed downrange. “This is Caroline.” He took the larger. “And this is Rio.”

  “You name your guns?”

  “You name your kids. And these don’t shit on me.” He moved to stand beside her. “Keep your finger outside the trigger guard. The first thing you always do is make sure she’s not loaded. Remove the clip, and pull the slide back to check the chamber.”

  He demonstrated and watched as she mimicked the action.

  “Good.” Oz substituted Rio for a pair of glasses from the counter. He guided them onto her face before retrieving the gun.

  “Keep the barrel pointed down, and follow me.”

  He curved his stiff right hand around the clips, pocketed the earplugs, and looped the two pairs of muffs over his arm. His arms full, he kicked the door open and caught the edge with his shoulder to hold it for her. She walked through with her arms in front and the gun barrel pointed straight to the floor as if it might explode.

  “Relax.” Oz allowed the door to shut behind them.

  The shooting range was a long gray corridor with sections separated by short spans of cinderblock walls. It opened into a wide back expanse where dozens of targets hung from clips suspended by sliding rods in the ceiling. Oz stopped at the seventh section and set the headphones on the floor. He put his own orange-tinted glasses on, nudging her to turn toward the swinging targets.

  “Watch carefully. You’ve got to know how to hold and aim her so you’re confident when you fire.”

  It was forty-five minutes before Natalie took her first shot.

  Oz showed her how to hold the gun and steady it while keeping her thumbs clear of the hammer. He guided her in aligning the front and rear sights, and coached her in controlling her breathing.

  During the lesson she grew more relaxed. Natalie was a good student, paying attention to everything he said and responding to his praise. It made him more curious about how things were for her at home. What did she do in that apartment? Veg? Wait for the kid and Robert to come home and keep pretending everything was okay? Her enthusiasm indicated a thirst for new experiences. Whatever else was going on, boredom wasn’t helping.

  You’re one lucky bitch that I found you. And I’m going to figure you out.

  As Oz instructed her, there was also the familiar gratification of being the expert – having the full command of knowledge and sharing it. Though he’d never touched a gun before he’d been reanimated, the feeling of mastery was the same. Bits of this dormant satisfaction came through at times – when he helped Santino and Tinks, discovered another person to bring into their group, or found new ways to annoy CryoLife, but teaching Natalie how to fire a gun gave him an unusually close sense of being at home with himself.

  When she made an attempt at a firing stance, she held her shoulders squared and her pelvis straight. It was near perfect. Natalie was smooth and poised. She didn’t have to be coaxed to grip the gun. Her hands curled around it with ease and steadiness. And when he corrected her elbow into the slight obtuse angle, he noticed again how hard her jaw line was.

  I remember you being all curves before. All soft. Oz had been startled. He thought about the family portrait hanging on her apartment wall. You do look the same but … there’s just something more edged about you.

  And he liked it.

  “Pull the slide!” He shouted so Natalie could hear above the earplugs and headphones they wore. “Place your clip in the chamber. She holds ten rounds, but don’t shoot them all off at once. You’ve got to know how the follow-through feels.”

  He stepped back. With the bagginess of her sweatshirt, it was easiest to see her breaths by watching her shoulders move. They were thin shoulders that she usually kept in an upward, tight position. But she pushed them down before clicking the safety off. She moved her finger onto the trigger and squeezed it with a bold conviction. He couldn’t help but feel proud.

  She wasn’t frightened by the shot either, and kept her position. Without releasing the trigger, she turned her head to him. When he looked down the range, he could see the bullet had hit the target. It was close to being in the outermost circle.

  “Great job. Go for another.” Oz gave her the okay symbol.

  Natalie took the rest of the shots from the magazine slowly, looking to him for reassurance after each. On the next clip, she didn’t require his approval. He didn’t mind as he’d never been the type to demand obsequiousness. But with her propensity to react in this way, he wondered how controlling Robert was.

  She went through each bullet in the same steady fashion. Number twenty cut through the third black circle, and she set Caroline on the narrow counter, slipping the headphones around her neck.

  “Did you see that, Oz?” Natalie pulled out her earplugs and sweat gathered on her brow.

  “I saw.” He brought his voice to a normal level. “You did good, doll. Here, last clip.” He offered the magazine. “Make it anyone you want.”

  “Anyone I want?”

  “I didn’t bring you here for target practice. You’ve got to get this pain out of you.” Oz put the clip in her open hand. “Take down whatever motherfucker you want. Let it out.”

  He watched her consider as he put his muffs on. The decision didn’t appear difficult.

  How many times have I envisioned Brigman at the other end while I’m putting round after round into his chest? And fuck brooding how the old me could’ve used an arctangent and calculated the right angles to ensure every shot nailed him in the face. Fuck calm. Nothing will ever bring my gift back, but, God, it feels good to take him down. Take him down, Natalie. Take down whoever you feel did this to you.

  After repositioning her ear protection, she moved back the slide, ejected the old clip, and shoved the magazine into the chamber. She held the gun, and unlike the first twenty shots, she didn’t align her sights. Her breaths were unsteady and she fired without care to aim.

  Chapter 21

  Andrew saw everything laid out before him – not one specific person, but the entire fucking month of interactions with people rolled by on a conveyor belt. And as he climbed the rungs of the springboard, he knew he was going to hit the water for the first time in weeks.

  Because I’m late taking those motherfucking drugs that are strangling me. He imagined Robert and Simon. Brigman, Zuniga, and Tweed. Shelly. Those people who only wanted Natalie. I may not be worth much, but I deserve a chance.

  But he’d been betrayed – suffocated by people who were supposed to love him unconditionally. Or at least love Natalie.

  He saw her too. Standing at the back of the gun range by the hanging target. In those hip-hugging, low-cut, flower-printed dresses Robert liked. She tossed the blond hair over her shoulder and brought her hand to her face. With her palm upward and long fingernails pointed in his direction, she pursed her lips and blew him a kiss.

  “I am the only acceptable version.” Natalie had a high pitched, sing-song voice. She always sounded like she was talking to a child. “There’ll never be room for any less, any more, or any different.”

  His hands shook as he held the gun. He wanted to aim at her. It was her fault for existing. Her fault for dying. Her fault for being this thing he couldn’t conform to. But he couldn’t shoot her.

  They never gave you a chance either. Not if I’ve been drugged since the get-go. You’re just the fucking scale.

  So was it the fault of the people who’d created the Natalie unit of measure?
Those who had the specific expectations and tried to enforce them? He wanted the situation and his pain to be their fault. It felt like it should be.

  Or you, maybe it’s you.

  Oz had continuously needled him with both his words and appearance, but the man had also put himself in a vulnerable position. He hadn’t had to reveal anything about the drugs. Andrew could run to Robert or CryoLife with the information. Oz had taken the risk with nothing to gain.

  But he was still there. Still that slap in the fucking face every time Andrew looked at him and took a bitter inventory.

  How you act. The way you speak. The things you do. Giving me a heads up on the pills and showing me how to shoot a gun doesn’t erase that.

  He considered flipping to the left and training the gun on Oz’s chest.

  You’re so comfortable in your masculinity that you wear a pink shirt? You probably have purple and yellow shirts too. You wore that to spite me. I know you did.

  Oz was unarmed, having apparently only asked that sleaze-ball Red for an additional gun to instruct. Andrew could get away with it. Destroy that pink shirt with bullet holes and blood, and then never have to deal with this image of the impossible dream.

  As Andrew’s pointer finger curled around the gun’s trigger, his feet left the diving board.

  But no, no. It’s not Oz. If I can’t shoot Natalie, I can’t shoot him either – literally or figuratively. He’s another scale, like she is. There’s the thing everyone says I should be, and then there’s what I want to be. And I hate you both at times, but I can’t fully blame either of you.

  Who was it then?

  You.

  He focused near the target on a familiar figure, but one with many faces.

  Somersault – the painted whore in the mirror with running makeup, trying desperately to be Natalie.

  Somersault – the grubby looking androgynous thing at Shelly’s kitchen table, struggling to find a middle ground.

  Somersault – the woman with her rolls squeezed into a man’s clothing as a pathetic attempt to see Andrew.

  It’s your fault. It’s your fault for stepping onto either scale in the first place.

  Twist.

  For allowing yourself to be measured by anyone. For recognizing their power to measure you.

  Twist.

  You weak, disgusting piece of shit! I hate you!

  And he hit the water.

  I hate me for what I’ve done to myself.

  Andrew grit his teeth and felt hot tears streaking his face as he pumped ten rounds down the expanse.

  Only half his shots hit the target. When they were spent, he clapped Caroline on the counter. His hands cupped his forehead, and he dug his palms into his eyes.

  It’s not fair. It’s just not fair.

  Andrew picked up the gun and threw her to the floor. Next he seized Oz’s gun. Since it was empty he chucked it against the booth’s cinderblocks.

  There was nothing more.

  But I need something. Anything!

  He grasped the shoddy counter and wrenched it off the wall, the muscles in his arms burning from the effort. He launched the piece of wood as far as he could across the range, smashing it into dozens of fragments.

  And then he collapsed, crying. As usual, he was completely alone.

  He stretched his arms in front of himself and banged his fist on the concrete. The sharp pain from the impact reverberated through his arm, but it felt good. It was an ache outside the darkness that was devouring his soul.

  No thoughts came as he wound down and swam toward the sun’s reflection in the pool. He pulled himself up and clutched his legs to his chest, burying his face in his knees.

  Andrew kept his eyes shut and tried to picture the lifeless body of this thing he’d become – a gob of pulp on the floor of the gun range. The red that leaked from the torn flesh broke that empty white pool that had been his self-image of Beta nu.

  Curled tight on the concrete in the thick black outline with layered blues – I am Picasso’s Blue Nude. I’m outcast. I have nothing to gain or to lose. I’m exposed and stripped of everything but the feeling of being irretrievably lost …

  When the crying was almost gone, a hand touched his shoulder. But Andrew was too exhausted to tense as he normally would’ve, especially having forgotten that though he felt alone, he wasn’t.

  He turned his head to see that Oz had knelt beside him. His mouth had a gentleness to it – neither a frown nor smile – and the tension in his face was concentrated in his eyebrows as he looked at Andrew.

  “Tell me who you really are,” he said.

  Though he’d heard the stories of the others and recognized that Oz had taken him under his wing and wouldn’t betray him to CryoLife, there was still hesitation in telling him. In saying it to anyone. He hated himself for the attempts to be what he wasn’t but, once it was said aloud, there was no going back. Admitting his identity put him at the mercy of another person’s reaction for the first time. Anything could happen.

  But what does it matter anyway? Whatever the result, I can’t be more alone. Someone might as well know. Why not you?

  He let the control slip from his fingers and allowed himself to float on the surface of the water.

  “My name is Andrew. I’m really a man.”

  *

  They’d left the gun range in a daze and without saying a word to each other. Andrew wasn’t sure what he’d expected after putting his secret into the air, but he hadn’t predicted the response would be absolute silence. Even having been around Oz for such a short time, he recognized how unusual it was for him to have nothing to say. He saw patterns, knew what was coming, and kept a move ahead. Two moves ahead, or three.

  Maybe that’s part of it. Andrew watched Oz gather the guns and gear and a corkscrew twisted into his stomach. How far away am I from where I want to be, that you’re this shocked?

  If Oz couldn’t see it enough to put together a verbal response, would anyone be able to?

  This was a bad idea. Bad. Oz walked out to the main entry without waiting for him. He’s forgotten I’m here. See what you’ve done? This is what happens. There’s no place for Andrew in the world. You’re worse than a curiosity among curiosities – you’re invisible as everything except Natalie.

  Andrew trailed after Oz before he could be left behind. Even if Oz no longer wanted anything to do with him, the least he could do was take him home. What would Robert say if Andrew had to call for a ride home from a gun range?

  Now you’re completely fucked. “You have friends,” my ass. There’s no choice but to go back to that apartment and pretend nothing happened. Your mind will stay free until you run out of the clean pills Oz gave you, and then you’ll be imprisoned again. If Robert has to come get you, he’ll tell CryoLife and maybe they’ll lock you in further with the antipsychotics.

  Red had stumbled out of his Skunk Special fumigated room with bloodshot eyes after Oz rang the call bell only twice. He leaned unsteadily over the counter, dragging the equipment toward him with both arms. The pile fell on the floor with a clatter.

  “Oops.” Red stared past the two of them before concentrating on Oz. “Hey, you’re smart. Come in here and fix my TV. There’s so many people on it, and they keep talking to me.”

  “Call your provider.” Oz’s voice was mellow, as if he weren’t fully present.

  “They couldn’t troubleshoot a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Heeeeyyyy, do you have one of those? I could eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as big as a house.” He knocked on the glass encasing the booth several loud times. “Hey, hey, I bet, together, me and you, we could make a house with peanut butter and—”

  “Maybe next time.”

  Oz turned and walked toward the door.

  Fuck you. You’re taking me home. Andrew followed.

  “Where are we going to take a shit in our peanut butter and jelly house, Oz? Where? Whhheeere?”

  Red’s cries ended as the glass door closed behind them. Andrew qu
ickened his pace and pulled open the passenger door. He had his seatbelt buckled before Oz settled into the driver’s seat.

  At last Oz spoke without turning to him. “It’s past three. You should call your … your …”

  Master? Hubby? Hubster? Any of the asinine—

  “Robert. You should call your Robert.” Oz started the engine and backed out of the space.

  “And tell him what?”

  “That you’ll be late.” His hands shook.

  I should’ve shot you.

  Andrew pulled out his cell phone and swiped across the screen to unlock it.

  Eight missed calls from Robert. Multiple texts:

  WHERE ARE YOU?

  PLEASE ANSWER YOUR PHONE.

  NEED TO KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.

  CALL ME. NOW.

  He’s probably regretting taking that damn monitor off me. But, hey, who needs an ankle monitor when you have me on antipsychotics? Andrew took a breath. Calm down. You can’t let the anger come across. Until you plan what you’re going to do, you need him.

  Robert answered on the first ring. “Natalie, where are you? Why didn’t you answer your phone? Or my texts? I’ve been—”

  “I’m sorry. I went out.”

  “Why? With who? I called Shelly, and she didn’t answer either.” His sentences were punctuated with panicked breaths.

  “We didn’t have cell service.” Thank God Shelly hadn’t answered. And he’d patch that lie after Robert calmed the fuck down.

  “You couldn’t have phoned or texted before you lost service? Or left a note to tell me where you’d gone?”

  “I’m sorry. It was last minute, and we got distracted. I didn’t mean to make you worry.”

  “It’s okay.” Robert sighed. “Are you having a good time, hon?”

  Until revealing my secret identity backfired in my face.

  “Yeah.”

  “When are you coming home?”

  “Soon.”

  “If you want to stay out with Shelly that’s fine, Nat. I was just worried about you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Will you text me if you’ll be late?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right then. Have fun.” The smile returned to his voice. “I love you.”