“Yellow sun,” he mumbled, blinking upward.
“Whadja expect?” asked the man. “I think you got a better look than I did.”
Albert shielded his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You got fired. Fired into space. We watched you go!”
Albert remembered looking down at the roof. At the Roofers below. “And then I crashed here…. On the roof.”
The man shook his head. “No, man. We watched you go. Up, up, and away – helluva show. And then you disappeared into the wild blue. That was eight, nine months ago now, maybe more. And then, about 30 minutes ago, you came crashing back down again. Made a big goddam racket. We all came running and found your space-pod in a helluva goddam mess and you sitting here and talking about Pogs and a message for Omega-Mart and a bright new future of change or something-er-other.”
Albert’s head was spinning like a top. “I don’t remember any of that. Did I say anything else?”
The man nodded. “Yeah. You said, ‘My name is Albert Zim of Omega-Mart. Take me to your leader’. What the hell happened to you up there?”
Albert rubbed his temples and looked behind him at the pile of smoldering metal that used to be his space capsule. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
But he did remember. He remembered something. He had a message. The message was important, but it wasn’t for them – they were already lost.
The man leaned over and pulled down Albert’s eyelid with his thumb, staring into his pupil. “Well, you don’t have a scratch on you. Must be some sort of post-traumatic stress-induced amnesia or something,” he mumbled. “I think I read about that in a medical journal somewhere. Come on. Let’s get him up.”
The Roofers lifted Albert up by his arms, balancing him on unsteady feet. Their leader introduced himself.
“My name is Doctor Zayus, Doctor Robert Zayus.” He shook Albert’s limp hand. “Welcome to the roof.”
Albert quickly broke off the handshake, instinctively repulsed by the outcast’s touch. “I don’t have time to talk,” he said urgently, stabbing a finger downward. “I have to get down there right away.”
The Doctor grinned. “Funny, that’s exactly what I said when I first got here.” There came a murmur of agreement from his gathered comrades.
“You don’t understand – I belong down there,” Albert explained.
“Yep,” said the Doctor knowingly.
“I can save the world.” Albert’s head was spinning faster now. The heat of the sun was stifling.
Dr. Zayus scratched his bearded chin. “I don’t think I ever went that far. You sure you’re okay?”
Albert stumbled forward, wobbling like a newborn calf. “I really have to go.”
The Doctor grabbed his shoulder. “You can’t go wandering alone out there, Zim. You’ll die.”
“But I have to get back inside.” Albert made a futile attempt to shrug him off.
Dr. Zayus stepped in front of him, clutching him by both arms. “You don’t understand, Zim. You can’t. There’s no way back.”
Albert shook his head furiously. “But I have to…” He was blind-sided by a not-too-gentle smack across the face.
“You’re delirious, Zim,” said the Doctor firmly. “Snap out of it. We need to get you out of the sun. Okay?”
Albert nodded slowly.
“Good. Now come with me.”
The Doctor unwrapped the towel from his own head and draped it over Albert’s, shading his dazed companion’s brain from the sun’s cruel rays as he pulled him along gently by the arm, steering for some unseen point on the horizon. The world around them was a gray concrete sea, dead and empty except for a handful of giant, boxy metal ventilators scattered in the distance – Omega-Mart’s only lifeline to the outside world. Albert could see the world curving away from him at every measurable angle, could feel himself walking the infinite arc of the planet as if he was treading on the outside surface of a massive rubber ball. No walls surrounded him, no roof but sky stood between him and the sun above. Not long ago, Albert would have feared this place like hell on earth, but it seemed almost familiar to him now. He’d grown used to being outdoors, to walking under the sun. But not this sun.
A gentle breeze brushed Albert’s lips, and he drank it in like cool water. The air up here was fresh and sweet, not like the flat, tasteless stuff that made its way in through Omega-Mart’s air vents, continuously sanitized and sterilized for the germaphobes below. As Albert tilted back his head, letting the wind wash over his face, he fixed his eyes on a single bird circling lazily in the sky above him. He squinted at the bird, shielding his face until he could just make out the dark colored feathers, the long fleshy neck, the pink, naked head. He watched it intently, wondering what kind of bird it was.
Several minutes passed and the bird floated in front of the sun, disappearing from view. Albert’s eyes drifted sideways, almost unconsciously, to the face of the man walking next to him and those two ignominious words.
CHEWING GUM.
The Doctor snorted. “Get a good look?”
Albert looked away. “Sorry…”
They walked on in awkward silence as Albert struggled to keep his eyes focused politely ahead of him. But they insistently flickered back to the man’s forehead.
CHEWING GUM.
“Just go ahead and stare if it makes you happy,” Dr. Zayus grumbled. “Why don’t you tear open my soul and take a good look in there, too. I used to eat my own scabs when I was a kid. And I’m a chronic masturbator. Happy?”
“Sorry.” Albert looked away again, embarrassed. He turned his attention to the group around him.
The Roofers were a miserable looking lot, dressed in mismatched, badly stitched clothing with crooked seams and sloppy finishing; T-shirts with upside down logos, caps with their bills sewn cock-eyed, discolored jeans with one pant leg longer than the other – things unfit even for the bargain rack. He turned his eyes absently back to the Doctor, examining the faded red lettering on his dingy white T-shirt that read, I’m with Stuppid. The arrow beneath it pointed directly to Albert.
Dr. Zayus stopped in his tracks and gestured toward the horizon. Albert’s eyes followed the aim of his bony index finger, falling on the outline of several low, misshapen lumps in the distance.
“Rooftown,” grunted the Doctor. “Home, sweet home.”
As they drew in closer, a squadron of tiny huts came into focus, constructed from empty milk jugs, rubber tires, and cardboard boxes, covered with blue plastic tarps; all huddled together in small, unregimented clusters, like a rag-tag army of silent, immobile blue hunchbacks. Narrow streets traced enormous S’s through the settlement, snaking this way and that to avoid the random hovels that sprang up wherever a wayward architect had the urge to stack some debris and stretch a tarp. There seemed to be no zoning laws in Rooftown and only one rule of urban development – that no two streets should run parallel to one another.
The Doctor led Albert along one of these streets, passing a long trickle of aimless, sad-eyed men and women. It had never occurred to Albert that so many people had been arrested for Lifting, that so many were so sick. Many of the shacks they passed had children playing out front; dirty, snot-nosed boys and girls with unmatched shoes and high-pitched voices that chased each other through the streets and shouted obscenities. Albert wondered dazedly how many of them were actual Lifters and how many instead were first generation Roofers, born to Lifter parents, forced to live out the rest of their days in exile for the sins of their fathers.
They arrived at a small open plaza, where a pile of white-walled tires lay burning underneath some blackened, indistinguishable animal on a spit. It might have been a pig. A group of pasty faced men stood nearby, gathered around a train of heavily laden animals the likes of which Albert had never seen before. Albert stood gawking as the men unpacked cartons of milk and bags of donuts from the animals’ woolly backs, stacking them in a pile.
“Never seen a llama, Zim?” Dr. Zayus tugged him along
by his sleeve. “Not surprising, I guess. Did you know that, when Omega-Mart shut down all the zoos on the planet, they just let the animals up here to roam free? Some of them make great pack animals.” He gestured to the fire. “And some are just good for eating; and some of them will eat you, if you give them a chance.”
Albert watched the Roofers scatter into their huts, toting their newly unloaded groceries in baskets above their heads. “Where does all this stuff come from?”
Dr. Zayus shrugged. “Milk past its sell-by date, day old bread and donuts, irregular socks, misprinted hockey jerseys; all the dregs that are no good for selling get tossed up here. We may have been severed forever from the ecstasy of bargain shopping, but the Omega-Mart family is much too cruel to let us die. Instead, they make us live up here forever, in a wasteland of free second-rate merchandise that no one in their right mind would ever want, robbed of our God-given right to purchase.” Dr. Zayus sighed. “It doesn’t make much difference. Everything we want may be down there, but everything we need is right here. That’s all it’s about on the roof – survival.” He smiled wistfully. “Heck, I hardly ever think about shopping anymore.” But Albert didn’t believe him.
The Doctor led Albert to a small hut with a shower curtain for a door, ignoring the growing number of Roofers that milled curiously around them. He opened the plaid plastic curtain and waved Albert inside, then turned back to the gaping crowd.
“Beat it!” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “Give the man his space.” The rag-tag group dispersed reluctantly, amidst a flurry of murmurs and low, half-formed protests.
Inside, Albert found the hut in complete disarray. Books and pornographic magazines littered the single-room enclosure, mixed with dirty laundry, used paper plates and candy wrappers. A large, torn bean-bag lay slumped in one corner of the room, hemorrhaging Styrofoam beads onto the floor. Zayus waved Albert over to the only other piece of furniture in the room; a stained pleather loveseat that tipped slightly to one side as Albert sat down.
The Doctor rummaged nervously around the hut, stooping over to keep from dragging his head on the roof as he tried in vain to clear up some of the mess. Albert waited patiently, examining the only wall adornment in the Doctor’s home -- a sloppily glued picture frame displaying a cheap looking paper certificate that read:
OMEGA-MART SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Certificate of Achievement
Most Improved
“Impressive, huh?” The Doctor shoved a plastic cup filled with brown-tinted water into Albert’s hand. Albert took a sip, hoping it was iced tea. It wasn’t.
“What kind of Doctor are you?” Albert asked, trying not to grimace.
The Doctor raised his eyebrows. “Oh, didn’t I give you one of my cards?” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a little paper rectangle and thrust it toward Albert, waiting anxiously for his reaction.
Albert examined the bit of paper. It was a homemade business card, written in blue magic marker. He squinted at the Doctor’s shaky scrawl. “Dr. Robert Zayus, the rapist?”
“Therapist.” The Doctor frowned. “I’m going to make better ones after I give all these away.”
“You’re a psychiatrist?”
The Doctor nodded as he flopped into the bean bag, sending up a flurry of Styrofoam beads. “Used to work in Sector 932, Poultry, Delta Quad. Those people were fuckin’ crazy. Nothing makes you crazier than poultry, Zim.” He gestured to the walls around him. “Of course that’s nothing compared to these sick freaks. You won’t find a bigger trail-mix of fruits, nuts, and sociopaths than what you get on the roof. Mostly kleptos, you know, just stealing for the rush. Won’t admit what they did, even to themselves. Seriously, ask them, any one of them why they did what they did and you get the same bullshit story – I didn’t steal anything. I just forgot to pay.”
Albert inspected the Doctor curiously. “So how did you end up here?”
The Doctor shifted uncomfortably in his seat and mumbled something inaudible. Albert immediately wished that he hadn’t asked the question, and attempted to change the subject.
“Have you been practicing medicine long?”
The Doctor shrugged. “Whenever I can. You can’t get better, if you don’t practice. That’s what I always say.” He grinned devilishly at Albert, nibbling at his ragged beard. “But what about you? You’ve had quite an adventure, haven’t you? Must have been very traumatizing, psychologically speaking.”
Albert peered evasively into his plastic cup. “What do you mean?”
“Blasting off into space, drifting around for months on end, crash landing on a 50 billion ton slab of cement. That can be emotionally jarring for anyone, especially after a sudden layoff. Wanna talk about it?” The wiry old Doctor studied Albert with twinkling, hopeful eyes. After years of having nobody to analyze but compulsive shoplifters, he was obviously itching to take a crack at what he’d determined to be a real nut.
“Umm… I don’t think so.” Albert eyed the door, overwhelmed by a sudden desire to escape. “I’m feeling a lot better, now. I should probably go.”
“Where to?” asked the Doctor nervously. He sprang from the bean bag and took a half-step toward the exit, standing between Albert and the shower curtain. “You said you had a message to deliver, right?”
Albert stared back at him.
“From somewhere out there?” Zayus pointed up through the ceiling.
Albert didn’t answer.
“Oh, come on, Zim!” cried the Doctor. “What’s the message? Who’s it for? What’s going on in that scrambled brain of yours?”
Albert rose warily to his feet. “Why do you want to know so badly?”
“Why?” fumbled the Doctor, searching the walls for an answer. “Why? I’ll tell you why. Because I’m a professional, goddammit, and I took an oath! And you’ve just been psychologically traumatized. It’s my duty to help!”
“I’m just fine,” Albert protested. “I don’t need anyone digging around inside my brain, thank you very much.” He pushed his way to the door.
“Wait!” Dr. Zayus tackled him, wrapping his arms around Albert and squeezing him. “I can’t let you go. I can’t let you go. Not in your state. You’re obviously fucked in the head and I took an oath. A fucking oath – you know what that means?”
Albert looked slowly up into the Doctor’s desperate eyes and for the first time saw the madness there; the raging fire of a life being wasted to no end, framed by the wild gray smoke of eyebrows in dire need of trimming. The muscles of his left cheek twitched uncontrollably of their own accord, and Albert wondered if he should be afraid. He resolved to push the Doctor over and run for his life. But then Dr. Zayus said something that made him want to stay.
“I know the way back.”
“What?”
“I know the way back.”
“What do you mean?”
Dr. Zayus pointed to the floor. “I can get you back down there.”
Albert shook his head. “You said there wasn’t a way back.”
“No I didn’t.
“Yes you did. You said…”
“I can get you back in,” said the Doctor flatly. “You interested or not?”
Albert nodded. “Show me.”
“Not yet,” said the Doctor. “Not yet. First I have to be convinced that you’re medically fit. You need to tell me where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing.”
Albert regarded the Doctor skeptically. All of his instincts warned him not to trust this man. “And then you’ll show me?” he asked.
The Doctor nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“You promise?”
“Uh-huh.”
Albert slumped his shoulders. “Alright. Fine.” He took a deep breath. “It all started when I got fired….”
“Wait, wait, wait. Gimme two seconds.” The Doctor disappeared behind a curtain of beads. Sounds of rummaging followed. He reappeared seconds later with a pad of paper and a chewed-up bit of pencil, taking a seat once again on the bean bag.
“Okay,” Albert began again, sinking into the loveseat. “It all started when I got fired….”
“You can lay down if you want to,” said the Doctor hopefully, adjusting something in his vest pocket.
“I’m not one of your patients,” Albert protested.
“Of course not,” said the Doctor. “I just want you to be comfortable, that’s all.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Albert spun sideways in the loveseat and lay down with his head on the arm, dangling his legs over the opposite arm. It was relaxing. “Okay, it all started when I got fir – wait, you’re not recording this, are you?”
Zayus shook his head. “No.”
“Really?” Albert asked, eyeing him mistrustfully.
“Of course not!” insisted the Doctor. “You’re really paranoid, Zim. I’m gonna write that down.” He scribbled on his pad. “Now, let’s get started. Whenever you’re ready.”
“Alright.” Albert settled into the foamy cushions and focused on the ceiling. “It all started when I got fired….”
****
PRELIMINARY INTERVIEW OF ALBERT ZIM, PATIENT
January 13, 2048
From the digital recordings of Dr. R. Zayus
ALBERT: It all st…. when I got fired …. Omega-Mart. Well, you …. for yourself what happened.
DR. ZAYUS: Would you mind speaking up a little?
ALBERT: I said you saw for ….self what hap….
DR. ZAYUS: Wait a second. Lemme just turn a little sideways here.
ALBERT: Why, what are you …? Hey, I thought you said you weren’t recording this.
DR. ZAYUS: What? I’m not! I told you I wouldn’t. You’ve got trust issues, Zim. I’m going to write that down. Trust issues. Now, go ahead with your story.
ALBERT: Well, needless to say, I wasn’t very happy to see the world fading away behind me into a little ball the size of a marble. I screamed a lot. I think I screamed until I passed out. Anyway, who knows how long I was out, but when I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that I was floating around inside the capsule surrounded by my own vomit. The second thing I noticed was the red sun. Well, I’m no expert on suns – I’ve spent most of my life indoors, but I immediately realized that something was very wrong because everyone knows that our sun is supposed to be yellow.
Dyscountopia Page 6