Live, From the End of the World

by William Vitka

“You’re probably gonna have to use ‘Subway Hell’ or something equally lame since people died.”

  “Terror on the Tracks.”

  “Harlem horror.”

  We both hum “La Cucaracha” as giggles pass through our system.

  Fred grabs my arm when the R train pulls up. “You think it’s safe?”

  “Does it matter?”

  The car we enter is as empty as the station. Just me, Fred, a sick-looking Mexican teenager, two seemingly insane degenerate hobos, and a preacher. All told, a miserable group heading into the city to do miserable things. At least Fred and I maintain a sense of humor. We chuckle our way uptown.

  I tilt my head and listen in on the hobos’ storytelling:

  “I told you, I fuckin told you, I says to the kid, I says, ‘don’t go over there. Stay away from those things.’ Did he listen? No. That my goddamn fault?” The first hobo squeals. “So, like I says, I was up at the Ninety-Sixth street playground. The reservoir’s nearby, I got no idear if that has something to do with it or not, but anyways, all these fuckin squirrels are there. Like, buttloads of em. Fucktons. Just a buncha furry bombs waitin to go off.”

  Spit and the scent of cheap booze flows from the hobo narrator’s mouth. His left hand clings to an aluminum handrail as he gesticulates.

  The second hobo bangs the aging plastic seat under him. Nods sleepily.

  I tap Fred on the shoulder. He’s gotta check this out.

  The narrator continues: “The fuckin squirrels here was totally nuts, haha, yeah, pun bitch, after that spill. They changed. Evolved, adapted, mutated, I don’t fuckin know. Point is, a bunch of em turned into like...little kamikazes. They sit there in groupsa four or five, smoking, chattering, and if you get too close or insult em or something, they’ll run up to you and boom. Your ass is in ooey gooey pieces. Then the others, they laugh. They laugh and call us stupid. I wouldn’t’a wanted to fuck with a Central Park squirrel in the first place, but now... So this kid there in the park, he’s playing ball with his friends, they’s all like fourteen or something, and one of the kids throws the ball too far, and it lands near these pack of psycho squirrels.”

  Fred and I smirked with glee. We await the next bit of insanity.

  The hobo narrator says, “Now, the kid, I guess he’s goofy or somethin, cuz he gets within fifteen feet of em and asks em to roll the ball back. You believe that? And I starts shouting at him. I’m yellin to him ‘Kid! Get da fuck away from those squirrels little man! They gonna fuckin kill you!’ Stupid little monkey doesn’t listen. The squirrels start laughing and flick a cigarette at him. The kid, this little goofball, right? This kid, he starts walkin toward em to get his ball. The squirrels go silent. No more laughing. Not a peep or squeak. This big grey one in front takes a huge drag and starts running. The kid panics and stops, holding his ball like it’s the Holy Grail. He thrusts it out in front of him like a makeshift shield. Not that it’s gonna fuckin help. This grey hairball leaps from the ground onto this little dude’s face, man. You see it impact. Then it explodes. Blows the kid into bits from the waist up. It was fuckin beautiful man. Just beautiful.”

  Both hobos break into an uproarious laughter. The narrator hobo doubles over and coughs with excitement. His listener cackles and tips the mouth of a brown-bagged whiskey bottle into his gullet.

  Fred and I can’t help ourselves. We laugh with em.

  I walk over the storyteller. “Any of that true?”

  He looks at me. Surprised someone even bothered to ask. “Yeah. It’s true. Every word. Fuck do you care?”

  “Give you twenty bucks if you tell another that good.”

  Chapter 4:

  Wherever You Go, There You Are

  The mess of Midtown. Shit, I hate Manhattan. Mostly cuz New Yorkers can’t even afford to live in New York anymore. It’s all tourists and loons.

  Thanks, Mayor Dickinson!

  There are various spiritual sects yowling for my soul on every corner. I keep my head down and avoid eye contact. My old man had taught me to do that when we’d comb through the East Village in search of a goodly weird movie house. When I did it then, it was to avoid large men who wanted to devirginize my asshole. Now I’m doing it to avoid being “saved.”

  One in the same really.

  Regrettably, there are some things I can’t steer clear of this close to Times Square:

  Tourists. The morons who head to Rockefeller Center to gawk at “The Tree” as if it’s not only the sole tree in New York City, but also the sole tree in the world. They clog the streets. They have no concept of the sidewalk being used as a device to aid in walking. They’re an army. A throng of cellulite-riddled, miscreant mommas and poppas with regulated cabbage-head children. It’s a mass carpet of skin and fat and sweat and man-made fabric and gravity-ravaged erogenous zones.

  Thanks again, mayor. Now my city’s a fuckin playground for the dumb with disposable income.

  There’s a bum sheltered under some crates near the Rockefeller orange line exit. I’m sure he could’ve used some of the pocket change the tourists toss to vendors hawking crappy coffee mugs and sweatshop shirts emblazoned with faux NYC-Zone love.

  Instead, they walk over him like he’s a puddle. No glance back. No care for anything except towers of might and steel and smarts that represent everything they don’t have.

  I fumble for my flask. I need my flask. I need whiskey.

  I hate this. And I hate the fact that I need a self-pitying crutch like booze.

  At the elevator bank in my building, I try to avoid everyone. I punch thirteen and stare at the ground. I don’t want company on the ride up to the newsroom. I keep my headphones on. Bolt out the car when my floor came up.

  Home.

  I can smell the energy in the room. Journalists scurry from one end to the other. Editors scream into phones and two-way holograms at reporters on-site. Dozens pound on keyboards.

  It’s a high.

  We’re all addicts.

  I bark greetings to the other website editors. Grab my chair and lick my lips. I turn the television at my work station on and log into my computer.

  Local stations have returned to their regular programming since the “bug incident” is mostly under control. They have advertisers to appease, after all. The managers no doubt assume that everyone will get their fill either online or at six p.m., when the locals do their evening broadcast.

  CBS2 is showing a soap opera. Fake blonde, real tits, inexplicably running down stairs.

  NBC4 is showing a soap opera. Brunette and real blonde wrestling over...something. I have no idea.

  ABC7 is showing what appears to be yet another soap opera. Buff Manstrong and a real blonde with fake tits humping like over-sexed monkeys.

  The ratings for these things went through the roof once the FCC was shot in the head like a lame dog and what amounted to single-X pornography was allowed to be shown on daytime television. No shots of penetration, of course. And no cumshots. But, hey, boobs.

  MSNBC has two talking heads discussing the problem solving skills of Islamic extremists. As far as anyone can tell, this still involves blowing people up and making a lot of noise about cartoons.

  The ticker below their gaping air holes has some of the hour’s headlines. Nothing terribly interesting, but there’s mention of the bugs and ongoing investigation.

  CNN is bullshitting about the giant roach rebellion. They show aerial footage of the Upper West Side. The place lousy with cops and biohazard teams. Flamethrowers are slung over their shoulders, but they don’t seem to be using em.

  Fox News has a priest or televangelist of some sort on. The bastard’s wearing a beige suit and a terrible toupee. His eyes look wild. The whites are too white and his pupils are too dilated. Reptilian. He looks like he needs to evolve. If he believes in it...

  He puts his hands up. “What we saw today, as
terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact, God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us what we probably deserve.”

  Fox’s host nods as intently as a mongrel following his master’s toy ball. “Right, that’s my feeling. I think we’ve just seen the antechamber to terror, we haven’t begun to see what they can do to the major population.”

  I suddenly have no idea what they’re talking about. The ticker at the bottom of the screen lists the topic: NYC-ZONE UNDER SIEGE FROM EARTH’S DEMONS.

  I cock my head to the side and attempt to follow their train of thought.

  Sergeant Scripture continues: “The Mayor has got to take a lot of blame for this. And I know I’ll hear from him, but throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools... This is clearly a punishment set forth by the Almighty. New York City successfully became an independent city-state, separated from the love of its mother, some years ago. And they allow all kinds of disgusting things to happen there.”

  Senior Correspondent Doggy nods.

  The tagline at the bottom of the screen changes: UNDERGROUND MONSTERS WARNING FROM GOD?

  Spit flies from Sergeant Scripture’s mouth. “And the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy little innocent babies, we make God mad... I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and those trans people, who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America... I want to get in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”

  The ticker changes again: GAYS, ATHEISTS, ABORTIONISTS DOOMING UNITED STATES OF CHRIST.

  No question mark.

  Senior Correspondent Doggy agrees.

  Sergeant Scripture says, “God is smiting that terrible city-state, because it has turned away from him. These creatures are a clear sign of that.”

  Senior Correspondent Doggy says, “And so what would you propose?”

  “I would say that the obvious thing to do is to seal it off. Build a wall. If we don’t, if we allow that mindset and that sickness to go on without being quarantined, then it will spread and spread and spread through the United States of Christ and soon we will have no one but ourselves to blame when the Lord and his blessed soldiers descend upon us and cleanse us of the plague that New York City has wrought.”

  The reporter mimics my own response and cocks his head.

  “Well,” says Sergeant Scripture, “it worked with Los Angeles.”

  I can’t argue with that. I consider the militarily-enforced isolation of LA to be one of the greatest accomplishments of mankind. It’s right up there with whiskey, the moon landing and artificial intelligence.

  I scan the homepage of our website. The roach attack is the main story. They’re using one of the shots from that poor Goon’s Twitter account as the primary image. One of panicked riders clamoring for the stairs.

  SUBWAY HELL reads the big headline. Under it, CREATURES ATTACK 1 TRAIN, SEVEN CONFIRMED DEAD.

  I think: Ah, goddamnit, Fred. They took your headline.

  Matt, one of the other editors, nudges the back of my chair. “Watch out, man. The boss is on a tear.”

  “Why, what happened?”

  “One of the interns fucked up a headline on the news page. They misspelled some celebrity’s name. I didn’t see it. Just heard the boss’s hologram screaming on the idiot’s desk.”

  “Not our problem. We’ll be fine. The bug thing is gonna be taking up all of our time anyway.” I scratch my chin. “Do me a favor. Find out who we got at the scene right now. Get, I dunno, some more tidbits so we can update the story. Any notes from the reporter.”

  “Sure. But listen. Even if it isn’t our problem, the boss is gonna make it our problem. Probably your problem, since you rank slightly higher than I do.”

  “What’re you guys working on?”

  “Uh, right now? We’ve got a story about some ‘super bug’—as in flu, not like devoured by insects—victims outta the Bronx. Thirty people. And there’s a story about missing corpses. The sickness thing is probably a virus immune to newer medication or whatever. The missing bodies thing looks like an organ-shipping operation of some kind.”

  “That sounds like fun. Headlines?”

  “For the sick folks, playing it straight. ‘Super bug kills thirty.’ For the corpses, since it’s weird, ‘Grave robbing sickos strike.’”

  Well, at least the second one isn’t the worst thing ever.

  I think for a minute. “‘Deadly virus plagues Bronx’ and ‘Corpse cartel.’ Use those. Blame me if someone complains.”

  Chris nods and heads into the content management system.

  I start to cut out a silhouette of a roach in Photoshop. I wanna superimpose it over a wide shot of the station platform. I also wanna use the headline ‘Bugging out.’ Even if I only get away with having the composite live for five minutes, it’ll be worth it.

  I save my work and publish it.

  The boss’s hologram blooms to life on my desk five seconds later. “My office. Now.”

  I get up. Head over.

  Matt says, “Told you.”

  I flip him off. “Eat a bowl of dicks.”

  It’s too soon for the boss to have seen the changes I made to the homepage. And those stupid interns? I know nothing. Worry? Not me. This place can’t afford to lose me.

  I chew on the filter of an unlit American Spirit. I wonder if I should light it. Will anyone care? Will the editor get pissed or think I’ve got balls? The old man himself smokes and drinks whiskey at his desk.

  My Zippo flicks. The cigarette fills my lungs with smoke. I stride confidently toward his office.

  When I open the door, he doesn’t look at me. “Put that fuckin thing out.”

  I spit on the cig’s cherry and flick it into a recycling bin.

  Now the boss eyeballs me. His mouth contorts into a smirk. Or maybe it’s a snarl. I can’t tell. I’ve been here for eight years and I’ve never been sure what the bastard is really thinking.

  The editor, Mr. Schaffer, is a big sonuvabitch. If he hadn’t wound up as an editor-in-chief, I’m sure he could’ve easily found work as either a lumberjack or large immobile object. “Imposing” isn’t the right word. Neither is “intimidating.” “Frightening” is probably the closest.

  He clips the tip of a cigar. Motions toward the chair in front of his desk as I close his door.

  We operate with brevity. I don’t open my mouth.

  He says, “Sit.”

  I do.

  “Got a light?”

  I flip my Zippo open and torch his Cuban.

  He offers me a green bottle. “Drink?”

  I take it and chug a mouthful of Jameson.

  “Son, one indicator of the values of our civilization is that there’s no business like war business. That’s great for me. Less so for you, but still not bad. War sells. War makes headlines. Problem is”—he points out the window—”they’re sick of all the camel jockey shit.”

  Yeah. USC’s still working on that whole “endless combat in the Middle East” thing.

  I open my mouth. “Can I smoke now?”

  Schaffer says, “Don’t care. I just didn’t want anyone else to think that I can tolerate you with the door open.”

  “My girlfriend says the same thing all the time, sir.”

  Asshole.

  I pop an American Spirit between my lips. Light it. “So, we like war, but not The War. You want a new one?”

  “Watch it, you droopy pisser. You must have noticed that every week, we’re declaring war on something. Just not in those words. Maybe it’s a tax hike. Maybe it’s one the mayor’s jerkoff plans. Today, it’s the bugs. We’re declaring war on the bugs.”

  I
inhale.

  Schaffer says, “But we have to plan for the next war. The bugs will be on top today and probably tomorrow. People are going to get bored soon after that. We can only ride a freak occurrence for so long.”

  I wanna ask him why he thinks the bug attack was a fluke, but I keep my mouth shut for once.

  He inhales. Rolls the cigar smoke around his mouth. Blows out. “Former councilman Schneer was admitted to Bellevue Hospital for psychological observation this morning.” The boss cocks an eye at me. “Now, that guy is absolutely batshit. Maybe he snapped. One doc mentioned neurosyphilis. Another said some parasite was eating his brain. Nothing they have ever seen before. Regardless, a lot has to happen inside a guy’s head to make him decide that skullfucking is a worthwhile activity. Go down there tomorrow. Talk to Schneer. We’ll turn the interview into a lead piece. With a byline.”

  “Promise?”

  “Just get it done. We’ll talk tomorrow after you see him.”

  I take another swig of whiskey and stand.

  Schaffer says, “Declan’s going with you to get pictures.”

  My stomach turns. I hate Declan. He gets in the way more than any other photographer I’ve ever worked with. And he’s obnoxious. And he’ll throw you under the bus if shit goes fucky. He can’t be trusted. He doesn’t care about journalism. Just the paycheck.

  Cuz, y’know, I’m a saint.

  Schaffer nods to his computer screen. “Your new headline is better than Matt’s. But you aren’t as clever as you think. And you’re going to walk into trouble one of these days.”

  I shrug. Close the door behind me. Smoke my way back to my desk.

  Chris says, “How’d it go?”

  “Fine. I’m interviewing Schneer tomorrow.”

  “The guy who killed the hooker. Damn. Good luck. I hear he went after just about everyone till they got him tied down.”

  I take a big, long drag off my cigarette. “I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

  Chapter 5:

  They’ll Last Longer than We Will