MACKEREL: (impatiently) Okay, fine. You know that guy Bin Laden? I'm answering your question with a riddle. It's an old straight-person trick from my childhood.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Sure, he's that famous person.
MACKEREL: Okay, then what do you think of the trendy idea that all Americans died on 9/ 11 ? You know, that all of that shit with the planes proved we're all the same whatever in God's overall concept of whatever.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: I'm into anything trendy. Just look around my living room. In fact, come on in. Where are my manners?
MACKEREL: On one condition.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Deal. I mean what is it? Forgive the sleazy old chicken hawk in me. He'd go to prison for however many life terms to get it on with a thirteen-year-old ass, I mean your thirteenyear-old ass. That's a gay compliment. Enjoy.
MACKEREL: The condition is that we travel to Pakistan together. On your credit cards, of course. There's a cute traitor guy over there I need to see. Long story. That's part one, and-this'll appeal to you-part two, I can get to Bin Laden. Check this out. So I overdose on heroin, right? I'm happy. Bin Laden rims my corpse. He's happy. You film it. Put the camera on a tripod, walk into the frame and murder him with your bare fucking hands. Then turn off the camera and eat me. Everyone's happy, and gay guys rule the world. It's a no-brainer.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Are you psychic? I make snuff films for a living. Duh, right? That's how I paid for this gay upper-middle-class lifestyle you see before you. Wait, Josh told you I made snuff. Of course. You're not a psychic at all. I'm confused.
MACKEREL: Hunh. If I'd been gay a little longer, I'd say the real gay dilemma is that no amount of working out daily in a gym can make a guy your age interesting to someone my age. The mind goes. It's just a sad fact. I'm so not in the mood anymore. But yeah, I'm psychic.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Then Pakistan it is. On one condition.
MACKEREL: It'd better involve dope.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: I'll pack my things, and-oh, it is-you strip and strike a nice doggie pose on my bed. I maybe gay, but I'm not stupid. Well, not that stupid.
MACKEREL: Blahdiblahdiblah. I mean deal.
AN HOUR LATER, a very sore-assed Mackerel cracks the psychic's door and clears his throat. Josh's buff, elderly boyfriend is right behind him carrying their suitcases.
MACKEREL: Are you decent? I guess that's a relative term in your case.
PSYCHIC: (anxiously) Who's there?
MACKEREL: God and a gay guy. Why, who's there?
PSYCHIC: Me, Allah's prying eyes, and some half-eaten teen whore. Wait, did you say God?
MACKEREL: And a gay guy, yeah. Coming in.
They enter the storefront. The psychic is sitting on the floor in front of Josh's dead body. He's holding a large, bloody knife, and Josh's once-so-perfect ass is no more, thanks no thanks to the psychic-turned-cannibal's terrorist attacks. Josh's boyfriend leans over, looking around in the mini-ground zero.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Josh? Is that your truth?
MACKEREL: (to the psychic) That's a cue to do your thing.
The psychic shuts his eyes and appears to go into a mystical trance.
PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen year-old's voice) What do you want, babe?
I'm kind of busy. Being eaten is like getting fist-fucked by the Colossus of Rhodes, only better.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: I told you.
He sets the suitcases down and reaches into the gore, then rips a chunk loose. He studies it carefully.
PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen year-old’s voice) What do you want to know? I know everything there is to know now.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: How do you taste?
PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen year-old's voice) Like blood. That's too easy. You want to know how the world ends? You don't, trust me. It's so not sexy. It's so not gay.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Does it have something to do with the gravitational pull of the dying sun?
He pops the chunk into his mouth and starts chewing.
PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen year-old's voice) Exactly. Boring.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: No offense, baby, but we saw that together on the Discovery Channel. By the way, yum.
MACKEREL: I have a question. Where's Bin Laden?
PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen year-old's voice) You! Hold on a second. First of all, seeing isn't knowing, babe. There's a huge metaphysical difference, it turns out. Now you, you little boyfriend-stealing white-trash bitch. You're supposed to be dead. I've been hanging out waiting for you. Cross your ass over here.
MACKEREL: Make me. No, seriously, where's Bin Laden? Don't make me unconjure you.
PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen year-old's voice) Kandahar. Satisfied?
MACKEREL: No.
PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen-year-old's voice) Okay, ask my temporary form where Rakhid's Video is? Bin Laden's in the basement. Hey, you want to know how you die?
MACKEREL: As a hero. Unlike you.
PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen-year-old's voice) Tsk tsk tsk. Tell him, babe.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Tell him what, babe? Oh, right. You've been had. Chalk one up for us patient gay Capricorns.
MACKEREL: I'm not into astrology.
PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen-year-old's voice) Fact, my boyfriend quote unquote drives you to the airport. Fact, he makes a detour to pick something up at our house. Fact, the guys you stole that dope from are hiding inside. Fact, they rape and torture and whatever you for two days straight, then inject you with enough dope to kill Shaquille O'Neal, then rape your corpse for another two days. Right, babe?
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Pretty much. Well, rape in the broadest sense. If it's ever been called gay sex, it's in your future.
MACKEREL: (smugly) A hero's still a hero. Arkansas boy's dream to save the world from Bin Laden crushed by evil pedophile ring. Americans love that shit.
PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen-year-old’s voice) Yeah, until they do the autopsy and find enough sperm in your ass to start a small thirdworld country. We'll see how heroic you are after they drag your whorish, drugged-out lifestyle through the tabloids.
MACKEREL: Well, at least I have an ass. At least my ass isn't digested. At least my ass isn't some low-end Al Qaeda water boy's Taco fucking Bell. Say something, gay guy. Defend me. What kind of sugar daddy are you?
Josh's boyfriend stops ripping out pieces of the ass, and popping them into his mouth.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Look, Josh. Realism, okay? I'm gay, you're dead, he's thirteen years old, you saw his ass, what do you expect? Is death like Alzheimer's or something?
PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen-year-old’s voice) Forget it. So how do I taste anyway? Honestly.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Like blood. Not that I'm complaining.
MACKEREL WAS RESIGNED to his fate as the world's most extremely murdered boy until they reached Josh's boyfriend's front door. Now he's taken a nervous step backward, and his face is clouded over with thinking.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: What now? Your death has so much baggage.
MACKEREL: (ominously) I feel them. I don't mean psychically. I mean whatchacallit, that humanistic word.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Go somewhere more specific with "them" first. I'm no humanist. And when you're gay, "them" just means straight. So define "them" and quickly.
He looks at his watch.
MACKEREL: The former me's. Cute boys.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: You mean like old what's-his-name, my ex?
MACKEREL: For instance.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: So you feel like a blip? Like it's cool I'm so cute to one older rich gay guy and all, but it's not like he's Barry Diller? 'Cos that was old what's-his-name's beef, if memory serves.
MACKEREL: Empathically. That's the word I was looking for.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Break it down.
MACKEREL: Love without sex.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Whoa. Just hold on a minute. What the hell are you saying? This is so early Edmund White. You're far too young to remember him. He wrote novels. Do you know what novels are?
MACKEREL: Was Edmund White like Proust? Please
say yes.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Yes. Not that I've read Proust. Like all gay guys, I haven't read a novel since 1994.
MACKEREL: I'm too good for you. What does it mean?
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: It means you're ultimate twink. That's why we all keep rimming you. You're God. Enjoy.
MACKEREL: But you don't fist fuck God.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Says who?
MACKEREL: The Bible.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: You don't have a Bible yet. You have die first. I promise you it'll be Proustian, whatever that means. I'll buy a thesaurus, whatever that is. I'll put in lots and lots of sex so gay guys will buy it. I'll make you look like whoever you want. Name it.
MACKEREL: Okay, who's the cutest boy in the world?
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: YOU got it.
He raises his voice such that the tweaking, soon-to-be gay murderers inside his house will hear every word distinctly.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Guys, cutest boy in the world. What's your guess?
Thousands of muffled, gay-sounding voices yell names enthusiastically at the same exact moment.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: One at a time. On second thought, pick a leader.
MACKEREL: They don't deserve me. This is superdepressing.
MUFFLED GAY-SOUNDING VOICE: Okay, we've got your results. But they're too close to call. How about we just narrow it down, and give you a choice? Any of them will do. You can't lose.
MACKEREL: Agreed. By the way, who are you, leader guy, so I'll know who's the top?
MUFFLED GAY-SOUNDING VOICE: Me? Carl's my name. I'll tell you what. Here's who I used to be, because I'm just a forty-ish, ugly, gay, gym-going dreg who watches too much porn now. But I used to be the slightly queeny but cute enough to make up for it blond boy who hung around in West Hollywood back in the eighties, if you remember that?
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: He's thirteen, dope. But I remember you. It's me. Lawrence, the old but muscular enough to make up for it guy. Ring a bell?
MUFFLED GAY-SOUNDING VOICE: Ding, yeah. How's it hanging?
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: It's hanging, dude.
MUFFLED GAY-SOUNDING VOICE: God bless the past, right?
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: You said it.
MUFFLED GAY-SOUNDING VOICE: Anyway, according to our poll, the cutest boys in the world are Taylor Hanson circa "Mm Bop," duh. Aaron Carter at any age, under any circumstances, duh. Devon Sawa circa that TV movie called something like Tornado. Aaron Carter. Nick Carter before he got chunky. Leonardo Di Caprio pre-" The Beach." And did I say Aaron Carter? If not, Aaron Carter.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Tough choice.
MACKEREL: Who's the first one he said again?
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Taylor Hanson circa "Mm-Bop."
MACKEREL: HIM.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: (yelling) He chose early Taylor Hanson. How hot is that?
MUFFLED GAY-SOUNDING VOICE: Shit. Fine, we're so horny and fucked up on crystal meth that we'll deal with the fact that he isn't Aaron Carter.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: (to Mackerel whispering) Pick Aaron Carter.
MACKEREL: Why?
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Why?! Am I losing my mind?
MACKEREL: You mean that "Aaron's Party" dork?
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Bingo.
MACKEREL: (mournfully) Him then. But your pettiness is giving me pause.
Behind Josh's boyfriend's front door, the muffled good news spreads and muffled zippers start unzipping.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: So any last words? I mean before you just start saying ouch and all that?
MACKEREL: Yeah, actually. Let history record that a boy who only wanted to serve humanity by serving himself was sidetracked by the jihad that homoeroticism has unleashed upon the cute. My intellect could have saved us, had we known me, but my ass was too great a distraction, albeit for quite understandable reasons. That's it, I guess. Oh, and a secret. I was just a straight boy who liked being rimmed and told older gay guys he was gay because his girlfriends were so prissy. I don't deserve to die gay, therefore. Think about it. After you've thought about it, talk to me through a psychic of your choice, and I'll tell you the truth of life. Then blow yourselves up in a crowded place. See if I care. Oh, and anarchy rules.
JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: You have a point. But you're so fucking cute.
MACKEREL: (sourly) Let's just do it, okay?
He puts his hand on the doorknob.
MACKEREL: But thanks. I am, aren't I? Tell the world.
POLE SHIFT
Justin Taylor
WOULD THE GRASSES get ejected from the soil or sucked down?
Would the crosstown bus condense or striate or disjoin?
Would all the scratched silverware in all the restaurants up and down Cathedral Parkway start keening like churchbells or amp feedback; a multitude of lunch specials cast as the resonant chorus of a dissonant opera?
Trees will redistribute their shadows with thoughtless grace, like smokers circulating their sloppy seconds or children camping by the mailbox in wait of God's return letter. And what about the woman in the white dress, who doesn't know the sun is a pornographer featuring the wild humanity of her ass and lips when she drifts like a veil between me and the light? She's a curvaceous, transient spectacle unfettered by prospects.
In the considered unfolding she'd be another dead one, swept up in the great tide of suddenly airborne souls, invisible as a model Party member. That's obvious and perfect knowledge. What we know about pole shifts or other apocalypses is so boldly hypothetical as to be beyond refuting, like her decision to forgo underwear this morning or the sun's casual warmth. How good must it feel to access that Godly light through the loose cotton folds of this bright item that she does not know is also a twoway mirror? She's closer than ever to being unlimited. I'm just the guy who noticed. But then again maybe we've got something good between ussharing the paradoxic truths of nakedness and death, driven by a radical honesty never to be replicated or understood. Her not-knowing ticks like a bomb clock nestled in the crux of our crippled, untellable secret: everything she'd never reveal across ten years spent as loyal lovers.
MISS KANSAS
ON JUDGMENT DAY
Kelly Link
WE ARE SITTING on our honeymoon bed in the honeymoon suite. We are in a state of honeymoon, in our honey month. These words are so sweet: honey, moon. This bed is so big, we could live on it. We have been happily marooned-honey marooned-on this bed for days. I have a pair of socks on and you've put your underwear on backwards. I mean, it's my underwear, which you've put on backwards. This is perfectly natural. Everything I have is yours now. My underwear is your underwear. We have made vows to this effect. Our underwear looks so cute on you.
I lean towards you. Marriage has affected the laws of gravity. We will now revolve around each other. You will exert gravity on me, and I will exert gravity on you. We are one another's moons. You are holding on to my feet with both hands, as if otherwise you might fall right off the bed. I think I might float up and hit the ceiling, splat, if you let go. Please don't let go.
How did we meet? When did we marry? Where are we, and how did we get here? One day, we think, we will have children. They will ask us these questions. We will make things up. We will tell them about this hotel. Our room overlooks the ocean. We have a balcony, although we have not made it that far, so far.
Where are we and how did we get here? We are so far away from home. This bed might as well be a foreign country. We are both a little bit homesick, although we have not confessed this to each other. We remember cutting the cake. We poured punch for each other, we linked our arms and drank out of each other's glasses. What was in that punch?
We are the only honeymooners in this hotel. Everyone else is a beauty pageant contestant or a beauty pageant contestant's chaperone. We have seen the chaperones in the halls, women armed with cans of hairspray and little eggs containing emergency pantyhose, looking harassed but utterly competent. Through the walls, we have heard the beauty pageant contestants talking in their sleep. We have held water glasses up t
o the walls in order to hear what they were saying.
As honeymooners, we are good luck tokens. As if our happiness, our good fortune, might rub off, contestants ask us for a light: they brush up against us in the halls, pull strands of hair off our clothing. Whenever we leave our bed, our room-not often-two or three are sure to be lurking just outside our door. But today-tonight-we have the hotel to ourselves.
The television is on, or maybe we are dreaming. Now that we are married, we will have the same dreams. We are watching (dreaming) the beauty pageant.
On television, Miss Florida is walking across the stage. She's blond and we know from eavesdropping in the hotel bar that this will count against her. Brunettes win more often. Three brunettes, Miss Hawaii, Miss Arkansas, Miss Pennsylvania, trail after her. They take big slow steps and roll their hips expertly. The colored stage lights bounce off their shiny sweetheart dresses. In television interviews, we learned that Miss Arkansas is dyslexic, or maybe it was Miss Arizona. We have hopes of Miss Arkansas, who has long straight brown hair that falls all the way down her back.
You say that if we hadn't just gotten married, you would want to marry Miss Arkansas. Even if she can't spell. She can sit on her hair. A lover could climb that hair like a gym rope. It's fairy-tale hair, Rapunzel hair. We saw her practicing for the pageant in the hotel ballroom with two wild pigs, her hair braided into two lassoes. We heard her say in her interview that she hasn't cut her hair since she was twelve years old. We can tell that she's an old-fashioned girl. Please don't let go of my feet.
We have to admit that we are impressed by Miss Pennsylvania's dress. In her interview, we found out that she makes all of her own clothes.This dress has over forty thousand tiny sequins handstitched onto it. It took a year and a day to stitch on all those sequins, which are supposed to look from a distance like that painting by Seurat. Sunday Afternoon on the Boardwalk. It really is a work of art. Her mother and her father helped Miss Pennsylvania sort the sequins by color. She has three younger brothers, football players, and they all helped, too. We imagine the pinprick sequins glittering in the large hands of her brothers. Her brothers are in the audience tonight, looking extremely proud of their sister, Miss Pennsylvania.
The Apocalypse Reader Page 18