God Drug

by Stephen L. Antczak

  Go Away.

  She needed a shower. She padded softly across the carpeting and out of the bedroom, found the bathroom in the hall. Perfume, tampons, hair spray… A quick, hot shower made her feel better, but she wanted tea. Naked and wet, not bothering to towel off, she went through the house until she found the kitchen.

  Go Away.

  She opened the door of the drab green refrigerator.

  “Oh my God.” Inside, everything was peach: a dozen cups of peach yogurt, two opened cans of peaches in syrup, a half-eaten peach pie, most of a peach cobbler, a big bowl of cottage cheese mixed with peaches, four bottles of peach juice, and a big bowl of fresh peaches.

  Go Away.

  Hanna closed the refrigerator door.

  It was all hers, she knew.

  “But I hate peaches,” she said to herself. Even though she couldn’t quite remember what peach tasted like, she knew deep down, in the same instinctive way she knew all that peach stuff in the refrigerator was hers, she knew she hated the taste of peach.

  Go Away.

  At least there were other things to eat, which she was thankful for as her stomach growled. There was bread and butter, so she could at least make toast. What about tea? She found that in the pantry, and set a teapot of water to boiling on the stove. She also found peanut butter in the pantry and decided to use that on the toast.

  Go Away.

  Hanna stood in the kitchen waiting for the water to boil, and then for the tea to steep. She was almost afraid to move, to make any more noise. She didn’t want to awaken him, whoever he was, although somehow she knew he’d sleep though anything short of an earthquake.

  Go Away.

  The smell of the tea steeping—English breakfast—comforted her. She bent down close to the mug and took a long whiff, closing her eyes.

  “Eat allllllllll your Goddamn peaches!” the General bellowed, his voice rough from gargling shrapnel for breakfast every morning, his face a ripe tomato, bulging and red with eyes hidden behind mirrorshades.

  Hanna ate along with the rest of Alice Company, gobbling every pulpy piece, slurping every gooey droplet of syrup in their C-ration peaches. Everything smelled like peach. Hands and faces were sticky from the syrup.

  When they were done, the General screamed out an order. “Hold ’em high, people!” He walked slowly down the line of sweat-soaked soldiers as they broiled in the pitiless heat of the southeast Asian sun. The General peered deep into each can to make sure not one sweet drop of syrup remained, while the forlorn face of each soldier of Alice Company was twice reflected in the mirrorshades. Peaches, day and night, every time they ate they had to eat peaches… sickeningly saccharine and limp like leeches.

  Hanna felt the General’s hot breath on her face, breath rancid with tobacco, the breath of Hell’s own fury. He paused in front of her to pull a corncob pipe from his shirt pocket and stick it in his mouth, unlit, then proceeded down the line…

  She opened her eyes, shook her head to clear the phantom remnants of the dream out of her peripheral vision. It was more than a dream now, though, and more than a memory. Like it was actually happening in another reality… And this reality, in which she now stood sipping tea and munching peanut butter toast, she had no recollection of at all. She finished the toast and the tea, and wondered what to do next. The Go Away feeling was still there, but she didn’t want to leave without knowing… Who was she? Who was he?

  After a minute or so, she realized she was nervously twisting a ring on her finger, around and around. She held up her left hand, saw the band of gold on her ring finger. A wedding ring. She was married? And did she have kids? What about a job? Friends? What, she wakes up one morning after a nightmare and WHAM doesn’t remember any of it?

  What was going on?

  Go Away.

  Hanna took a breath. Kids? No, her body didn’t feel like it had ever given birth. Husband? She walked out of the kitchen, into the living room, looking for something that might create even a glimmer of memory. There was a picture from the wedding: It was definitely her, and it was definitely him and they were definitely cutting the wedding cake, with its little plastic bride and groom atop it. Also in the living room, a La-Z-Boy recliner position just so for the best TV viewing. Did he sleep there after work, socks hanging halfway off his feet while the TV news was drowned out by his snoring?

  Go Away.

  Hanna didn’t feel married. She looked at the ring on her finger and wondered what the Hell she was going to do. Should she wake him up, tell him she’s forgotten everything about their life together, and suggest he take her to the hospital for a CAT scan or something? Would he just mumble something unintelligible, roll over, fart, and go back to sleep?

  “So who the Hell am I?” Hanna asked herself. That was the real question. Really, married or not, she didn’t care who he was. She had to recollection of him at all, what he liked for breakfast, what his favorite baseball team was, where he worked, what his favorite beer was, nothing wifely like that.

  Go Away.

  The living room, aside from the La-Z-Boy recliner, was well-furnished with an oak rocking chair in one corner, a glass-topped coffee table, an entertainment center complete with big-screen TV, multiple CD player, VCR, speakers mounted up in the corners near the ceiling, and a whole shelf of videos and CDs Hanna didn’t bother to look over.

  She kept walking through the house to the den, which was decked out with the kind of furniture parents never let their kids sit on. There was a fireplace, with cards across the mantle. Closer inspection revealed them to be birthday cards. Whose? If his, Hanna could look at see what his name was. If hers, she could find out her own age. She didn’t look. She liked not knowing.

  Go.

  Away.

  “All right already,” Hanna whispered to the darkness of the den. It was getting lighter outside. The urge to Go Away was too strong, and from what Hanna had seen, this house, with its accompanying life, didn’t intrigue her enough to want to bother with. If she was supposed to be concerned about not being able to remember any of it… well, she wasn’t. She felt fine. Perhaps it had been a nice life, safe, and had given her an identity. Now, though, Hanna knew it wasn’t her, not the Hanna she’d awakened as that morning.

  She went back into the bedroom for some clothes, got dressed and packed a small bag. The man, her husband, rolled over onto his stomach, and the sheet had been pulled off his body. He was extremely hairy, even his backside. Gut bulged out on either side from beneath his large frame. Hanna checked herself out in the mirror again. She wore a simple black skirt and white top, red stockings and a red vest, and black pumps. She turned to leave, then turned back around and pulled the ring from her finger. She tossed it onto the man she was leaving. It landed on his butt. He didn’t notice.

  She left.

  Outside, the air was crisp and cool and clean. She took a deep breath and that seemed to invigorate her. There was a Jeep Cherokee parked in the driveway. Hers, Hanna figured, since it was painted peach. The front license plate sported a skyline backed by a giant peach, with the word Atlanta across it. The Big Peach. Figured.

  She got in, and noticed that the Go Away feeling had subsided now that she was actually Going Away. A feeling of euphoria bloomed inside her. Going Away.

  By the time she started actually paying attention to where she was going, Hanna found herself traveling south on Interstate 75. South was Florida. Florida was… What was Florida? Alligators, palm trees, mosquitoes, pelicans, Cubans, Mickey Mouse, rattlesnakes, tourists, cocaine, transplanted New York Jews, hurricanes, orange juice, coconuts, manatees, Sea World, the space shuttle… Good enough. She certainly liked oranges over peaches.

  She could always go back, couldn’t she? Back… home. She could simply make a U-turn and go back to the fog she’d been living in, and maybe she’d forget all about Going Away in the haze of suburban, middle-class, buy-American, television-watching life she’d undoubtedly lived up until now.

  Even as she thought abou
t it, though, her foot pressed down harder on the gas and the Jeep lurched forward in traffic. The thought of going back made her skin crawl, made her want to vomit. Somewhere in Florida she knew she’d find herself, her essence, the base metals of her existence.

  Gas-Food-Lodging, a sign announced not long after she crossed the state line into Florida. The Jeep needed gas. She wasn’t particularly hungry, but a nice, tall glass of orange juice would hit the spot. She pulled off the highway and filled up at the first gas station, then felt compelled to drive past a whole row of fast food joints and restaurants, past McDonald’s, past Shoney’s, past Waffle House, past Subway, past Wendy’s… She pulled the Jeep into the gravel parking lot of a truck stop/honkey tonk with a sign with only the words “Food to Go, Food to Eat” scrawled on it.

  She went inside. Patsy Cline’s soulful, smoldering voice sang “Crazy” from speakers mounted in the corners. A few tired-looking truckers occupied the booths, staring into their coffee. They looked up when they heard the door, and saw Hanna. She walked past them, felt them watching her the whole time. What did they see? Some leggy sex machine, nothing more, no doubt.

  She stopped when she saw the man sitting in the final booth, all the way back near where the bathrooms were located. And he saw her. She could tell he was watching Hanna like a wolf watches prey, despite the mirrorshades hiding his eyes.

  “Eat allllllllll your Goddamn peaches!”

  “Have a seat, soldier,” the General said, his voice as gravelly as the parking lot. “I’ve been waiting for you.” His tone was one of practiced authority, accustomed to being obeyed. Hanna sat opposite the General in the booth.

  A waitress, fifty-ish and looking as if she’d waited tables for thirty-five of those years, came over.

  “The young lady will have orange juice,” the General said.

  For some reason Hanna was not surprised that he knew what she wanted.

  The waitress delivered the OJ in a small juice glass, not exactly slamming it on the table but putting it down hard enough for some of the juice to slop over. Hanna licked the side of the glass, then took a sip. Oh, yes, definitely beat the Hell out of peach.

  “Welcome to Florida, soldier,” the General said with a wink. Hanna assumed the wink.

  “I think you’re mistaken,” she said.

  “This isn’t Florida?” the General asked.

  Hanna shook her head. “It’s Florida. I’m not a soldier.”

  The General laughed. “Oh, that… Well, you’ll follow orders anyway, like a good little girl.”

  Hanna felt a small knot of anger form inside her gut, but that was it. She knew she’d follow orders, up to a point. She did not know what that point was, but she’d recognize it when she got to it.

  “You’re taking me with you,” the General said. “We’re heading south.”

  “Fine,” she said. “I was going that way anyway.”

  The General’s mouth seemed to tighten somewhat. “You can pretend that you have free will,” he said. “And maybe you do have a modicum of it. But you know as well as I do… that’s bullshit. Your actions are dictated by what I say and what I want. Just like in your dreams.”

  “Not dreams,” Hanna said. “One dream.”

  “Actually, it’s not even a dream,” he told her. “It’s a memory.”

  A memory.

  “Go ahead,” said the General. “Close your eyes.”

  Hanna closed her eyes…

  … the General stopped halfway down the line, paused in his inspection of another peach tin, head cocked to one side, listening.

  Chugchugchugchugchugchug.

  The scene became grainy like an old technicolor movie, flicker and pop, stop-motion reality, the sky, the trees, the sun. High noon, superheated and balmy, sweat and grit rubbed Hanna raw beneath her olive green t-shirt and fatigues, combat boots. Her arms and legs suddenly changed, grew bigger, like balloons, and her face felt like dead wood, her eyes became multi-faceted as though she were seeing through the eyes of everyone in Alice Company.

  The General turned around, pulled his service .45 from its leather holster at his hip.

  “This is it, people!” he growled. “Party time!”

  The dragons approached, relentless, metallic sputtering, screaming, shrieking, howling… but then Hanna realized the screams and shrieks and howls were coming from Alice Company, dying as burning spit and dragon’s breath ripped through their bodies, spun them like stringless marionettes, jerked them around like children. The smell of their torched flesh made Hanna gag. The dragons closed in, and the General stood against them alone, firing round after round at them, uselessly, heroically, cackling demonically as white smoke poured from his mouth, nostrils, ears. He turned to face Hanna, opened his mouth to bark orders, but instead of words he made inhuman noises, thick, bubbling, and blood gushed out, war party punch spiked with death.

  The ground beneath Hanna suddenly thrust up, as if Mother Earth had grown tired of supporting her, flung her away, and then she was floating, hovering over the chaos like a spirit, dancing in the black smoke of burning bodies, and—

  “Snap out of it, soldier!” the General barked.

  Hanna blinked, saw that face, the face that had been spewing blood, raging, laughing. She was sweating, so she sipped some of the cold orange juice. Made her feel a little better.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” she told the General, “but something’s not right. I don’t want you to come with me, but… I can’t do anything about it. I can’t say no. I don’t know why. It’s like we’re somehow…”

  “Linked?” the General offered.

  Hanna nodded, though the thought of it made her feel slightly nauseous. “That dream, or whatever it is, means something.”

  “Means something!” The General leaned his head way back and laughed loudly, derisively. “Of course it means something! Goddamn it, soldier, we were in ’Nam together! You were in my command! You were in Alice Company! We kicked gook ass!”

  “’Nam?” Hanna asked. “As in Vietnam? That was over twenty years ago! Look at me, how old do you think I am?”

  The General looked at her, and a smug smile cracked his face. “How old are you?”

  Hanna opened her mouth to answer, then closed it. How old was she? There was nothing. She had no idea. Years, she thought. How many years have I been alive? She almost closed her eyes again, but she didn’t want to be back in whatever Hell waited behind her eyelids, whether it was a dream, a memory, or something else.

  “We’re older than we think,” the General said.

  Vietnam with dragons.

  A lot older.

  Rain sluiced across the windshield of the peach-colored Jeep Cherokee as Hanna drove it further south on I-75. She’d won one, albeit small, battle with the General by insisting that he not smoke in the car. She’d gotten an odd reaction from him. He didn’t argue, didn’t just ignore and light up as she’d half expected, didn’t even mutter something under his breath and grudgingly concede. He just put the pipe back into his shirt pocket without a word, almost automatically, like a robot. And, on retrospect, she realized she’d known he would obey her even before she said anything.

  Weird.

  The General stared straight ahead for twenty minutes while Hanna drove. As far as she could tell he didn’t shift in his seat, didn’t scratch, didn’t blink, didn’t even breathe. Somehow she knew he was looking for something out there in the rain. Out there was the shadow image of another “soldier” like Hanna, one of the General’s mythical Alice Company from a war Hanna knew she could never have fought in.

  Not in her wildest dreams.

  They emerged from the rain and the blue-black ribbon of highway before them seemed to shimmer and dissolve, like static breaking up the image on a TV. Hanna rubbed her eyes. She was certainly not tired, but a strange calm had overcome her, against her will, putting her into an hypnotic, trance-like state. She felt the bonds of her body upon her self loosen, and then let her go.

>   So she went. Out from her body, through the roof of the Jeep, then zooming ahead of it, following the interstate. She whipped past mile posts and emergency call boxes, then took an off-ramp, and around behind a Starvin’ Marvin convenience store/gas station…

  And into another body, leather-clad, bone-thin and pale as a ghost, with greasy black hair, yellow eyes, shivering from the chill of 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Hanna found herself leaning against a wall and surrounded by steam rising off the blacktop parking lot from the afternoon shower. Smoke stung her eyes, from a cigarette burning between her cold lips.

  Cold, like death.

  Meanwhile, her body was still driving the Jeep southbound on I-75, Going Away, the General silent in the passenger seat. Her body was on automatic, a meat puppet pulling its own strings while the puppetmaster took a cigarette break. Her spirit was leaning against the Starvin’ Marvin in another body, trying to give that body the Go Away feeling. But nothing happened.

  “Now what?”

  The voice startled her because it was her voice… and not her voice. She felt the words come out of her mouth, but knew the voice wasn’t hers. Then, a name formed on her lips, around the obtrusive cigarette.

  “Deuce.”

  She was Deuce, now. Deuce was the name scratched into the bone on the inside of the head she now found herself inhabiting, almost like a dream. And she—Deuce—felt like shit.

  She closed Deuce’s eyes for a instant—Eat allllllllll your Goddamn peaches!—and found the same dream, or memory, the same General, same dragons, same Hell.

  “Who are you?” she asked. The voice was his, Deuce’s.

  “I’m Hanna,” she replied. In the Jeep, her body had actually spoken those words aloud. The General did not stir. The Jeep was en route to where Deuce was standing, waiting. “In the dream…”

  “Fuckin’ nightmare,” Deuce said. “Yeah, I know who you are. You’re me.”