I am both him and his son.
Johnny also did a very good Faye Dunaway: I’m both him and his son!
You’re so gay, I said.
You’re so gay, he said.
Both of you are so gay, Pringle bellowed.
But what do you want with me? said Johnny, now a bit petulant himself as he realized that he might not be at the center of this little plot.
You? It was never about you, you fool! You patsy! You . . . homo! You were never more than the bait in the trap, the lure on the fishing line, the, uh . . .
Salt lick, I suggested.
Chum, said Johnny.
Will you two fucking cut it out!
I think we’re getting to him, I said.
Yeah, said Johnny. By the way, Pringle, your drugs fucking suck. I’m not even high.
For real, I said.
My plan— began Pringle.
Yeah, I said. We’re not really interested.
Nope, said Johnny.
My plan! said Pringle. Was always to draw you here and incapacitate you, Mr. Morrison. Of course, I knew I could never reach you directly. Your crass, arrogant materialism would never permit a real interest in the deep occult. You were never more than a dilettante.
He’s got you there, said Johnny.
Stop talking! yelled Pringle. I drew your friend in, tantalizing him with secret knowledge, dangling the possibility that he might join me in my Great Working, for I knew that your concern for your foolish friend would ultimately drive you into my arms. And here you are. Helpless.
Um, I said, what’s to stop us from just running away from your fat ass? You probably have terrible aim.
Yeah, said Johnny.
I am. Mandy stepped from the shadows, the vast dog, bigger even than I’d remembered it, at her side. She was holding a gun. Don’t even think about it, she said.
You should have kept an eye out, hot dogs, said the dog.
Whoa, I said.
Pringle glowered at me. My father was going to transform the Project, turn it into something for the betterment of all mankind. He was a great inventor. And your fascist reptilian grandfather took it all away, had him framed for terrible crimes!
Wait a minute, I said. I thought your father was deep, devious, and powerful.
Based on your grandfather, obviously! The real secret master. The real Bonesman!
The way I hear it, your dear old fucking dad was a hustler who conned my family out of millions of dollars.
Precisely what a reptiloid yuppie monster would say, said Pringle. Well, it’s too late now. Any hope of warding off the nightmare has vanished. Any hope of turning the tide has disappeared like the spring dew. The Project now requires a sacrifice, and only a true ancient bloodline will do. What an irony that your sacrifice will consecrate it.
Wait a minute, I said. What about Mark and Helen?
Who? said Pringle.
Peter’s fancy new yuppie friends, said Johnny. Helen’s the coke slut he brought tonight.
She’s not a coke slut, I said. Actually, I think she’s really unhappy. It sort of seems like an abusive relationship.
That’s real after-school of you, Johnny said.
It’s all irrelevant! Pringle screamed.
Don’t bag the groceries, said the dog.
What? Johnny and I said.
Hey, uh, sorry. A pretty young man in a tank top and painted-on jeans walked toward us. Do any of you guys have a light? He didn’t appear to notice the firearms.
Oh, I don’t think so. Uh, let me check. Oh, maybe, we all said. Mandy found a little plastic lighter in her pocket. The guy lit his smoke and handed it back. Thanks, he said. What’s your name? Johnny said. Johnny, I said. What? he said. Do you guys know when Presumption of Innocence is supposed to go on? the guy asked. Who? I said. They’re, like, a band, the guy said. Soon, I think, said Mandy. After Butt Machine. Cool, said the guy; well, thanks.
He was into me, said Johnny.
Both of you. Mandy gestured with the gun, and the dog growled. Walk.
14
We came to the bank of the river. There was no moon. The arm of the Milky Way rolled overhead. Far to our left, I caught sight of a solitary figure beside the water. Look, I said to Johnny. A river spirit. Ooooohhhh, he said. Coooool. There’s no such thing as river spirits, said Pringle. Right, said Mandy. We walked along the river. It felt like miles. Where are you taking us? I asked. A hired boat will convey you back to the city, said Pringle. There, you will be bound in the Time Chamber to await my return, at which point we will release your lifeblood directly into the sensory deprivation tank from which the psychoperator will draw the sacrificial-orgonic magical energies necessary to collapse the quantum borders between realities and begin reordering the quantum genome of the multiversal reality matrix.
Simple enough, I said.
Can you reorder it so that they don’t replace Michael O’Hare with Bruce Boxleitner in B5? Johnny asked. It really fucked up the whole arc.
You’ll regret your irreverence, said Pringle.
You know, I said to Johnny, I think I should apologize to Lauren Sara.
Oh God, he said. You’re such a fag.
We came around a long bend in the shore and saw a small boat bobbing along a small dock. Well, I said, Johnny, it’s been a pleasure serving with you.
But as we reached the boat, there was a humming overhead that resolved itself into immense mechanical whirring. Oh shit, said Johnny. Oh, AWESOME! There it was above us, liquid and silver, its skin reflective and luminous, the air around it shimmering like the air above the thousandth foot of highway on a hot day.
No, said Pringle. No! They always interfere! And he started firing wildly into the air, but it was no action movie, and after just a second or two of flashing and reporting, the magazine was empty.
The dog whimpered and dropped its belly to the ground.
A shaft of brilliant light dropped from the ship and surrounded us.
A voice with the smooth cadence and hushed sibilants of a public radio host seemed to come from the ship. Waffe Weg. Hände hoch!
Johnny, I hissed, run!
And while they were dazzled we stomped back into the woods.
15
Johnny, I said. We’d lost Pringle and Mandy and that goddamn wolfhound with no trouble. I’m sorry. What for? he said. Well, apparently this is all my fault. They wanted me. Johnny stopped and considered it, then slapped my shoulder. Nah, he said. I still think he was pissed that I was dipping into his stash. I mean, I probably stole a thousand bucks’ worth of heroin, not to mention all the ketamine. But hey, man, what did I tell you about that fascist family of yours? I believe the phrase you used was big Jews, I said. Yeah, he said, well, tomato tomahto. How long have we been out here? I asked. I feel like we’ve been out here for a couple of years. No, he said, maybe, like, fifteen minutes. I think it’s been longer than that, I told him. Possibly, he said. Do you think maybe the drugs are altering our sense of time? I asked him. I’m perfectly sober, he said. Well, other than the beers and such. Me, too, I said. We should find Helen, I said. Who? he asked. Helen, I answered. Helen, the girl I came with. Fuck her, said Johnny. She was a downer. I’m telling you, I said, I think that she just has a shitty relationship. I think that Mark is, like, controlling her mind or some shit. Controlling her nose is more like it, Johnny said. Controlling her bank account. Well, yeah, I agreed. That, too. My point, Johnny said, is that bad relationships are made by mutual consent. I don’t know, I said. I don’t know if I agree about that. Look at you and Lauren Sara, he said. We didn’t have a bad relationship, I argued. We were great. I mean, good, anyway. Yeah, Johnny said. A real pair of paragons. There may have been some communication issues, I admitted. Morrison, he said, how come the minute I admit you’re not a fucking boring Stepford dude, you come back at me with communications issues? Sorry, I said. I love you anyway, he said. You’re the brother I never had. You did have a brother, I reminded him. You are the midseason replacement cast
ing choice for the brother who was offered a better gig, Johnny told me. Jesus, I said. That’s an interesting way of looking at death. Is there another way? asked Johnny.
16
We kept thinking we heard the party; we kept thinking we saw other guests in the woods, taking a stroll or smoking a joint or looking for a place to lay down a blanket and fuck, but as soon as we approached any of them, they revealed themselves to be insubstantial, melting back into the darkness between the trees, and the sounds of music were night birds, or just the wind in the branches, and the light was just the moon. Johnny, I said, is the moon out?
No, he said. There’s no moon.
I think I see the moon.
Beats me, he said.
Do you smell something? I asked him.
Like what? he said.
It smells like piss, I said.
Maybe, he said.
We’re lost, I said.
Yes, you are. The voice boomed from above us. It had a certain Eeyoreish quality to it, gloomy, all in the head, fairly gay. We started and looked up. Two bright eyes glinted out of a shaggy form in the leaves. It dropped, grabbing branches here and there, swinging on its huge hairy arms like an orangutan.
Oh, fuck, said Johnny. A fucking Sasquatch!
It landed gracefully in front of us, hardly a sound but the slight settling of leaves under its weight. It was huge, hundreds of pounds at least, though it held itself on four legs like a gorilla, and its eyes were at our level. Its huge canines gleamed. Nonsense, it said. I am Targivad, the Wise Monkey of the Forest.
No fucking way, we said.
I bring tidings from the Time Being.
I’m sorry, I said. What?
The Time Being, said the ape. He had, I decided, a regal bearing. I glanced at Johnny, who seemed absolutely stupefied. Out of the primordial No-Thing-Ness, the Time Being came into being for the time being. His being is the forward motion of time and being.
Dude, said Johnny, do you know Calsutmoran?
Who? I said.
He’s in the Ein Soph Department, said Targivad. We usually bump into each other at the Christmas party.
Well, said Johnny, if you see him, tell him that I know he took my Seventh Guest CD-ROM. That shit is a collector’s item.
Your pizza deliveryman took it, along with a twenty-dollar bill and three Pabsts from your refrigerator.
Shit, said Johnny.
You should do less drugs, said Targivad.
No fucking kidding, I said.
Shut it down, said Johnny.
You hot dogs, said Targivad, have not kept an eye out.
That’s probably true, I said.
The Time Being commands me to say unto you that, verily, thou art a pair of major fuckups.
Hey, I said. Tell that to this guy. I pointed a thumb at Johnny. I’m a fucking young professional.
Oh, fine, said Johnny. Throw me under the bus.
Get it together, said Targivad.
Yeah, whatever, I said.
The promise of your youth is wasted on your adult lives, Targivad replied. You cling to youth but not its promise; you are seeds that have sprouted into vines that bear no fruit.
Johnny bears fruit, I said.
Oh, ha ha, said Johnny.
Boys, Targivad snapped. You only get one life. Your account is full of time. There is only one way to spend it, which is in the living of it.
Huh, I said.
Boys, said Targivad.
Yes? we said.
Keep an eye out.
He leapt away and swung back into the trees. Then the forest was pierced with light, bright beams like the beam that had trapped Pringle. We heard the humming again overhead, but it was louder, more insistent, metronomic, a thump-thumping. Luftwaffe, Johnny said. UFOs! We ran again, smashing blindly through the brush. We’d been on the edge of the clearing all along. There was the lodge. There was the bonfire. There were the rest of the party guests, running in every direction, screaming, terror overtaking them. Huge beings moved among us, their faces obscured. They seemed to be wearing some sort of mechanized armor. They emitted shouts and bursts of static. We were caught in the human tide. We surged this way and that but were driven ever tighter. Johnny! I called. Johnny! Morrison! he cried. One of the beings had caught hold of my arm. I screamed and struggled. I tried to break free, but its grip was superhumanly strong. I kicked at it. It touched my chest with some sort of energy weapon. My whole body seized. My muscles froze. One spasm after another pulsed through me. I thought I was going to lose control of my bowels. I felt it in my eyes. I felt it crackling around my brain. I wanted to move, but the effort only induced more agony and only made me tremble harder. I wanted to scream, but I could only manage a dull moan. I tried to say, Why are you doing this? I must have said it, because the creature looked at me through its big glass eye, its whole face, and it said, in English, oddly enough, Resisting arrest. Then it used the weapon on me again. Well, huh. I found myself feeling unexpectedly sober. Oh shit, I thought. Maybe those drugs did work. I found my jaw moving again. Helen? I said. We’ll find your girlfriend, said the creature. Oh, it was a cop. I lolled in his grip. There was a helicopter overhead. She’s not my girlfriend, I said. She’s my boss’s girlfriend. Kid, said the cop. Shut up. You have the right to remain silent and so forth. He was dragging me toward the lodge, which was surrounded by cars and wagons, their lights swirling. I saw Johnny being dragged along as well. Johnny! I called once more. We were thrown against the side of a van, side by side. Hey, man, I said. Yo, he said. Shut the fuck up, a cop said. They were zip-tying our wrists. My cheek was pressed to the side panel. I saw, a few cars down, Winston Pringle on the ground, bucking wildly like some kind of enraged walrus. Police state! he shouted in his avian voice. Police state! One of the cops looked at another. He shrugged. Resisting arrest? he said. Looks like it to me, said the other. The first baton fell, then the rest, then Johnny and me and half a dozen others were snatched up harshly and tossed into the back of a different van and taken to jail.
1
I recall falling asleep on a bench with my arm under my ear. I recall waking during the night because my arm had fallen asleep. I recall peering through one squinting, open eye at one of my cellmates, a skinny boy with knotted hair, and asking about my car. What car, man? he asked. Can you, like, describe the car? I said a little VW, small dent on the front quarterpanel, gray. Oh yeah, he said. Your girl took it. Mm, I said.
2
The Morrisons of Sewickley, Pennsylvania, had several lawyers, but they were not the sort of lawyers that drove out to Armstrong County to spring you from the lockup, so I called Cousin Bill, the closest thing I knew to a criminal, a man who I knew for a fact had spent a night or two in the tank himself, and as I’d hoped he would he laughed, his squeaky, wheezing little voice trilling with pure delight, and said he was sending Ben David posthaste. He said it as if I should know who Ben David was. Who’s Ben David? I asked. David Ben David, he said. He’s the swingingest-dicked Jew in Pittsburgh, bar none. I thought the mayor’s man was the swingingest-dicked Jew in Pittsburgh, I said. The sheriff’s deputy in the room looked up from his cell phone. I shrugged. He shook his head. Kantsky? said Bill. He’s not Jewish. I mean, maybe his dad was. His mom was Italian. A DiBella, if I remember right. We went to Allderdice together. He’s a goddamn Knight of Columbus. For real? I said. Far as I know, said Bill. Anyway, Ben David is a fucking shark. He’ll chomp chomp chomp those oakie fucks up there. Just don’t mention the Palestinians. Why the fuck would I mention the Palestinians? I’m just saying, said Bill. He’s ex-Mossad. Not. A. Fan. Okay, I said. So I should just sit tight? Exactly, said Bill. By the way, my recommendation is to take a shit, if possible. No one’ll mess with you if they know you just took a shit. Yeah, thanks, I said. Kidding, he said. I’m proud of you, little cuz. Seriously, try not to get fucked in the ass.
3
I spent a night with some miscellaneous hippies from the party and a few pacing meth heads who may or may no
t have been from the party. After we’d been unloaded from the van, I’d been hauled one way and Johnny another. We’d passed each other, and he’d offered me a grin so extraordinary and out of place that I thought I must still be hallucinating. Hot dogs, he’d said, and he’d laughed as they dragged him away. He’d never arrived in my cell. Then in the morning I was free. Ben David was waiting for me with my phone and wallet. I looked carefully at my phone. It was undamaged. I checked the contacts. It was definitely mine. He wore a shiny golf shirt, pleated khakis, and suede driving shoes. He had broad shoulders, gray hair that looked as if it belonged to a European orchestra conductor, and the barest suggestion of a paunch behind his braided belt. Peter, he said. His big hand gripped mine. He had the last, ineradicable trace of an Israeli accent. A pleasure to meet you. Bill sends his regards. I told the lawyer I was really grateful. Don’t worry, he said. I know the sheriff up here; I do a lot of drug cases up here. Meth, you know, mostly. A little heroin. Trailed off a lot since the gas companies came in. A good economy is bad for a criminal defense practice. We walked outside. It was a bright, cool morning. Shit, I said. What about my car? Impounded, probably, he said. Sorry. I’m working on that. Seizures—he lowered his voice—are the biggest cop scam of all. I’m seeing what I can do. You know what, I said. Forget it. It isn’t worth anything anyway. Ben David said reverently, Okeir beitoo bo’tsayah bat’sa v’shonay matanot yich’yeh.
4
I’m sorry? I said. The greedy for gain brings trouble to his home, but he who hates bribes shall live, said Ben David.
5
That’s an interesting attitude for a lawyer, isn’t it? I said. We walked down a slight incline toward the far parking lot, where Ben David’s long, late-model Cadillac glinted in the sun. Beyond it, a line of trees and a muddy creek. Not at all, said Ben David. Bribes are the province of officials. There are no bribes among criminals. All exchanges among the lawless are legitimate. The law itself is a precondition for corruption. This is why I went into defense. Well, that and the money. He smiled and offered my shoulder an avuncular slap. Everyone is guilty, you see. You’re a Catholic; you should understand. But rarely is anyone guilty of what they’re accused of. Hey, I said. What about Johnny? Ah, said Ben David. Your friend. I inquired. He was transferred to Allegheny this morning. The phrase “other charges” was used. I didn’t press it. Apparently there was a warrant. Since all they had up here was public intox and resisting arrest, they sent him down right away. A warrant? I said. For what? Don’t know, said Ben David. I made some calls. We’ll see. Let me ask you this—we stood beside his car—do you think that he might have been mixed up with this Wilhelm Zollen character? Pringle? I said. Sure, said Ben David. Whatever his name is. Yes, I said. Yes, unfortunately, I do. Well then, Ben David said, he’s probably fucked in the short term. But like I said, I’ll see what I can do. Thanks, I said. We got into the car. Oh, I said. Also, did my cousin mention Helen Witold when he talked to you. Yeah, said Ben David. Is she the artist? He told you she was an artist? No, said Ben David. No. I know her name. One of my partners at the firm has a piece by her. Got it as a part of a payment in a divorce thing for some museum person or other. No shit, I said. Yes shit, he said. Anyway, no, nothing about her. According to the cops, everyone who didn’t get arrested dispersed. Most of them were from Pittsburgh, presumably. I’m sure she got a ride. Hm, I said. I dialed her and went straight to voice mail. Then I realized I didn’t have my keys. Did they have keys with my other shit? I asked. No, he told me. Why? Did you have keys? I must have given them to Helen, I said, although I could not recall having given them to Helen. She must have taken the car. I called her again, and this time I left a message. Helen, I said. I’m going to need my car back.
The Bend of the World: A Novel Page 20