Down with the Fallen

by Jack Lothian

  Anyway, that is where I was when the Gidgidoo appeared on the TV screen, in the basement of our apartment building, playing Mr. Fix-it, and doing a horrific wrap job on the sweater. Beth missed the G-woman, too. She was in the kitchen, gently trying to unravel herself from one of those killer marathon phone calls from Mom; blah, blah, blah, when are you two buying a house? Blah, blah, blah, when are you bringing Biya up for a visit? Blah and double blah.

  But Biya did see it, and named her two names. The Gidgidoo, and, The Scary Lady. Of course, on any other night, Biya would have already been in bed (cause she’s friggin’ four), curled up with that ladybug doll she likes, dreaming under a ceiling of glow-in-the-dark, peach-colored stars. But no, my unsupervised daughter was happily flipping channels on our (never set parental control) remote. So first, a little of the The Shining, and then, the Gidgidoo. Yeah, yeah, I know. Nice parenting, Doyle and Beth.

  The purple marking was the Gidgidoo’s first promise to all of us across the world in TV land, and damn if it did not happen the next morning, just as she said it would. And then every week after that at 8pm. A new announcement. A new color. And a new sinner would wake up marked, unveiled to the world, awaiting punishment, or running from it.

  * * *

  A blast of wind, frizzled with swirling ice-snow, slams into my face, immediately making my eyes water. I’m pushed back a step and almost lose my footing. I feel my left heel kissing a thick rounded ice patch and my heart jumps. Not sure, but I think some sort of cartoon “Whoa!” escapes my mouth. Yet, my arms seem to blessedly flail in all the right directions and I regain my balance. Slowly, as if not trusting the touchdown, I bend over, place my hands on my thighs and stare at the concrete. My body starts to involuntarily shiver now. Not from the cold, but from the near-miss realization. That could have been bad. Real bad. What if I cracked my head and knocked myself unconscious? Or broke my leg? If I couldn’t make it home tonight? Oh my god. I take a deep breath. Then, another. I’m okay. I’m a block from Tommy’s. Almost halfway home, little girl.

  * * *

  Purple was first. The Gidgidoo had said anyone who developed a purple mark on their head was a child abuser. She didn’t tell anyone to do anything about it. She just said it, like it was an indisputable fact. Like the way you say water boils, or that Superman can fly. Of course, Biya thought she said child shoes, of all things, so she thought marked people got shoes. I didn’t deserve that small miracle.

  That year, there were an estimated 40 million children worldwide subjected to abuse, and I only know that ‘cause me and Beth, everybody at work, and about a bazillion other people hit the internet that week to learn just how many purples were hiding amongst us. I mean, if you believed the lady with the blanket. I didn’t, but I was curious about the numbers. Then it was all over the news. It was practically all the news there was. Purple-headed folks, spotted and rounded up in droves. For a little while, it was really probably a great time to be an attorney, a highway paved in gold by thousands of budding cases to defend: unreasonable search and seizure, illegal arrests, targeted arson, and accidental deaths. Lots of accidental deaths. I think for a moment, even amid all the violence, many people thought it was a good thing. I mean, if it was true, then it was kind of a miracle, right? We could identify and get rid of all these evil pieces of crap that hurt the world’s children every day.

  But I guess that was not enough action for the Gidge. Nope. A week later, she reappeared from the snowy miasma, and I saw her this time. The seductive cadaver of hair plugs, selfishly crashing a rerun of Gilligan’s Island, to announce that a yellow marking meant cheaters. Cheaters on taxes? Cheaters on spouses? Kids who cheated at Monopoly? Who knew? Like I said, she wasn’t one for details. Let’s just say there were a lot of unhappy couples the next morning, and the IRS got an increase in its budget to take on some extra staff.

  * * *

  The deli I’m shopping is the only one still open that I know of in the once bustling retail strip off Vernon Ave. Most of the other local food places Beth and I used to haunt in Perth Amboy have had those chainmail doors in full lockdown for a while now. We never owned a car, and in some suburbs in Jersey, you don’t need to. I make the walk to Tommy’s twice a week. Don’t know what I’ll do if he ever closes. I go once it’s dark. Less people on the street after dark. The windows of the apartments above the shops I pass are lightless, or boarded up, perhaps to strategically indicate no one’s home. But I know better. There are living souls behind some of those dark windows, marked and unmarked. I am sure at least a few of those people saw my little Doyle On Ice show back there, or heard my extra manly “Whoa!” and were currently focusing some recently purchased binocs on my naked brow. Zoom in all you want, shadow people. My head’s clean. Though you might see some pretty interesting acne patterns from my processed food diet as of late.

  Tommy’s red glass vintage lightbox sign is also off. The glass pane in the deli front door and the big picture windows to either side, replaced months ago with plywood, bear the age old proverb: This side up. As much as I want to grab the door handle and launch my body into that warm buttery yellow light, I don’t. I peer through a wood slat and count first. Two customers. One of them I know from my building. Wick Carmien, seventy-eight and teetering on his cane. Harmless. Jeez. Musta taken the dude an hour to get here. I’ll try to get my goods and roll fast. No freakin’ way I am walking him home. The other customer is a woman in her early thirties. Pretty. Hatless, too. Chestnut brown hair pulled back tightly into a ponytail so her whole forehead would be clearly exposed to the world. Welcome to the club, my sista. Tommy is at the front as usual, shotgun leaning on one shoulder, writing something on cans with a black sharpie. Out of labels I suppose.

  Seems okay. Seems fine. I notice the glass doorknob is gone, though. Tommy’s got some sort of mechanical keyless entry contraption with a push down lever on it. Must have been some trouble. Looting, another sport in full revival these days. That magical moment when people decide that it’s okay to throw bricks through store windows, as long as they all do it together.

  * * *

  There’s a Twilight Zone episode (the title eludes me), where a whole bunch of people living in some suburban neighborhood, on a street called Maple, just start attacking each other. Throwing rocks. Breaking windows. Breaking skulls. And it’s all because houselights and car engines are going on and off for no reason and some kid says there must be aliens among them. I always thought it was a good episode, mostly because it had a cast of Zone regulars, so the acting is pretty good. It also stuck in my mind, even when I first saw it at 13, because the story was so far-fetched. Yeah, I know, the show was an endless parade of far-fetchedness; robots, gremlins, and little girls who fell out of bed and slipped into another dimension. I get it. But it seemed really impossible that within 20 minutes (plus commercials) a whole neighborhood of people could go from being mildly concerned that one car doesn’t start, to murdering each other out of fear.

  The tipping point came for all of us Maple Street people of the world when the Gidgidoo appeared on the tube with her fourth unsolicited declaration. The third had been red. But the fourth, the fourth was a biggee. “Blue marks mean murderers.” Fini. So here is the thing about adding murderers to the party list, with no specific categories. We all just assumed she meant that a blue meant some Jack-the Ripper type, with pure evil in his heart. It never occurred to us in the first few days of blue it could include soldiers who fought in a war (hence my buddy, Lens), staff who worked in an abortion clinic, corporate execs whose authorized unsafe working conditions were followed by an accident, kids who forgot to feed their fish/rabbit/turtle, or even acts of justifiable self-defense. Well, and then let’s not forget all those self-righteous everyone’s who had just played a part in killing a purple or two over the previous few weeks. Don’t forget about them. Over a billion people woke up the next day and either found out they now knew a killer, or were one themselves.

  That’s when Biya’s mark appear
ed. A pretty royal blue it was, kinda shaped like a moth. Beth called it a chicken nugget to lighten the mood, and then started drawing a blue mark on her own head each morning. Beth told Biya it was a contest—whoever could keep their mark on longest would win a shopping spree at the big toy store. Totally cool idea. What a mom, huh? Honestly, we had no idea why Biya got the mark in the first place. I guess she stepped on a bug at some point, who the hell knows? But by that time, I was keeping her inside anyway, and we had moved the TV to our bedroom, and it was mostly off, except at 8pm, once a week. Gidgidoo was damn punctual. Now, looking back, I think we should have let the TV stay on all the time just to block out all the screaming and gunfire we heard over the next week down on the street and once, even in our own building.

  * * *

  Now, drum roll please. You ready for this? You sure? Well, I was still working days at Wheelset during the blue phase. Yah. Factory was still open, and I was still working. Even when there was talk about mass exodus from cities at my job, I was still being an asshole. Every morning my terrified wife asked me not to go, and every morning I said something inane like: “Call me on my cell if you need to talk,” or “At some point it has to stop, honey, and we need the money.” And the award for worst husband on the planet goes to… I remember the last day I worked at the machine shop. Two guys on my wheel gang were out, and at the very least, it’s a three man job to assemble the axle with wheels, bearings and box. Union won’t even let you try to duo it. Too dangerous. Not that there were any union reps around to see. I was heading up to the second floor to track down Ted, my foreman, and ask what the hell I was supposed to work on for the day. Place was quiet. Like, wrong quiet. And instead of being scared, I clearly remember being completely pissed off about it. Passing through the truck shop to the stairs, I saw Eddie Eaton setting up a crane. Well, I heard him before I saw him.

  “Motherfucker!” he politely addressed the bogie he was struggling to free from the lift. Again, another two-man job for which he easily would have been written up attempting alone. But Eddie E. was a Wheelset lifer, so if anyone gave him shit about it, he’d take pleasure in lobbing out that great old shop veteran standby, So, send me the F home then. Climbing the stairs, I’m looking around. Could it really be that it’s only me and Eddie?

  Upstairs, I found Ted at his bench, pouring over census maps on Google, studying what must have been population density. Years ago for his birthday, the guys had a red and white metal street sign made for over his toolbox. It said: The foreman says: Don’t stick your finger where you wouldn’t stick your dick.

  Sensing my presence, Ted wheeled around on his squeaky metal stool and announced to his audience of one, “I am taking my family to Murori.”

  “Muwhatti?” I said.

  “Murori, Nebraska,” Ted corrected, magnifier shop glasses pitched crookedly on his shiny bald head. He was beaming like a boy who had just found pirate treasure, and then added, “Population of 1.”

  And he’s not kidding either. He shows me on a map. The least populated town in the USA. The most people that ever lived there was back in the 40s. Like 90 people or so. But these days, it was just one lady. Some widow named Tiler or Teler. She was also the mayor and ran the town restaurant. Ted had some notion that he was going to tap into his 401K, buy some of her undeveloped property and build a cabin there or something. He was rambling about solar panels, and I realized my mouth was literally hanging open as I took in his words.

  “Um, Ted…dude… (clearly a talking down the jumper tone) be smart. What are the chances that you are the only guy who has this idea? I mean, if I was that lady, and it was really not gonna go back to normal, I’d be buying a shotgun and setting up some landmines right about now.”

  I laugh. Ted doesn’t. Ted smiles at me with his lips pressed together. His face takes on this weird expression. He extends his hand and gently pats my shoulder, like I’m some small child that asked if Bigfoot was real. A scene from Father Knows Best flashes through my mind, and I almost think he’s gonna call me son, and then he says something in this dreamy-wise voice which freaks me the hell out. “You got a little girl, right, Doyle? Little Biya? Sweet little girl. You just think about that.” Teddy hops off his stool and wanders away. I watch him slowly head down a half-lit hallway, a few rolled up maps under his pudgy arm. I forget to ask him what job I should hit. That’s when my cell phone rings about Beth.

  * * *

  As I push open the deli door, I see Tommy’s got one of those dreamcatchers on the back of it, a bunch of mini, rusty, copper cow bells tied with lawn bag twist ties. Done in a hurry. It’s not pretty but it does the job; it announces another forehead. He’s even pulled the front register counter from its original spot on the right side of the store and angled it, in a very fire-hazardy kinda way, so that you actually have to walk around it to get inside the 1800-square-foot establishment. A kind of guards on the tower, alligators in the moat move if you ask me. Good for you, Tommy. Maybe that’s why your place is still open.

  Tommy lifts his head with some urgency, recognizes me, relaxes, and resettles into his bean can sharpie project. I pick up one of the green plastic baskets on the floor next to the counter and head past him down aisle one. He’s only fifty-six, but he looks seventy if you ask me. I know his age only because of a birthday card from last year that he’s got thumbtacked to the corkboard behind the register. The card was from his wife, Lisa. I remember the day she showed it to me before she gave it to him. I was in the store with Biya that day. My daughter was completely engrossed with sucking on the caramel lollipop Lisa had just handed her. Lisa had pushed the card in my hands for a “guy’s take” on it. I told her it was pretty funny, which was clearly the right response, and it made her smile. Course, I didn’t have the backbone to tell her the truth. That guys don’t give a crap about greeting cards. The outside of the card is light blue, a cartoon of some old coot with a walker, and a grey puff of fart shooting out his ass. The inside says: At least I know you’re still breathin’! Love you, hubby! Happy 56th! It looks like it’s got some red gravy spots on it. They’re not, though. Gravy spots.

  “Hey, Doyle,” Tommy says as I pass him.

  “Tommy,” I respond. That is pretty much all the exchange we’ll have tonight. Except when I ring up. Then he’ll tell me what I owe him. He used to ask me about Beth and Biya. Or about the news of the day, the mobs, the marks, new colors, etc. People talked a lot about the Gidgidoo and the bad stuff a while back, like some degree of small talk made it all a little more bearable. Like the whole world wasn’t losing its mind. But he stopped seeing the gals come with me, so he stopped asking questions. I also never asked where Lisa was.

  * * *

  You know, I had told Beth to stay inside, and keep Biya inside, too. I told her if someone knocked to say I was just out buying more bullets. But we both knew she’d never say that.

  * * *

  A woman who lived across the street from our apartment called me from my wife’s cell. Told me to come home. There had been an accident. She was also the one who met me in the street as I was standing over my wife’s corpse just under the fire escape. I vaguely remember a small crowd around me as I stared down. Bet you some of the guilty ones were right there, just at arm’s length. So me, a small gathering of potential suspects feigning outrage, and neighborhood fishwife busy body bitch, Frannie Lebow, hysterically crying, holding my hand like she knew me and telling me what happened with an almost too eager delivery.

  Beth had been in the middle of painting a giant mural on one of the walls in Biya’s bedroom. A bunch of soccer ball-sized bumblebees, flitting around a forest of brightly colored, three-foot-tall flowers. Now, Beth was no artist by any stretch of the imagination. She had majored in economics at Rider, but anything…anything to keep the kid and herself busy, happy, calm. Normal was good. Beth had been working on it for a couple days, and every afternoon when I would get home from work, my daughter would excitedly collect me at the front door and drag me into her bedr
oom to see Mommy’s daily progress. No, Dad, you can pee in a minute.

  Beth was never neat about anything she did. She could for sure tell you where everything was in the apartment, and she was an exceptionally thorough cleaner, so you’d never know the mess had existed—but her process was, well, explosive. And her work on the super-sized flower mural was also executed in the same true-to-form, harry-caray, Beth fashion. Brushes everywhere, multi-colored fingerprints on coffee cups, and remnants of paint spills that had been only half wiped up. The pink thumbprint on the butter container was the best.

  I had just left the apartment for work, about 7am, (same day I learned about magical Murori from Ted) and Beth, I guess, realized she needed something. Not following our never open the living room window commandment, which we had discussed about 7 million times, Beth had climbed out onto the fire escape to shout after me. She didn’t call me on the phone. She decided to yell into the street, where everyone heard her. Fran was watering a plant on her own balcony and heard it. I, however, did not. I had just turned the corner.