The Nervous System

by Nathan Larson

  Pegged, frozen. The universe demands I execute this loathsome man. What stops me?

  He then slides his attention back toward me, looks down, and very deliberately, the senator begins to clean the blade at the head of his cane on my pant leg.

  “In my generosity, I offer you a renewed opportunity to participate in this new great American experiment, and in a greater capacity. I do so because for all your … erratic ways, you have solid bones. Do you know what I mean? You’re raw, but in possession of all the makings of a leader. Capable of much.”

  He presses the top of his cane and the knife disappears. Indicates my pant leg, now decorated with Rose’s blood.

  “Gonna need to dry-clean that, son. Send my office the bill, no problem at all.”

  Trying to speak. Chest empty, constricted.

  “Well. That’s about the long and short of it, son. I will leave you to your private thoughts, and be on my way.”

  Find some air, saying, “Wrong, boss. Another step, you meet your cocksucking Jehovah in person.”

  Howard lifts his brow, and offers up a sympathetic look. “I am,” he replies, not unkindly, “walking away now son. My chariot awaits.”

  He steps around me. I let him pass. I do not know why.

  Turn with him, my gun still raised. Open my yap, close it. Open it again. “Three seconds,” I blurt, just chinwagging, “and I start shooting. One.”

  Senator pauses, rotates back in my direction. “Oh, I do hope I haven’t done anything unwelcome, but upon your return to your library you will find certain … repairs and restorations have been made there. Consider this an advance on your first payment, and furthermore a gift of the U.S. Congress for which I proudly serve.”

  “Shit on your gift, I don’t do fucking bribery, Uncle Tom.”

  Clarence chuckles. “Well, let’s just see about that, now.” He claps his hands, raises them skyward. “Yessir!” The exclamation makes me jump and I almost inadvertently pull the trigger.

  His face is beatific, rapturous. His insanity profound and rare. Specific. It occurs to me that all men and women of power have varying degrees of this sickness within them.

  “What a fine morning.” He takes a moment, his true thoughts utterly unknown to me. “Does the Lord not work in unfathomably mysterious ways?”

  Nods his head. Digs on the view. The very first light is just visible, spreading diffuse over the surface of the river, the southern islands. Morning creeping in.

  My left hand is getting tired, and I’m still just a touch away from shooting this man.

  Slaps his forehead. “Yes,” he says. “I believe you have some paperwork for me?” As if discussing a dental chart or a W-2.

  I think about that. And then I withdraw the file, hand it to him. He takes it, hefts it. Says nothing. Glances at me, lifts his eyebrows yet again, as if impressed by its weight.

  Gun still trained on him, we stand there in silence for a bit, the senator looking out over the water. Humming a tune. Something secular. I recognize it, having only recently heard that track in a twenty-year-old video, it’s fresh in my mind.

  Finally he taps his cane to his hat.

  “So, now. Goodness. The question at hand is: are you interested in the future, my boy? Cause if not, well …” Lets that dangle. Then, “Get in touch at your leisure, and enjoy what promises to be a beautiful day, young man.”

  Senator Clarence Howard ducks down the flight of stairs and into the limo with a backward wave. The black thing rolls off in the direction of Manhattan.

  And it’s not until I see its taillights swing right on to the exit ramp for the FDR that I lower my gun.

  _______________

  Friday

  Returning home, to the library. It’s as if nobody’s been here at all. Superficially.

  Reckon they’ll be waiting here, to kill me on my own turf. The balance in that arrangement, that’s how I would do it.

  I mount the stairs, my little gun drawn. Longing to shoot it at somebody, anybody. But I’m let down in this respect, as it’s as empty as it ever was. Thus far.

  Took Rose’s body back to her people in Koreatown. They absorbed it without a word, and that world closed its doors in my face, with softness and finality.

  On a concentrated inhale, I enter the Reading Room. Any sign of violence is absent. Neatly, symmetrically, a staggering number of books line the wall where my shabby piles, my work, had once stood.

  A quick swivel left and right with the gun. I am alone.

  I set down the weapon. Slide my mask down far enough to jam a cigarette between my busted-up lips, and light up.

  Approach the new stock. Read the spine of one volume, then another. Check the adjacent row.

  I kneel. This is a precise replica of my work. More than a replica, a restock. Decimal classes 000–004. Copies of common periodicals and books one might easily find, and, I can see, copies of rarities I had not thought existent anymore.

  Standing, I clock a blue leather binder, with the congressional seal emblazoned on the cover, and the words Library of Congress in gold leaf.

  Flip it open. It’s a catalog of the books, printed neatly on thick, expensive paper. The title page is coated with a congressional watermark. It’s printed on Senator Howard’s office letterhead.

  Dear Sir,

  Please accept this gift, with compliments of the 114th Congressional Body, to be considered a permanent loan from this date onward. I very much look forward to working together in the near future, and wish you all the best.

  May the Lord God be your guide, and may God bless the United States of America.

  With warmest regards,

  Sen. Clarence Howard

  Throw that motherfucking binder across the big room. It bounces off a deco metal railing, and comes to rest beneath one of the long wooden tables.

  Touch the back of my neck.

  Pop a pill, hands twitching.

  Reach for the PurellTM, and find that plastic bottle empty.

  THE END

  E-Book Extras

  Excerpt from The Immune System

  The final installment in the Dewey Decimal Series

  More by Nathan Larson

  _________________

  Got my right foot dug into the soldier’s thick neck when I finally figure out what’s chafing me.

  Bells. That’s what’s wrong with this sonic picture.

  Buried in the dense industrial drone of the Freedom Tower 3.0 re-rebuild, metallic and huge, cranes and bulldozer treads, the flocks of choppers, the loudspeakers wailing Mandarin like a call to prayer . . . Within this cacophony I dig the bells, church bells, consonant clusters, occupying three distinct slots in the stereo field.

  Somebody tolling them bells over at St. Paul’s. Maybe St. Peter’s. South too, probably at Trinity.

  Soldier gargling, yank my full attention back to the throat I’m stepping on, the SEMPER FI tattoo and logo, attached to a compact middle-aged white man, here in this rinky-dink trailer/office on-site. Man gags and gulps.

  That I can be distracted from this, the righteous killing of the cocksucker who snuffed my main man Dos Mac, this laboriously executed execution . . . that a bell can catch my attention is revealing. In that this here event is such a forgone thing, cause I killed this fuck countless times in my head over the last year.

  Doing whitey now in a Chinese trailer. When a brother like me told the foreman to scram, best believe he scrum. Now witness Chinaman’s hastily abandoned breakfast, some manner of alien donut, herky-jerky bits of office debris, a greasy calendar, Chinese characters reading MISS G-9 BEIJING, a faded nymphet showing us a naked shoulder, winking at the viewer from a lost era, wrapped in that ubiquitous red flag.

  To say that such disorder disgusts me would be a gross understatement. Does, however, make me wanna speed this nasty business up. “Getting prepped to merge with the infinite, sarge? Just so you dig, this is really happening and it’s happening right now.” Say it through the surgical mask, only slightly w
inded from our brief scuffle. Doubt if I’ll need chrome today but I hold my HK45 loose and easy in my reconstructed hand.

  Prosthetic metacarpal. As bits of me break off, the government is there with a spare. The perks of the insider. In this case, I had high-fived a moving helicopter. Sure, I got stories.

  Gloves on, natch.

  White man grimaces, a tooth hanging from his lower lip by a thread of blood.

  Balancing my full weight on the man’s throat, whip my other brogue clean and hard into dude’s kidney. Man expelling air like a burst basketball.

  “Find it curious you’ve yet to ask me why this is going down. Reckon you already know then.”

  Salt-and-pepper hair shorn military close, character for the Chinese “Infinity” etched into the side of his head per Cyna-corp chic. That older tattoo on the forearm, with that eagle, globe, and anchor . . . not unlike my own tattoo, though blurred with age.

  Vein in the man’s forehead raised, engorged. Gargling suggests he might perhaps speak, I ease up the pressure on Sergeant Ferguson’s airway.

  Me saying: “Jimmy.”

  This not eliciting a response, I give him another foot to the gut. James heaves an empty, dry retch.

  “Take it down memory lane, be sure you’re crystal.” Me saying: “Know me, bitch?”

  Jimbo nuzzling his cheek against the rotten shitty wood of the trailer floor, nodding, nodding.

  “So maybe you’re doing that math. To assist. Hearken back, November last. Unarmed black man in Chinatown. Lots of computers, books. Took him out cold blood. You following, shitbird?”

  His one visible eye swivels my way, attempting a connection I evade.

  “That man was my brother. His name was Dos Mac.”

  Jim wagging his skull, yes massa, and I peep a sliver of something like hope in those Aryan scopes . . . yes sir. Perhaps he can logic his way out to fight another day.

  Plenty nuff talking for me.

  Step hard, breaking the cartilage of his trachea.

  _________________

  Grind northbound, shaking it off, already got my PurellTM out on automatic, eyes strafing the black glass of the Millennium Hotel, WTC 1 V3.0 to my back vibing wrong, vibing too tall, past a low wall of sandbags, armored cars, white shuttle buses sporting Skanska logos, dodging a manhole erupting terra-cotta steam, surrounded by a dozen drones in lemon hazmat gear . . .

  Well, I ask you now, you think I cherish these sorry situations? This lopsided sadism? Think I get jiggy on the misfortune of my fellow travelers? Not so, y’all, not so.

  Dip my hat at the Chinese boys flanking the gate, one of whom commences whistling a Christmas tune. See no evil, gents. I’ll settle up with their boss later on, for the short-term rental. And associated cleanup costs.

  But listen. Listen, friends. Fundamentally I am a man of peace, a retiring, scholarly gentleman. It’s just that this brother also happens to be extensively and expensively schooled in kicking down doors and inflicting pain. So one does what one can, given one’s CV. Especially round about these fucking times, where it’s do or drown.

  No shame in my game.

  Full disclosure, to the degree possible with what I got in my skull: I used to be one of these private army heavies. Cyna-corp, though it went by a different name, was my team.

  And I bailed. Broke rank. So you can imagine . . . makes it complicated cause said crew essentially runs the island.

  Yeah, apparently I used to wear those colors. This period of my life is poorly lit, a casualty of the tinkering that went on in my skull at the hands of the doctors at the National Institutes of Health. Allegedly. So as far as Cyna-corp is concerned, I am still AWOL.

  Worse still: I allowed the Cyna-corp founder and guiding spirit to be slaughtered right in front of me. Knifed to death by US Senator Clarence Howard, no less. Sad story, y’all. Another time.

  Dig, pausing now at the corner of godforsaken Barclay and Church to pull down the mask and flame up a Chinese Lucky Strike. Helps with the Stench.

  Swap out used plastic gloves for fresh, squinting skyward at the helicopters, always with the helicopters, as I apply the necessary PurellTM . . . suggestion of a light source through the heavy orange cloud cover would indicate approximately five in the p.m.

  Trying to peep my driver. Need to get to Midtown. The senator has taken to leaving the office earlier and earlier.

  This Ferguson thing, these were precious moments expended on personal business. More risk than I would generally allow for. But some matters cannot be left unattended. Jungle justice.

  Suck three fast lungfuls, plop a blue pill on my tongue, and replace my mask; with the rapid deterioration of the air quality, that’s about all my body can take. And with this I am one fine evening closer to death.

  I call myself Dewey Decimal.

  _________________

  From here on out, it’s gonna get grim, then grimmer, then it will all stop. And it’s gonna marrow-level hurt every moment of the way down.

  Devotion to the unimpeachable truth is paramount. Take for instance the recently deceased Sergeant Ferguson. Painstaking months went into determining I had the right guy. Many more hours comprising days of careful, cautious planning vis-à-vis his exit. Margin for error? Near nil—cause any other odds I could not afford nor abide. I go all out—or not at all.

  Sure: truths, facts. Some facts are straightforward. Some are blurry, obfuscated. But certain facts hover there, buzzing, not to be ignored. Like these:

  The urban splatter once known as greater New York City is mortally wounded, defaced, irreparable. Those with the means, be it private, state, or corporate backing, rebuild the environs according to their needs.

  For the rest, we shuck and jive and parry and jab, and do what we can to stay upright—and we watch new Brutalist structures bloom out of the rubble of the dead landmarks.

  Why we still press forward is a righteous head-scratcher. But press forward we do.

  Blessed be the hopeful, because they are cursed, the most wretched.

  Ho shit. How about sarge back there. Figured despite all evidence to the contrary, he still had half a shot. Thinking he could talk a man down. Not so, yo, not so. Not me, pal—I ain’t the one.

  Gritty. Fucking sand in my pant legs. Always with the sand. I go to shake it out and naturally, once again—nothing is in fact there. Coulda sworn. Phantom sand.

  What I been doing? Same as ever: straight ballin’.

  Allah be praised, or perhaps despite His best efforts, yes—I’m still on my hustle up in this tar pit. What’s more, I got good and plenty of the little things that make this brother tick.

  Still got that PurellTM in steady supply, keeping me squeaky body and spirit. Still got my pills, keeping my heart steady jacking. Matter of fact, I choke one back right now. Still got various chrome, allowing a man to rest easy.

  And still got my System. By its rules I am guided and kept. We’ll get to that in a moment—hang with me now, I need to know you’re there.

  Now I track a Chinese Humvee clone as it bounces up Church, wispy dudes in white chem-suits hanging simian off the back. I’m ignored and that’s a positive plus. As the Hummie is enveloped by low yellow fog, I meditate on the System.

  In the realm of the spiritual, you might view the System as a set of suggestions for negotiating movement, whether through one’s thought processes, one’s daily activities, or one’s environment, all so as to maximize the harmonic.

  Left turns STRICTLY prior to eleven a.m.

  Frequent and vigorous cleansing with PurellTM, essential to rational thought and movement.

  On a scientific tip we can observe the System, like aspects of quantum physics, only after we become aware of its behavior. Weaving matter with dimensional units, time and physical space, creating a tight braid, a double helix within which is encoded the logic of all things, all structures, all other so-called systems, be they organic or . . . be they organic . . . be they . . .

  Twitch. Lost that thread. Damn. M
y eyelid spasms. Touch the hard bump on the back of my neck. My platinum pearl. Could it be . . . what? Growing?

  Whisper to it. Talk to the thing, my constant companion: “Gonna cut you, cupcake. Dig you out. Believe that.”

  Flex tough on the bastard, but never doubt the raw; I lose sleep over the sophisticated nanomechanics lodged in the base of my skull.

  Reflexive pat on my vial of PurellTM. True practice of the System necessarily involves rigorous application of PurellTM (or, I suppose, any equivalent alcohol gel hand sanitizer (AGHS)).1

  Clean in flesh and thought, clean in bearing and intent. And as mentioned, the practice involves a complex of navigational rules regarding how one skates though one’s day.

  Left turn. Left turn. Left turn.

  The benefits? Countless. And bitches? I’m worth it like Vidal Sassoon.

  Was a time folks liked to clown a brother—attending to my mitts as I do every couple minutes, stepping backward in old-timey gear, hating on my exacting attention to detail, my commitment to the library and its Books. And I ask you today: where are said naysayers?

  Dead and gone. Or at least gone, which is nigh as good as dead. So who’s the clown now?

  A surprisingly forceful and noxious wind gust from the ass of the island sideswipes me, rattles a stack of thin metal girders, tagging unattended cranes and diggers as it rushes north, evil smelling and lukewarm. The din of construction roars on, suggesting life, but the visual tableau speaks of nothing but nothing.

  Scope Church Street. Bleak as all get out. Thinking my driver has done gotten himself lost. Again. Him being an out-of-towner. Government kid up here from the District, itself sliding back into the swamp, as Ma Nature intended.