by Arthur Slade
"You wear grays and blacks, you mean. You're two steps from Goth. Do you have anything with color? We do have to fit in. A T-shirt with flowers? Red pants? Flamingo beach shorts? I've never seen you in shorts."
I pictured the drawers in my dresser, rows of noncolors. She was right. "What will I do?"
She stopped, put one hand on her chest and extended the other as if she'd suddenly become royalty. "Allow moi to introduce moi-self. Baroness Eleeza Fashionoski. Kiss my proffered hand."
"Excuse me?"
"Kiss it!" she commanded.
I pressed my lips against her digits. Quickly. Caught a scent like strawberry bubble gum.
"You show da proper respect," she said, looking down her nose. "I permit you to benefit from my fashion advice. We shall embark for my palace with haste."
"Your place?"
"Palace," she corrected. She lifted one eyebrow. "What da baroness vants she gets. Besides"—her accent disappeared—"you never walk me all the way home. You're so chronically self-centered." She winked. "It's your duty now. You are my prom date."
"I'm an ignoramus!" I admitted. "Let's go to your dwelling."
"Wow. My dwelling." Elissa tousled my hair. "The way you said that almost sounded romantic."
I straightened my locks. My skull tingled where she'd touched it.
We headed down the steep hill to Saskatchewan Crescent, a descent into the realm of the affluent. Houses were bigger here, sprouting from expansive lots alongside three-car garages, gazebos and crescent-shaped brick driveways.
"Columns are so passé," Elissa said, motioning toward a row of the architectural wonders on one house. "You'd think we were in Rome. Invita Minerva, baby!" she yelled.
Elissa also had an interest in an arcane language: Latin. "Which means?" I asked.
"Uninspired. Minerva didn't inspire them. She was the goddess of wisdom."
"I knew that," I lied. We turned a corner.
Among Saskatoonians, the closer you lived to water, the higher your status. Her parents had bought riverside property. The front was eighty percent glass: three levels blatantly exposed to the street, displaying their expensive possessions. I thought of Barbie and Ken's house.
Elissa's mom (Heather) and dad (Gregory) were each in their respective offices across the river. As hunters and gatherers of legal documents, they rarely returned to their nest. Elissa often prepared her own meals and once dressed two giant teddy bears in her parents' clothes and seated them at the dinner table. She served an expensive bottle of wine and discussed her allowance. Her parents didn't appreciate the joke or enjoy finding their sole offspring inebriated. Since then her dad has carried the liquor cabinet key on his key ring.
Inside, we were greeted by Fang. He immediately chomped down on my ankles and refused to let go, three kilos of unbridled toy poodle aggression. He was the second line of defense for the household, after the security system. Elissa's father had brought home this bundle of fluff the week after the wine-drinking episode. She swore she wouldn't be bought so easily, but her philosophical stand lasted about ten minutes.
I reached down, patted Fang's head. He rolled over and I scratched his belly. Thousands of years ago one of our ancestors took a wild wolf pup home and tamed it. Soon all the hunter-gatherers wanted one. Now here I was stroking a genetic parody of that wolf.
"Oh, little Fangy hungry!" Elissa exclaimed. Fang wagged his short tail (it had been clipped to impart visual balance to his body). He trotted after her into the kitchen. I trotted after them.
Fang immediately attacked his meal—a baked lamb specialty brand with a supplement that prevented rashes. If forced to live in the wild, Fang would fall apart in a week.
"Little Percy hungry?" Elissa asked. She motioned to a stainless steel fridge. "We have escargot. And peanut butter and jam."
"Do you have any royal jelly?" I asked, grinning.
She didn't get the joke. "What?"
"Royal jelly," I explained, containing my condescension. "When a queen bee dies another is elected by feeding this special jelly to a lucky larva. Royal jelly, get it? As in, I'm royalty."
"Hill-larry-us," she said flatly. "Maybe someday you'll evolve the ability to tell good jokes."
I put my hands on my hips.
"Wait, hold that pose." She lifted a pretend camera. "There! Perfect! Homo sapiens poutitis, a sad creature that wishes it had some good comebacks."
"I—I have comebacks. I choose not to lower myself to your level."
"Right," she said. "Now back to reality. Do you know what season you are?"
"What season? Like which is my favorite?"
"No, your season. Skin type, hair type—certain colors that accentuate your looks. Fall, winter, spring, summer. You're a winter, I bet. That means you look better in dark colors." Maybe there was a correlation between season and personality type. This could be the beginning of a groundbreaking thesis. "Don't look so worried. We'll find something completely tacky." Elissa pulled me out of the kitchen, up the stairs and into her room.
She positioned me next to the bed, which was littered with stuffed mammals, mostly bears. Interesting how we choose the deadliest carnivores to render as playthings. A symbol of our dominance?
"You're actually kind of handsome," Elissa said, "Homo sapiens Don Juan."
My cheeks reddened. "Genetics," I mumbled.
She laughed and slid aside a mirrored door. "You look good in darks, so we'll forget about those." She searched, pulling aside sweaters and shirts, pushing back an entire rack of whites and beiges. Her clothes were color-coordinated with amazing precision—the browns went from dark to light brown; the reds and blues followed a similar pattern. She had enough clothes to dress a small !Kung tribe.
Her movements amazed me. Especially her gluteus maximus. What was even more amazing was that she wasn't supposed to be here at all. On earth, that is. She was first formed when her father's semen was placed in a petri dish at a fertility clinic. One of those sixty million sperm united with an egg extracted from Elissa's mother.
You see, evolution had chosen not to continue her parents' genetic line. Her father had lazy sperm—they apparently preferred lounging about watching hockey. Her parents had cheated their biological destiny.
I watched Elissa, extremely happy that she had been able to become a living organism.
"Try these on," she said. A flashy red-and-green blur struck my chest. I closed my arms too late. "Nice catch!"
I looked down at a pair of large, baggy unisex shorts, designed to cover the knees.
"Get me a shirt, too, Miss Fashionoski," I said.
"As you command, Perky." She disappeared into the closet.
I slipped the shorts over my pants. They fit: two flamingo pillowcases on toothpick legs. A large oval mirror hung on the opposite wall. I examined Australo-Percy-ithecus in the shorts. I smiled. Elissa was one of the few who could make me feel truly happy.
Elissa. And Willard.
Will.
Willard was smallish and squat. Puberty had been cruel to him, planting an acne minefield under his face. He had a big smile, a high-pitched hyena laugh and a cowlick at the back of his hair that bobbed when he walked.
Once, the three of us went to a Planet of the Apes film festival. Grunting like simians, we monkey-walked to a nearby café and consumed several banana splits. Giddy with the sugar high, I told them my heart's dream was to be an anthropologist. To search for lost tribes in the jungle. Will said, "That's awesome!"
A year later he told me he loved Marcia Grady. That she was so beautiful he nearly wept when he saw her. It was one of our last conversations.
An ache the size of the La Brea Tar Pits filled me. He had been my friend. We'd shared secrets. Understood each other. And now I hardly remembered him. My brain was haphazardly erasing experiences, changing them.
Elissa emerged from the closet holding two shirts: bright yellow and a rainbow of colors. "Why'd you put the shorts on over your pants?"
"I couldn't very
well undress in front of you."
She rolled her eyes. "I had my back turned. You worried I might see your Mickey Mouse briefs?"
"I—I'd never wear that commercialized rodent on my shorts!"
"Touched a nerve, did I?" She looked me over. "They fit, at least. Here, try this." She handed me the rainbow shirt, good camouflage if I had to hide in a parrot cage. "No, take off your T-shirt. Wear this one with a few buttons loose to show off your chest hairs. All two of them."
"I...I can't—"
"Don't be so anal. We're tribemates. Like two monkeys. C'mon."
"Yeah, but—"
"Hurry up!"
I undid my shirt, the air-conditioned chill forcing arm hairs to stand on end. She handed me a cotton rainbow; I stuck my arms through the holes. She attempted to button it but nearly choked me. "Too small! Your chest is bigger than I thought. You been working out?" She gave it another try.
"Hey," I said. "I need air."
Elissa let go. "Oops. Sorry. You..."She leaned forward, staring at my chest. "Wh-what are those scars?"
I looked down. A ring of white bumps circled my left nipple. My stomach filled with sand. "Ritual scarring. To release the pain."
Cool fingertips explored the marks. "Oh, Percy," she said softly, "oh, Percy."
"They're mine," I whispered. I stepped back and her hand fell away. She wore a look of absolute pity. I closed my eyes. "Mine. Mine."
"It's okay. Everything's so screwed up. Willard's gone. Your dad, too. You're...stressed. I understand."
She did? "Everyone. Leaves me. Like the Beothuks," I whispered. "Out of luck. One of them."
Her brow furrowed. "The what?"
I looked at her. Were we really from the same tribe?
I removed the shirt, grabbed my own from the floor and slipped it on. "This clothing, it—it—is not satisfactory," I said.
She still clutched the yellow shirt. "I've got more."
"No. I'll find something at home." I stepped out of the shorts; they fell to the floor. I backed away.
"We can talk, Percy."
"Talk?" Another step back. A third. "I. Must. Go. Home."
"Percy." A whisper. "We're friends. Don't shut me out."
I fled, taking the stairs two at a time, the sun shooting through the giant windows, lighting me up. Lighting the earth. Holding it inexorably in place. As it had for over four billion years.
nine
TRUNK
Within twenty minutes: relief. The skin around my left nipple ached brilliantly. My mind was clear. Copacetic. I cleansed my pin with rubbing alcohol and returned it to the container.
Silence. My mother was teaching a Qi Gong breathing class at the community hall. I sat on the meditation pillow in my room, assumed the lotus position and closed my eyes. Now to order my thoughts. To analyze my reactions. To—
The phone buzzed. I remained still. The answering machine clicked on. Elissa's voice entered our house via the speaker. "Call me," she said, then coughed and hung up.
I breathed deeply, tightening my stomach muscles—a Tai Chi method I'd learned from Mom. I had a goal: to discover where all of this was leading. Evolution, that is. It pointed forward, indicating an obvious mission for us, a next logical step.
What was it?
I attempted to send my mind back through the millennia, to the source of all life. Somewhere in my brain was a link to the first organism with its orders to survive and replicate. Perhaps if I found the beginning, I could ascertain the end.
Green appeared in my mind, with a dark circle in the middle. I was envisioning mitosis—the nucleus dividing to form two nuclei. Chromosomes being copied. Life continuing. This was almost the beginning.
The phone buzzed again—a distant noise. The green faded to black. I concentrated on bringing the image back but failed. I uncrossed my legs, got up and rubbed my aching head. No contact with my primordial ancestors. No answer. Yet.
The light blinked on the answering machine. Automatic response: I pressed the button. "Call me," Elissa's disembodied voice implored. Then: "Percy, meet you at the party, okay?"
I replayed the messages several times. I picked up the phone, punched in half her number, then clicked down the receiver. I repeated this procedure, then stood quietly listening to the monotone hum of the line. Soon the phone beeped loudly at me. A sign that I shouldn't call. I returned the phone to its cradle.
I concocted a meal of sprouts and seaweed. While masticating, I pondered Darwin's life. In 1831, at the age of twenty-two, he embarked on H.M.S. Beagle. For the next five years he studied animals, bugs, seeds and stones in South America, concentrating on the Galápagos Islands. From his observations he came up with the theory of natural selection. It took him twenty years to complete his first book on the topic.
I didn't have that kind of time. I wanted to understand now. To see the answer. To have that elusive eureka moment.
Time passed. I wandered from room to room, eventually ending up in the basement, where I was surrounded by rows of jarred peaches, pickled beans and bags of rice. The floor was a pad of concrete that supported an octopus furnace with large ducts running every which way across the ceiling. One light hovered in the center of the room like a giant firefly.
I bent under a duct and knelt before an old wooden trunk coated with dust. I opened it. On the top were several yellowed newspapers with headlines like Local Anthropologist Identifies Mystical Zuni Object, My Life Among the !Kung and Montmount Mounts Mount Machu Picchu. I skimmed the articles, then reached for the prize underneath.
My father's clothes in a neat, perfect pile. First: a canvas hat with a brim that flipped up. As a child I'd often donned the oversized headgear and pranced around the cluttered basement, imagining my father's adventures and shouting out: "Dr. Montmount, I presume!"
I slipped the hat on. It fit perfectly. I dug into the stack, discovering a multicolored shirt and a pair of khaki shorts. I stripped, not feeling the chill, then dressed in my father's outfit. Gently closing the trunk, I ascended the stairs.
I had a party to attend.
ten
THE DELUGE
I committed a fatal error at the Tacky Party.
The festive event was three blocks away at Sandra Woodrick's. I squeezed between several Jock Tribe members who congested the doorway, and helped myself to a pink lemonade-based punch. I sniffed gingerly. Conclusion: alcohol-free. I sipped nonchalantly, bobbing my head to the music. When in Namibia, do as the Namibians do, my father often said. Teens in colored shirts danced wildly through the living room; others sat on couches or the floor, shouting to be heard.
I stood near the bathroom, jammed between a bookshelf and a life-sized reproduction of Rodin's Thinker. Hung behind him was a framed picture of card-playing canines dressed up like gangsters. I smiled. Anthropomorphism at its best. Mr. and Mrs. Woodrick must have a fabulous sense of humor, judging by the juxtaposition of those two works of art. Or no taste.
My smile faded as Michael and Nicole strode into the room. I ducked, but they veered in my direction like two lions stalking a lone antelope. And here was my fatal error. I broke a basic law of survival: Always have an escape route.
They approached, clad in matching garb: lime-green shorts and bright yellow T-shirts emblazoned with a red sun and a bird bearing a laurel branch. They absolutely had to talk to me: God's orders.
You see, they were from the Born-Again Tribe. They viewed me as a misguided mammal and were hell-bent on saving my soul.
"Percy," Michael said, "it's great to see you."
I straightened my back. "It is?"
"Of course." His light blue eyes were ethereal. His face flawless—smooth white skin and a glistening smile. His teeth had been artificially straightened.
"Are you having fun?" Nicole asked. She too had unnaturally perfect teeth; two large, friendly eyes. She tucked a curl of brown hair behind her ear.
"I experience a modicum of enjoyment."
"Modicum!" Michael echoed. "I like th
at. You have a real gift with words. It's a blessing."
"Thank you." I was flustered. I hadn't expected them to attend this function, had assumed it would be against their beliefs. But here they stood clutching cans of Canada Dry, looking...
...as if they belonged.
"Fun party!" Michael gushed as he watched the cavorting students. Did he see them as souls, some smudged with the darkness of sin, others shining as bright as a thousand candles? "Drink?" He offered a can that dangled from a plastic six-pack holder.
"No, thank you." I raised my glass.
He moved a few centimeters closer. "I have a question for you."
My heart sank. "Not another Wilberforce," I whispered.
"Wilberforce?" Nicole asked.
"Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford," I huffed, annoyed that they didn't know their theological history. "Darwin's archenemy. He gave the Origin a bad review. Asked whether man was descended from monkeys on the paternal or maternal side. He knew nothing about science. He died when he fell off his horse and hit his thick head on a stone."
"Oh," Nicole offered. "Really."
Michael's smile hadn't faded. "That's interesting. But what I'm curious about is the fossils. I know you think we're crazy."
"No," I said emphatically, "religious beliefs are not an insanity. All societies consider it normal to believe in supernatural beings and forces."
"So you don't think we're crazy?" Nicole said.
"I just made that point."
"Good to hear." Michael lightly squeezed my shoulder. His hand was warm. I stared down at it until he removed it. "Anyway, about the fossils. You know how they date them and stuff. I asked our study leader why the scientists got it mixed up."
"Mixed up?" I asked. "Oh, that's right. You believe the world is only ten thousand years old."
"You don't have to yell, Percy," Michael said softly, "the music's not that loud. The earth is actually only six thousand years old. Adam was created in 3975 b.c."
Nicole edged closer. "And don't forget that lots of scientists aren't sure carbon dating even works. Or that evolution is true. It's just another theory."