Atmosphere

by Michael Laimo

  Home.

  Street signs marked his location, their useless guidance serving purpose only to the removed mind held captive deep within his head. The portion of his mind now controlling him carried only those thoughts necessary given the moment at hand, and brought forth memories of direction—a mental map leading the way home.

  So his feet again carried him, weaving him haphazardly through the darkened neighborhood, in and out of deserted streets and unlit alleys, through empty courtyards, in between parked cars, helping to avoiding sight by those few pedestrians milling about beneath the moon's beams.

  Familiar sights soon came into view. The evacuated lot where the abandoned tenement building had been torn down; the elevated platform from where he sometimes rode the train; and, oh yes, his building.

  Home.

  Dragging his feet in an exhausted lumber, he entered through the front doors of the building, climbed one, two, three flights of steps, tripping along the way, hands grasping blindly at the graffiti-marred walls, his breathing now vociferous in its weariness. Shuttered doors lined the hallway, but only one ignited his memories, as if an entity had been perched just beyond its threshold, emitting waves of psychic thought in attempt to lure him in. He stopped in front of the door, staring at the steel barrier, the rusted 3F, trying to convince his mind to formulate his next means of strategy.

  Keys.

  The voice, although not his, came from within. Wishing to unfold the mystery of his life as it came to pass, knowing very well that he had no alternative but to obey the command, he allowed his mind, the voice, to continue to lead the way.

  He blindly fished for the keys in his jeans pocket, pulled them out, and entered the apartment.

  Although he knew that this was indeed his place of shelter—his mind told him so—nothing here triggered any memories of the past. Four walls, sheathed in dust, paint chipped and faded; worn furniture, drawers pulled out, wrinkled clothes escaping from within; piles of magazines, the girlie kind, many of their pages torn out and left astray. And music tapes, scattered all over, their protective covers long lost to the litter demons on the floor.

  He moved forward, wearied feet pushing through the clutter. He sat on the bare mattress, its bulk set crookedly upon a metal bed-frame. He intuitively raised his right hand and ran his shaky sweaty fingers along the headphones cradled around his neck, feeling the plastic curvature, the soft ear-pads, the wire leading down, down, down, across the hard plastic features of the walkman tape player clipped to his belt. He fingered the buttons, the volume dial, the clear plastic window displaying the tape beneath.

  He placed the headphones on.

  Music loomed forth, a relentless, hypnotic pulse of synthetic tones.

  Suddenly, his mind allowed another remembrance, of something else...

  Excitement.

  Yes! He remembered! His purpose. With the aid of the music, his mind revealed a purpose to his actions!

  He had been asked to supply.

  Moving his hand from the walkman to his jacket pocket, he felt for the object. His fingers graced its smoothness, ran fluidly about the six circular spines jutting from its surface, about the casual slopes at their base, within the hollowed-out crevices at their pinnacles. He felt a warmth emanating from its infrastructure, from its body. It kissed at his fingertips, tiny tingles slowly wandering the lengths of his fingers like a swarm of gentle electric charges.

  How he knew that this object had been meant for him, he could not fathom. But the moment the Harbinger on the subway graced him with its presence, its existence, he knew he had to become one with it.

  He knew at that moment, somehow, that he was to supply.

  He pulled it from his pocket.

  Beautiful. Its ebony, shining pure brilliance, emitted an unsullied blend of emotions, a perfect intermingling of love, hate, sex, death, anger, and ecstasy. It was...sacrosanct.

  It was the Atmosphere.

  He ran his thumbs along the perimeter of the base. At his gentle touch, vivid colors appeared upon the black veneer like a deep swirling oil slick shimmering on the surface of nighttime water. Instantly, his eyes turned up in his skull, his teeth clenched, and a series of remarkably vivid visions paralyzed him into a state of utter delight. Colorful leaves in sudden death, falling from a great tree, entombing him in their gentle embrace. A spray of mist, a million beads ensconcing a spectrum of hues, bonding into a striking, penetrating whole, washing over him in a shower of euphoria. A great night sky, billions of faraway stars twinkling, gossamer strings of lights tethering them together into a phenomenal latticed web.

  He rubbed the piece harder. Heat-friction gloved his fingers, then his hands and wrists. The object suddenly felt spongy, its marble-like exterior yielding as if it had been transformed into an amorphous, moving skin. The softness returned his caressing embrace with a million gentle pinpricks of energy, each and every one a single entity in itself, abandoning its ebony domain and entering the world of his body and soul.

  It felt good. It made his penis hard.

  A bell sounded.

  He dropped the object. It hit the floor with a thud and came to rest, nestled in a dirty shirt.

  Ring.

  His eyes slowly rolled from within the recesses of his skull, his jaw untensed, relaxing itself. His euphoria dissipated. Through blurred eyesight and muffled hearing, he sought the source of the bell.

  Ring.

  It came from inside the room—his unfamiliar realm—straight ahead. He rose from his place on the bed, ignoring the dropped object, and walked slowly, warily, to the source of the bell.

  Ring.

  Shedding aside a pile of girlie magazines, a dirty tee-shirt, a pair of shorts, he found it. Although the object seemed as unfamiliar as everything else in the room, his mind directed him to act in a correct and proper fashion.

  Ring.

  He picked up the scoop-shaped part, removed his headphones, and placed it to his ear.

  A voice—the voice that was in his head—ascended from the object.

  "Supplier?"

  His heart pounded ferociously. He hesitated, then said, "Yes."

  "I am Harold. Your Harbinger."

  Harold Gross stood at the corner of 189th Street and Wilson Avenue, teeth clenched, his sunglassed sights aimed three floors up the side of the shadowy tenement building, watching the lamplit window of the room which the current Supplier now occupied. His left hand squeezed the filthy telephone handset, pressing it sharply against his ear; his other hand restlessly sought balance against the free-standing post securing the phone. Activity brought stimulus which brought a somewhat pleasurable yet unpredictable skewing of equilibrium, and he had to make certain that he was in control of himself at all times, unreserved, discreet, and most assuredly secure.

  He soon heard the pulse emanating from the phone, a signal that the Supplier had finally discovered his purpose, and of course, the rhythm of the Atmosphere. The time was right, and Harold could now prepare for harvesting.

  This would be his fifth.

  He could hear, no feel the new Supplier's steady breathing—rhythmic, pulsing, charmed—and he knew for certain now that the time had indeed come for the process to begin. He smiled inside, knowing that he had done quite well with this selection, as there didn't appear to be any resistance.

  So far.

  "Yes," the Supplier answered.

  "I am your Harbinger," he repeated. His heart slammed in his chest. He could only fantasize as to the pleasure the Supplier must be feeling in this moment of discovery.

  "Yes, I know."

  "Do you have the object?"

  A brief interlude occurred where the Supplier's breathing faded. A slight shuffling sounded. In a moment's time, the breathing returned, but no voice spoke.

  Harold asked again, "Do you have the object?"

  "Yes, now I do. And it feels so..." The Supplier's breathing rose in cadence, to a sharp staggering hum. A scraping noise sounded, and it appeared to Harold that
the Supplier was having trouble gripping the phone.

  The process. Yes indeed, it was starting.

  "Stay where you are..." Harold found himself yelling, adrenaline racing through his body, excitement through his veins. "I'll be with you shortly," trying to make it sound as if he needed to be there.

  One particularly crucial piece of information the Giver had injected into Harold's consciousness was that he should never under any circumstances interfere with the filling process, that he should wait until it had run its course entirely before he went in to harvest the Atmosphere. From the very beginning, when he had been retained to harvest, this message, sharp and clear, floated on the surface of his mind like a beacon drifting in the night sea—an ongoing warning against any form of interruption. But the fervor of watching, of experiencing the very act of supplying first-hand, thrilled him to a means surpassed only by the Suppliers themselves, culminating his craving to a point so high that turning away had become virtually unthinkable.

  Little had he known at the time—when he allowed himself to behold the process—of the risk involved, even heeding the Giver's caution. Yes, the experience of witnessing the process in the alley last night had been extremely rapturous, but in making himself a spectator, he had nearly revealed everything and jeopardized his privilege as Harbinger.

  The two boys had been easy catches, as almost anyone in the club could have been, both seemingly well attracted to the pulse. This had made his recruit selection simple, and hitched free.

  The hard part had been keeping away. Once he released the Atmosphere into their possession, he immediately felt allured, intrigued, that he had no alternative but to witness the act of supplying for himself first-hand.

  Ten days ago, while harvesting his first Supplier, he behaved much as was expected of him: responsibly, disciplined. He allowed the process to unfold readily and naturally, just as the Giver demanded he do so. As a result everything worked out as beautifully as intended. But the charge of ecstasy he felt following the filling process—when he retrieved the Atmosphere—caused a conflict of interests in seeking new Suppliers. He suddenly found himself in a bind, and eventually with no alternative but to answer to his selfish desires, to press past the Giver's requirements, and become part of the occasion.

  He knew at once that he had done something wrong by allowing himself access to the alley as the two began to supply. Although their concentration had been wholly centered on the pulse, his presence seemingly distracted the depth of their focus, and they periodically broke the rhythm of their catatonia. In minutes, the two started to inexplicably fight one another for sole possession of the Atmosphere. He interceded the fray in attempt to restore equilibrium, but in turn further disrupted everything to chaotic proportions, and one of the Suppliers escaped, racing from the alley, suspended from the pulse of the Atmosphere.

  In vain effort to salvage as much of the filling as he could, Harold immediately reinstated the Atmosphere in the hold of the remaining Supplier and waited until the process had finished. Thankfully the Outsiders stumbled onto the scene after all was said and done—albeit just moments later. His only problem at that point was retrieving the Atmosphere, which had tuned out to be a rash, but necessary move.

  He couldn't fathom the perils the Giver would have beset upon him had the Outsiders taken hold of the glorious Atmosphere.

  His dreams of supplying would never come to pass.

  Of course, immediately following the near disaster, he understood why he should have kept the two boys under wraps, led them to supply behind closed doors. He hated himself for instead giving in to his immediate urge to witness, leaving them susceptible to discovery.

  He promised himself that next time, he would not make the same mistake again.

  Of course, that all seemed so long ago now, so far gone and forgotten.

  Easier promised than done.

  As soon as he heard the pulse on the phone in combination with the rapturous breathing of the new Supplier, he knew keeping himself out of the picture would be impossible. He needed to witness, needed to supply for himself.

  He couldn't live without it.

  "Supplier?" he said in the phone.

  The breathing was still there, but no reply came forth. The Atmosphere's pulse was growing stronger. He could feel it emanating, filling the room.

  It sounded awesome.

  "Supplier...wait for me, I am coming to be with you."

  At that tense moment, the breathing vanished. Then, the pulse faded.

  All of a sudden, something was wrong.

  Harold dropped the phone and ran towards the building.

  David Traynor dropped the phone at the second mention of the Harbinger coming to join him in his ecstasy. As far as his mind was concerned, no possibility existed for him to share the Atmosphere with anyone, his mind screaming no, no, no! over and over, he listening to it just as he did when it insisted he run, just as he did when it led him to this building, made him open the door and perform every move that carried him to this very moment.

  Now, it insisted he leave, again run far away to another place where he could be alone to relish in the pleasures of the Atmosphere, answer to its inducement. He exited the apartment through the fire escape, down the side of the building, fleeing undetected from the advance of the Harbinger, into the night.

  Run run, need to run...

  Harold repeatedly slammed his body against the door. A young black man peeked out from behind a chained door down the hall, barked a weak meaningless threat, but advanced no further, undoubtedly unnerved by Harold's insane demeanor.

  Waves of distress screamed inside his body, forcing sweat out from the pores in his brow, his chest, his back, soaking his shirt. The fear—the knowing—that the Supplier had just escaped his influence—well, it simply murdered every inch of him, tormented him with a terrible anguish as if a demon were inside his body maniacally rearranging his organs and veins.

  He slammed himself harder against the door, clawed at its surface like a crazed cat trying to escape the confines of its travel cage. The door started to break free of the jamb. The metal hinge loosened, a screw popped free.

  Pain screamed in his shoulders, and he hurled himself against the door in one last fit of rage, fury. His urgency prevailed.

  He broke through.

  Oh no...

  The room was cold and empty and desolate. A breeze blew through its only window.

  The Supplier was gone.

  Chapter Twelve

  Another fine parking job by Hector had the cruiser set between two cars, their make incognito under the hack-and-slash body work and paint jobs they had acquired over the years. The three detectives got out of the patrol car and paced up the sidewalk on 3rd Avenue, just south of East 108th Street in the Bronx.

  The demographics of the two vicinities they visited tonight couldn't have been more opposite from one another. This part of town—although only five miles, a thirty minute drive in city traffic from where the Racine's lived—might as well have been situated on the other side of the planet. Whereas the upper east side boasted townhouses and classic architecture, doctors, lawyers and stockbrokers, the Bronx, famous for Yankee baseball and its animal conservatory, exhibited cookie-cutter low-income housing projects overcrowded with families dependent on welfare and assistance, working menial jobs to put food in their childrens' mouths, or in many cases, narcotics in their blood.

  For a change, Frank's three personalities shared a common bond: he'd be much better off, especially at night, to avoid visiting this neighborhood again if he could help it.

  They turned the corner onto 108th Street, keeping their conversations to a minimum, spearheading their efforts towards their intuitions instead. Many animals lived in this jungle and would no doubt try to take a bite out of a much bigger adversary if the potential for a meal existed.

  Mindful, they kept on their toes—even though they carried weapons.

  "Here, this is it," Hector said. Frank gazed at the sm
all yet intimidating structure, conscientiously trying to swallow away his sudden uneasiness. His weak, uneager personality started to come forward. Not many times in the past had the duty arisen where he needed to probe such a residence in this type of neighborhood—one that was overcrowded, run-down, and rampant with disease and crime. Now, finding himself in such a plight where he had to explore the hidden confines of a similar property, his emotions beleaguered him, and he felt that at any moment some maniac could very easily jump out of the shadows and blindside him, or knife him, or shoot him, or...

  Perhaps he was getting too old for this shit.

  Although no immediate sense for alarm existed, he still placed his hand on his holstered gun as they approached the tenement, not sure which part of his personality—the meek tentative one, the truth-seeking detective, or the hot-headed aggressor—coerced this bearing.

  They moved quietly across the stretch of littered pavement that led to the building.

  A pair of iron benches paint-marked as territory for some small-time gang served as a gateway to the tenement's entrance.

  Frank peered up and sighted a row of destitute children gazing through a set of broken windows three floors up, their cold eyes seeking answers to their indigence, like hungry wolves stalking prey in hope for one more night of survival. From the curious expressions on their dirty faces, he could tell that they were wondering why the three of them had arrived here tonight, had chosen to enter their home—even though the appearance of police in this community of distress was commonplace. He pulled his sights away and the three cops continued prudently along the pavement leading into the ominous moon-shadow of the building.

  They set foot through the graffiti embellished entranceway. Their footsteps echoed in the hallway like drips of water in a cavern, the cadence of their strides periodically interrupted as their shoes sliced through garbage and grime. Frank shuddered, wondering what breeds of evil bacterium and germs thrived here and how sizable the rats and cockroaches might be, hiding in the shadows nearby.

  "Hey..." a voice shot out from the shadows, deep, raspy.