“See, kiddo, the thing is, the First Animal, he’s figured out a way to reclaim this world, but he can’t do it in one big, grand swoop like God did; no, he’s got to do it a little bit at a time, piece by piece, with whatever materials the Keepers can gather. Raw materials, you might call ’em.
“The procedure takes a while, and it hurts like hell, but it’s getting there. Bugs in the system. Kinks to work out. Luckily, there’s no short supply of miserable, lonely people who wished they’d been born as anything else but what they are.”
He leaned forward, breathing hot, moist breath into your face, breath that smelled of the fields, the sky. “Once the balance has been sufficiently offset again, once there are more animals than people—like it was supposed to be—then the First Animal can step through the scrim and restore this world to its natural order. Maybe by then God will have admitted to the fuck-up.”
Around you, the others were crowding close.
Too close.
“We had an agreement,” said Whitey to the figures and things surrounding you. “I already fulfilled my part, I gave you a possible candidate and she was brought here tonight. So he walks out unharmed, right?”
The first man in the bowler spread his hands benevolently and gave a nod, then snapped his fingers. The four other bowler-men moved forward.
Two were empty-handed.
One carried a package wrapped in brown paper with an address written across the top.
The other carried a syringe.
Whitey turned toward you and offered a sad smile. “Won’t see you again after this, Captain. It’s been a real pleasure. You’re a better man than you think you are. Work on your timing. And that fear of bathing.”
“What are they going to do to me?”
“Nothing harmful. You didn’t come here voluntarily, so they have to let you leave.”
For a moment you couldn’t find your voice, and during that moment two of the Keepers grabbed your arms and pulled them behind you; the one with the syringe took the plastic cover from the needle, steadied your head with his free hand, and slipped the needle into a vein in your neck, sinking the plunger.
The image on the monitor changed; again you were looking at the same downtown corner where you’d encountered Drop-Kick, but this time the film was older, grainier, black-and-white. The face of an old man filled the screen as he petted the dog from whose point of view this had been filmed. Then another old man’s face came into frame, then that of a third. Finally, the dog whipped its head around and started running toward a young boy crossing toward it from the other side of the street. The boy had a comic book tucked under one arm. He was holding a bag of scraps from a restaurant. He offered the dog something from the bag. The dog looked up and the boy who would grow up to become your dad smiled down at it. It was the most wonderful smile you’d ever seen.
This was him.
As a boy.
Smiling, with scraps in hand.
Overhead, the squawking alarm sounded in time to the music, one of the figures began whispering something in your ear, and the things assembled in the corridor sang a lullaby while your brain and body melted into something light and shiny and unbound:
“When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we will not be ashamed
To turn, turn, will be our delight
Till by turning, turning, we come round right … .”
You dreamed you were a man who believed no one loved or cared about him. Your hands were scarred from a lifetime of hard labor. You had once dreamed of raising chickens for a living, but the war and your injuries and family demanded otherwise. Now all of it was gone, and you stood alone in a dark hallway. A thin mist swirled around your feet and began to rise, and when this mist filled the room, it was light again. A man stepped out of the light and fog and tipped his bowler. He asked you what you wanted to be. “An eagle,” you said. “Eagles are free and admired. Eagles are loved and respected.” He said that was good, because an eagle is what you were supposed to have been in the first place. He asked if you knew someone else who might like to be something else. You said yes and told him a name.
We’re putting things right for Long-Lost, he said as he pointed the way. It’s taking longer than we’d planned, but we’re getting there.
Then he took you to a place where they changed your body and gave you feathers and flight. It hurt, but it was worth it.
You were loved. Admired. Your heart knew no pain or sorrow. The sky had no place for such things.
You rolled over and opened your eyes. You were back in your house. On the floor. Your clothes were fresh and clean; your skin was creamy and smelled of soap. You wondered if you’d come home drunk. Mom and Dad would be very upset with you. But they were dead, weren’t they? Yes. That was right. They were gone and the house was yours. Only you were leaving soon, weren’t you?
You tried to sit up but your limbs were rubber, so you stayed on the floor.
It seemed to you that there was someone else you should say good-bye to, but you couldn’t think of anyone. That bugged you. You didn’t have so many friends that you would forget one. That was rude. Thoughtless. You weren’t that geeky little four-eyed dweeb anymore; you had friends. Didn’t you?
Did you have a girlfriend? It seemed to you that you did, but you couldn’t picture her face or remember her name.
Foggy dream remnants, that’s what it had to be; foggy dream remnants. You lay back down on the floor and closed your eyes.
You dreamed that you were a dog sitting out in the rain. You were tied to a post. Your sides hurt because you’d been beaten because you had soiled the carpeting. It wasn’t your fault—there had been no one home to let you out. But now you were in the rain and it was cold and you wanted to be lying near the hearth in front of the sweet-smelling fire inside. They beat you a lot, even when you didn’t soil things. You wished they wouldn’t do that. You loved them and wanted them to love you. But some people can’t love a dog. The rain beat down very hard. Mist rose up from the ground. A nicely dressed man came out of the mist and tipped his bowler hat to you. He asked if you were lonely and you said yes. You were surprised that you could talk; you’d never done it before. The man said it was because you’d been made to forget that you could. He asked you what you wanted.
“To be human,” you said, speaking clearly and with ease. “So I can know how they feel and why they put me out in the rain.”
“Come,” he said, freeing you from the post. “And remember to think as much as you want and say whatever you wish. Things have been mixed up for a while, but we’re putting them right.”
You trotted beside him—the pain in your sides slowed your progress, but he was patient and kind—and you asked, “How?”
He stopped and pointed back toward the house. “Someday, he said, “all of these people will be as you were, and all of you”—he knelt down and stroked your back—“will be as they are. Then things will be right again. As right as we can make them.”
“Can I have a family?” you ask.
“Yes,” he said. “Long-Lost would like that. He needs someone to claim and protect one of his … I guess you’d call them ‘angels.’ So you shall have a sister when your parents are no more, and no one—including you—will question this reality. To the world, you will have always had a sister. Your sister will have a son. He will love you very much. And he will have a gift. He will be one of those who will help lift the Great Scrim so that Long-Lost can step through.” Then he shrugged. “Sometimes, a god has to be sneaky.
“You may remember all of this, or you may not. We’ll see. But it will come to pass, whether your memory serves you or not.”
He took you to a place where they made you human. You could dance and laugh. You could hold delicate objects in your hands.
You could speak of your love to others.
You could know the glory of a kiss.
And no animal would you treat with thoughtlessness or cruelty. The world to come ha
d no place for such things.
You woke in the morning, gathered your bags, and went to Kansas. You stayed with your grandmother for nearly a year, until the night she said she was tired and went upstairs and lay down to sleep for the last time. You cried at her funeral but were comforted by the knowledge that her last months had been full and rich. You loved her and had often told her so. She never knew a day without an embrace or a kiss on the cheek. She had gone upstairs that last night still laughing at a joke you’d told her. Some ghost of that smile remained on her face when you found her the next morning.
You stopped drinking and sleeping around after she was gone. She had always worried that you were hurting myself. Maybe she was right. This seemed the best way to honor her memory, and that of your parents. You would try to live the rest of your life as well as possible.
The real estate firm in Cedar Hill sold the house for a very good price and both you and your sister made a lot of money on the deal. Your sister was especially grateful, having just had a baby and her husband having just abandoned her.
After a few years, you moved back to Cedar Hill. Home is home. Even if no one’s there waiting for you.
You decided to drive back, make a little vacation out of it, stop and see the sights along the way, however long it took.
The morning you were packing up your things to leave, a delivery van from some company called Hicks Worldwide pulled up in front of your apartment. The driver got out and walked over to where you stood next to your car. He greeted you by name.
“I believe you have a package for me,” he said, smiling like a happy puppy.
You blinked a few times, then opened your trunk, moved aside a few bags, and found the parcel all the way in the back. You did not recognize the name of the addressee. You handed it to him without a word. He thanked you, climbed into his van, and drove away.
You came back to Cedar Hill and used some of the money to start your own small business. It was a moderate enough success that you opened another store in Columbus.
Somewhere in there, your sister became ill and died. You became Carson’s legal guardian.
You love your nephew very much. He’s very special.
A gift, some might say.
You went back to a few old haunts. Barney’s Saloon was gone, replaced now by some store called Marie’s Hosiery. It looked like a nice shop.
The Old Soldiers and Sailors building had been torn down; left in its place was an empty lot. You seemed to remember something about a wall of signatures having been in there, but couldn’t quite bring the thought all the way into the light.
You kept planning for something, but could never quite remember what, only that you had to arrange certain things in your house a certain way.
It seemed for the best.
You went on dates, bought them dinner, took them to plays or movies, even made breakfast for a few of them. None of the women ever seemed interested in anything long-term and you couldn’t find it in you to be hurt or offended.
Life went on, as it will whether you want it to or not. You saw yourself as neither a bad man nor a good one; you just Were.
Then one day while driving home you saw an old man get killed while chasing his hat. You stopped to watch him die. You answered questions from the police. You came home and found a dog on your lawn.
A package arrived.
Someone called about your nephew.
You found him in an old barn at the Magic Zoo.
He changed.
Guided you back home.
Visitors came.
That brings us all up to date, pal. Now, was that
FOUR
so hard?)
Maybe not for you.
(Yeah, but at least now you can’t bullshit yourself into thinking it happened any other way. Good-bye to all the happy pills the doctors have given to you.)
You waiting for me to thank you?
(Like the hero always says at the end of the movie, My Work Here is Done. Doesn’t mean shit to me whether you thank me or not.)
Pulling myself up into something like a standing position once again, I cleaned the blood and disinfected the wound as best I could, applied the gauze pads, put the splints in place with some of the medical tape, then tightly wrapped my hand in the elastic bandage; I was able to move only my thumb and index finger without much pain, the rest of my hand was swollen and useless. I looked down at the Mossberg. I had seven shots left in it and a full clip in the pistol. Sixteen shots altogether. Assuming that I was able to retrieve the shotgun if I dropped it again.
I bent my right thumb and index finger several times to make sure they were still working. Satisfied they weren’t going to lock up on me, I sat down on the closed toilet lid and balanced the Mossberg on my lap. I slipped my right index finger over the trigger and situated my thumb in the proper position on the handle-grip; my other three fingers I arranged as best I could, making sure that the right side of my middle finger was parallel to the underside of the trigger-guard, then I used half the roll of duct tape to bind my hand to the shotgun. No way was this going to come out of my hand or be taken away from me.
That done, I tore one of the remaining gauze pads in two and wadded up the halves to use as ear plugs—if I had to fire again, I wanted some protection against the noise.
After that, I opened the cabinet over the sink where my storage habits are a little more traditional; cough syrup, aspirin, throat lozenges, and … where was it?
There.
The same accident that had necessitated the finger splints last year had also brought with it a prescription for painkillers, most of which I still had left. God bless codeine.
I popped the lid off the plastic bottle and tossed two of the tablets into my mouth, then twisted down so I could drink some water from the tap. All better now (or telling myself I was, anyway), I put the bottle in my pants pocket, ran my good hand through my hair, and looked at my reflection in the mirror. If I saw this fellow on the street, I’d cross to the other side and run like hell.
I turned away and started toward the front of the house.
There was something going on there that Bowler wanted me to see.
The mist was pressing against the remaining windows. I wondered how much longer it would be content to do that before deciding to just smash through the glass—and if I doubted it had the ability to change into something solid, I had only to look at the wreckage of my right hand.
I opened the front door and leveled the shotgun.
About nine of them stood scattered around the front yard, arms folded across their chests, bowlers perfectly straight, goggles shooting out thin red beams that in places formed “X”s when they crisscrossed with those from another Bowler’s. Something about their stances suggested they were waiting for something important to happen.
On the periphery of the thrumming in my ears I began to hear … music. Muffled at first, until someone turned up the volume and the bass began to register in my bones; then a harsh, nasal voice began singing words, something about soldiers, tin soldiers, yes: tin soldiers and Nixon—
Ohio.
Someone was playing Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s “Ohio.”
Three Bowlers who’d been standing beyond my field of vision emerged from the mist and started toward the porch. Their movements were deliberate and exact; dancers executing a carefully choreographed ballet routine. One of them wore an absurd wig of long, straight blonde hair beneath his hat. Another carried a boom-box from which the song was blaring. I leveled the Mossberg and took a step forward, taking care to make sure the screen door didn’t close behind me.
The first Bowler held up a white placard like those used in old vaudeville acts; written on it were the words: THE DOUBLE-DUBYA PLAYERS PRESENT. Then he backed away, bowing his head and parting his arms, taking the boom-box from the second one’s hand.
The second one, using overblown, melodramatic gestures, clutched at his chest and dropped to his knees, then fell face-first against the
ground. The third Bowler went down on one knee, arms parted at his sides like a Celebrant blessing the Hosts at Mass; the long straight hair of his wig caught on a breeze I couldn’t feel and blew slightly to the right.
The others began to applaud, but then Magritte-Man came stomping forward like a petulant child, wildly waving his hands in the air, silencing them. He grabbed the two performers and wordlessly moved them into different positions.
That’s not exactly correct. He moved them back into the same positions, only this time facing away from me, frozen in tableau except for the hair of the wig, which now blew to my left.
I couldn’t move.
They’d recreated the Kent State scene almost perfectly. After all, this was the angle from which I’d seen it. From behind.
The song reached its final chorus as Magritte-Man stepped back, examined his players, then threw his arms in the air and bobbed his head with great enthusiasm. The Bowlers already scattered throughout the yard broke into loud and enthusiastic applause, a few even placing fingers in their mouths to whistle.
As “Ohio” ended, Magritte-Man tapped his players on their shoulders and the three of them joined hands to take a bow; first for the overjoyed audience in the yard, then, turning around and clasping hands again, for me.
Behind them, the mist swirled and churned, forming the faces of countless animals; dogs, cats, horses, pigs, cows, swans, bears, and more. Some of them were of species so foreign or exotic they could be seen only in zoos or the pages of National Geographic.
Each of these mist-animals cried out in their own primal language, as if to echo the sentiments of the audience and express their pleasure with this evening’s entertainment. The players turned and bowed to the spectators once again. The applause swelled, heads nodded in admiration, red beams danced and bounced through the glowing silver gloom.
As the applause began to die down, Magritte-Man turned to face me, holding another white placard. He smiled, then pulled the placard away to reveal yet another underneath, only where the previous one had been blank, this one had a word written in large black letters:
Keepers Page 24