by Owen Egerton
“Drop the armadillo,” Jim said in a steady voice. The trucker hesitated. Jim let out an impatient grunt and fired into the ground. The air cracked and dirt spit upward. The trucker dropped the armadillo. “Now get the hell out of here.” The trucker galloped back to his truck, climbed in, and sped away. Jim slowly climbed back into the car, placed the pistol on his lap, and rubbed his legs. Hayden stared at the gun.
“It keeps me safe,” Jim said.
“I think I peed.”
“It happens.”
Do you want to miss this?
“I HAVE SOME questions about the end of the world,” Roy said. Milton looked away from the live footage of animal control workers clearing nutria from a statue of a Civil War general on the grounds of the Texas Capitol. Jeppy was asleep on the couch, gripping Carl to her body. Carl was wide awake and chewing on her hair. Rica was in the kitchen bandaging her hand. The writer and folksinger had decided to risk the roads and walk to a convenience store for beers.
“Are you sure?” Rica had asked them. “There’re still a lot of those things out there.”
“We’ve got to try,” the writer said.
Milton stood, turned off the television, and motioned for Roy to join him on the porch. The streets were quieter now. A few sirens still echoed in the near distance.
“When?” Roy asked as soon as the door closed behind them.
“Sunday. Maybe Monday.”
“Well, it had to happen sooner or later.” Roy sat on the porch couch. “Mayan calendar, pole reversal, the endangered honeybee. The end has been nigh for years. What we should do is get some dinner. Enjoy each other’s company. Maybe score some weed.”
“Roy, everyone on Earth is going to die.”
“That’s always been the case,” Roy said. “You’re just upset that we’re all going to die on the same day.”
“I should also tell you that Earth is an insane asylum for the universe.”
Roy turned his head to Milton. “What now?”
“Our souls are mad,” Milton said. “You must have known. All this . . . ” he gestured toward the street, the city. “All this is just a hospital.”
“Wait. The Grays?” Roy said.
“Hospital staff, basically,” Milton said. “The UFOs, the abductions, just nurses doing the rounds.”
“Crop circles?”
“A kind of Rorschach inkblot test for us.”
“Roswell?”
“Weather balloon.”
“Really?”
“Sorry, Roy. I knew you’d hate that.” Milton rubbed his face. “All our history, just crazies. They’ve had some successes, some cures. Buddha, Rumi, Rasputin.”
“Rasputin?” Roy asked.
“I have to do something. I have to drive west. I should leave tonight. There was this man, this television actor, in my shower, and now I have to go find him.”
“Does Rica know you’re showering with men?”
“Should I marry her?”
“Right now?”
“Now is about all we’ve got.” Milton stopped pacing and sat down. “I figured you could do the ceremony.”
Years before, Roy had been ordained by a small online church based out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He sought ordination so he could legally perform the funeral service of his grandfather. He worked on the eulogy for days, ordered the flowers, hired a caterer, taking personal interest in every detail. Roy wanted the service to celebrate his grandfather in a remarkable way. His grandfather wasn’t as enthusiastic.
“I’m not dead, Roy.”
“But you will be,” Roy said. “Do you want to miss this?”
“It’s morbid,” his grandfather said.
“Come on, Grompy. You’re in your eighties.”
“I’m seventy-seven.”
“Practically in your eighties. I don’t want to wait till you’re in the ground to honor you.”
“Then throw me a roast, for God’s sake.”
“It’s not like you have to die for this.”
“Well, that’s nice.”
“But if you could lay in the coffin for the ceremony.”
“A coffin?”
“Don’t freak out. It’s open casket.”
“Does she want to marry you?” Roy asked. From his pocket, Roy pulled a mahogany pipe. To Milton’s knowledge, he had never smoked it, but had been clenching it between his teeth since college.
“I’m not sure. I think so.”
“You know, most marriages don’t survive the first five years.”
“We won’t survive past Sunday.”
“Good point.” Roy took the pipe from his mouth, knocked it on his palm. “So when do we head west?”
Milton looked up. “You’re coming?”
Roy nodded.
“You believe what I’m saying?”
“I’ll tell you on Monday.” Roy replaced the pipe between his teeth and looked out on the shady road running in front of the house. A thin woman in a muu-muu glided by on roller skates. A potbelly pig jogged beside her. She waved. Roy waved back. “I’m not so worried about the world ending. But Austin ending, that’s tragic. This town makes humanity look good.”
Austin
ROY WOULD ASK that God bless Austin, but it was clear that God already had. Austin, near the end of the world, was in a golden age. And like all cities in their golden ages, it was claimed that the real golden age was years before. The golden light made even the city’s past brighter.
Sweet city. Sweet pockets. Aging east side, wealthy west side, the north slanting right, the south running left, a swelling campus and a pink-domed capitol smack in the middle.
Semiemployed thirty-year-olds and graying hippies claiming bands, watching films, drinking Shiner Bock and espressos and discussing Howard Zinn and Tom Waits. Hip to be poor and forgivable to be wealthy.
Limestone pools filled with children and dogs.
The twenty-four-hour Mexican bakery where at 4:00 AM bleary-eyed hipsters cross paths with early-shift migrant workers.
Poor young couples paying above their means for organic meat.
Bikers and walkers and those that like to watch circling the green waters of Lady Bird Lake.
A dozen kinds of music. A dozen levels of quality. Three city blocks.
Artists and architects, computer madmen and cupcake crafters, midwives and politicians, movie stars and car washers. Every busboy is an artist, every checker has a degree, every tramp writes poetry, and everyone, everyone, is in a band.
Basement jazz, backyard folk, dance-floor country, pop-rock pranksters. Scene wizards with squeezed eyes swaying to B-3 organs, blues mythmakers smoking between sets and singing to disciples in the alleyways.
Films and films built on thrills and debt, breaths of cinematic gore and glory fueled by the passion of white-eyed will-bes.
Makeshift theaters with scriptless plays every night of the week. And they laugh on the stage and they laugh in the seats and they laugh at the lack of border between the two.
A variety pack of politics. Tolerance and racism are no longer segregated.
Liberal women have clandestine affairs with conservative men.
Conservative women have clandestine affairs with liberal women.
The governor could go either way.
The bistros of South Congress, the taco stands of East Eleventh. The brewpub by the hospital. The French jazz spots on East Sixth. The coffee shops everywhere. And in each place you find people you’ve met somewhere at sometime whose name you can’t quite remember. But you’ll talk for a while. In this way you have decades-long relationships with people whose names you never recall.
The heat of summer so intense that the day waits for sunset to take its first full breath and no one expects to accomplish too much. The late-arriving fall, pecans and acorns drumming away on the tin roofs and porch awnings. The surprise child winter sending ice puddles that close schools and shut down the government. And spring. A sweet-toothed dragon decorating the city with flowered
scales and barbeque, breathing festivals for fire.
Yes, says the city. Yes, say the ever oaks and clogged creeks. Yes, says the smiling guest of a front yard party sneaking a smoke and glancing down the slow hill, up the sidewalked street, over the low roofs. Nod your head. Hold your joy. Austin is.
Four-hundred-gallon vat of puffed wheat
PATRICIA BLEET WAS sitting on a park bench eating a chicken salad on wheat and having amorous fantasies concerning her hair. Patricia adored her hair. It was her art and her child and the lover on which she doted. Each morning she woke hours before having to report to her job as assistant quality control agent at Sammy’s Suga Smax Cereal Company so she could craft, curl, or cuddle with her hair.
She had visited a barber only once. A small trim at the age of nine. Thirty years later, she still regrets ever allowing those blade-bearing thieves near her amber locks. Her hair was now four feet long. She wore it in a myriad of styles. Down, up, permed, straightened, and, as of late, beehived. Oh, how Patricia loved her beehive. It was not fashionable. It was not easy. It was not even healthy. But it was her pride and glory. The style stood nearly a foot and a half from her scalp. Though she was only a little over five feet tall, she often had to duck when walking through doorways. She loved it.
“Oh my,” she’d say after an impressive duck. “Almost had a ceiling-scraper.” She’d then pat her hairdo and giggle.
She had finished her lunch now and would soon have to return to her work examining vats of cereal and answering to Mr. Peterson, the head quality control agent. She didn’t like him at all. It would be a long, dull afternoon, she was sure. But for now, outside and alone with her hair, she felt relaxed and at home in the world. She closed her eyes and drifted to sleep in the warm sun.
What Patricia did not know, did not even begin to suspect, was that a shiny hermit crab with a red arrow painted on his shell was hanging from a branch an arm’s length above her tower of hair. She had only just closed her eyes when Click lost his grip and plummeted into the do.
Patricia was startled awake. She quickly touched her hair. Click, seeing the hand approaching, burrowed deep into the hair’s core.
Patricia checked her watch and waddled back to work, balancing her hair like a queen balancing a crown.
“You’re late, Cousin Itt,” barked Mr. Peterson. She hated it when he called her that. “Now go check all the B-vats. We ship today. Okay, bubblehead. Ha!”
No, she did not like him at all. They had made love once, just once, years before when she had first started at Sammy’s Suga Smax Cereal Company. He had initiated it, buying her after-work margaritas and buffalo wings and then inviting himself into her apartment. Patricia found his company and his technique mediocre at best. Plus, he was balding. But when he left while she slept, when days passed without mention of their exchange, when he never suggested another spree of margaritas, Patricia found herself feeling oddly defeated. Since then, Mr. Peterson held a sick status above her that had little to do with his rank in the company.
Why did she put up with it? Why didn’t she tell him what’s what? Then she could leave this job, invest her savings into her very own beauty salon. She’d call it Patricia’s Hair Palace. She even had a slogan. “No scissors. Just style!” Oh, it would be a beautiful place. Why didn’t she leave? She could do it today.
“And double-check the puffed wheat, okay, Chewbacca?” yelled Mr. Peterson.
No, she couldn’t leave. She’d fail. Simple as that. She always failed. Then she’d have to come to Mr. Peterson and ask for her job back. He’d gloat. He’d jeer. That would hurt too much.
Patricia stirred the vat of colored marshmallow chunks and glanced over the surprise toy supply, checking off the list on her clipboard as she went. She daydreamed of hair spray and conditioners as she slowly made her way to the four-hundred-gallon vat of puffed wheat. She leaned over the vat and gazed at the mass of sugared puffs ten feet below her.
The hermit crab nestled in the dark safety of her hive slipped from the front of the hairstyle and into the light. He clasped onto a strand of hair, dangling above the vat like Bruce Willis from the roof of a high-rise business building.
What if God sent some kind of sign? Patricia thought. Some sign that he wanted me to quit. That he thought I could do it.
“No, no,” she said aloud, shaking her head. “God doesn’t send signs like—”
From out of nowhere a colorful shell fell from the sky and landed on the mountains of cereal below her. The shell had legs! It scurried about for a moment. On its back was a bright red arrow. Patricia gasped. She followed the arrow’s point and it directed her vision straight to the emergency exit. When she looked back, the shell was gone, and there was the slightest movement in a nondescript indentation in the wheat puffs.
Thank you, God.
Patricia set down her clipboard, patted her hair, and walked through the emergency exit never to return again.
The sky declaring war
“WEST?” RICA ASKED. “West where?”
“I’m not sure. Marfa, I think.” Milton was pacing through the living room.
“That’s over four hundred miles away.”
“Roy will drive. You can sleep in the back. He’s got that mattress back there.”
“That’s just creepy,” Rica said.
Outside the sky had grown gray, leaving the room shadowy and cool. Jeppy was now awake, sitting beside Rica and breast-feeding Carl. She hummed an old Harry Nilsson song and rocked the child side to side. Rica wanted to do nothing more than sit and listen to Jeppy’s humming.
“Milton,” Rica said, closing her eyes. “I’m pregnant, I’m exhausted, I’ve been chewed on by a nutria, I’m not leaving.”
“She should stay here, Milton,” Jeppy said, her eyes glancing up from Carl. “The fumes in the back of that van can’t be healthy.”
“We’ll crack a window,” Milton said to Jeppy. He stopped pacing and stared at Rica. “You have to come. The turtle said.”
Rica opened her eyes. “The turtle?”
“There was a whole mess of them, but only one said anything.”
Rica looked at Jeppy, who only shrugged. Rica rose to her feet.
“Follow me,” she said to Milton, and with fast steps walked into the bathroom. Once Milton was in she closed the door.
“What the fuck is up with you?” she whispered, poking a finger against his chest and backing him into the shower door. The rattle of the door made him jump. “Milton, you’re acting crazy.”
“I’m seeing things, Rica. Unbelievable things. Except I believe them, so that makes them believable by definition. You saw today. You saw what’s happening.” Milton scanned the room, looking beyond Rica as if the perfect argument was hiding somewhere behind her.
Rica turned her head and stared out the small window above the toilet. The sky was darker now and the first few drops of rain were rolling down the glass.
“A few river rats going nuts isn’t evidence of the Apocalypse.”
“The nutria attack was just a start. Things are going to get much worse. Fire and blood, monster-ass hail the color of coal, all that biblical shit. They’ve shown me things.”
“Who? Your ghost friend?”
“It’s not a ghost, and yes. And something else. Something in my head.”
“You’re hearing voices, Milton,” Rica said, whispering from the back of her throat. “That’s psychotic.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but . . . ” Milton’s jaw tightened. “I know what I’m supposed to do. At least the next step.”
The drumming of the rain against the roof grew louder and Rica raised her voice above the downpour. “What if you’re not supposed to do anything, Milton? Maybe you don’t have some special job. Maybe you’re just like the rest of us, huh?”
“But I’m not!” Milton nearly yelled. “Have you ever just known something? I mean, you just know.”
“No.” She leaned back against the sink. “I’m guessing the whole time.”
The rain was now a constant white noise.
“Okay, you don’t have to know. You don’t have to believe any of this. You just have to . . . ” Milton looked to the ceiling and took a deep breath through his nose. He brought his head down and met Rica’s eyes. “Can you trust me enough to come with me?”
Rica studied his eyes. She slowly shook her head. “No, I can’t.” She took a deep breath. “Milton, I’ve got to think about what’s best for the ba—”
The bathroom window shattered, spraying glass over both of them. Rica yelped; Milton fell back against the shower door, nearly falling in. On the ground between them lay a fist-size chunk of black stone. For a moment both stared down at it. Milton knelt and touched it with a hesitant finger.
“Ice,” he said.
Above them the roof shook as if slammed by the swing of a sledgehammer. First just one smash, then another, followed immediately by another.
“Holy fuck,” Rica said.
Soon the impacts were coming fast and overlapping, loud as shotguns. Rica caught Milton’s eye for a second, then they both tumbled out of the bathroom.
Jeppy was curled over Carl. “What is that?”
Rica followed Milton through the front door and onto the porch with Roy. The sky above them bubbled gray and black like a boiling pot. A piece of black ice the size of a brick crashed down, shattering the windshield of the neighbor’s car, another splintering the branch of the oak in Milton’s front yard.
Jeppy, clutching Carl to her chest, appeared at their side.
“We should call someone! Who should we call?”
The writer and the folksinger sprinted down the street, six-packs in hand, dodging black ice-stones the size of apples.
“Run!” Roy yelled.
The writer was laughing as he ran into the yard, lifting the six-pack. “At least we got the—”
A black bowling ball of ice smacked against his skull and he fell to the grass in a lifeless thud. Rica and Jeppy screamed, Carl erupted into a screeching cry. The folksinger, a step from the porch, turned and leaped back to the writer.