by Pasha Malla
Fine, ciders. But you have to come to my neighbourhood.
Ciders became dinner (wings) and more ciders, a soft and nervous goodbye, another round of ciders the following week, a midnight walk down to Budai Beach, a kiss on the sand, and a few nights later, back at Adine’s apartment, the two of them collapsing sweat-slicked on either side of the mattress. Debbie whispered, Let me hold you, and Adine cracked up, a snort that exploded into goosy hoots while Debbie disappeared under the duvet. I was just trying to be nice, came her voice, muffled by the covers. Adine cackled: Let me hold you — what a precious swan you are, it’s adorable.
JUST AS FAYE ROWAN-MORGANSON was signing off — Well if there’s anyone even watching thanks for listening, hope it wasn’t too depressing — the phone rang.
It was Debbie: You sound out of breath, she said.
No, said Adine, just working.
Oh? Oh good. Me too. Except guess what? I got blackedup. Can you believe that?
Sam’s going to be calling soon.
It’s just you’d think they’d respect, I don’t know, that this is a place for kids. No?
At one. What time is it?
Nearly Lunchtime Arts. But listen, that old friend of mine? Pearl? She’s in town tonight. And I’d told her I was planning this big reunion —
Pearl . . . Your former colleague.
Teammate.
Teammate, whatever.
Ha, well she was a million times the player I ever was. I mean, she went pro, for one thing. But I haven’t heard back from anyone from the old team. Do you think you could join us? So it’s not just me and her?
Ew, Jeremiah’s doing that bum-licking thing. I can hear it. Ew, ew. He’s really going for it. Get in there, buddy!
Adine, hey, it’d be nice if you came. I mean, you don’t have to decide now or anything. If it’s last minute, that’s fine. Just, you know, keep it mind. She’d love to see you.
She would? Or you feel bad you couldn’t raise a crowd?
Please?
Are you coming home first?
Didn’t I tell you about this thing out in Whitehall? With one of the older kids? Calum?
He’s — ew. Should we put one of those cones on him? Listen, I’ll hold the phone up.
Adine?
Did you hear that? It’s like, slurping. Do you think he has worms?
Anyway I might write it up for In the Know, this thing, it’s some sort of concert or something. And before you say anything, I know, slaving myself to Lanyess again, but we need the money. Or I do anyway. And then meeting Pearl, so. See you after? If not before?
What about dinner? Picture me, alone at the kitchen table eating corn from the can.
Meet us! We’re just going to the Barrel for wing night, it’s two minutes from the apartment. And if not to eat you could at least come by to say hi?
Silence on Adine’s end of the line.
The door jangled and slammed: the first kids arriving for Lunchtime Arts, three of them smacking one another with their knapsacks. Debbie held a finger to her lips, the kids hushed. Adine, she said, you there? I have to go.
Love me.
I do. I do!
Of course you do. You love everyone.
AT THE STROKE OF ONE, Sam called his sister.
It’s one o’clock Adine, he said. Time to do the work. Time’s a machine right Adine?
It sure is, Sammy. Thanks for calling. What’s on?
Salami Talk Adine, said Sam, and switched the phone to his other ear, clamped it against his shoulder. On 12 a tearful Knock Street florist was raving to Lucal Wagstaffe about being blackedup. When she finished, he leaned in with half-lidded eyes and murmured, How terrible, madam — but what are your feelings on spicy meat?
I can’t do this, said Adine. Anything else, please.
Flipping the dial Sam said, Are you ready for Monday Adine?
What’s Monday, buddy?
We’re thirty-six on Monday Adine. The end of the third hand.
Ha. Right.
And then it’s the end of the work right Adine? The end of time’s third hand when the machine stops and goes backward. All the way back to the beginning right?
Buddy, I get a little lost when you —
Then time’s machine will take us to thirty-six years ago okay, when we were zero and together okay Adine. Right Adine?
You want to get together for our birthday? You want to come out here? Sure . . .
Sam smeared his thumb into the worn arrow on his remote, the TV chunked from one channel to the next, through the hissing blizzard of channel 0, at 99 pictures appeared again. He paused on an infotainment program where neon graphics splashed across the screen to the zipping sounds of lasers. Sam watched.
What are you watching? What channel are you on?
He’s doing his trick tomorrow night at nine Adine, said Sam.
What? What channel?
Raven. This is what Isa Lanyess, In the Know, is saying now okay. Channel 83. She’s not saying what he’s doing yet — Raven.
Raven, ugh. Just the name.
It’s going to be in the park Adine. But it’ll be on TV too. Not even tape-delayed. Live.
Hey, buddy, the talking stuff — I’m good, okay? You don’t have to tell me that stuff. I can hear fine. It’s just seeing. So if there’s something to see, jump in there.
Sam said, Yes.
He watched and listened while Adine listened. Isa Lanyess, In the Know, was talking about the downtown movie theatre, Cinecity, where people could come if they wanted to watch what was happening everywhere else, all at once, on the bigscreen.
With all the We-TV Faces’ feeds, plus all the public cameras, there’ll be coverage of every neighbourhood in the city, Isa Lanyess said. So anything that Raven does will be projected live to anyone who wants to see it!
That’s kinda crazy, said Adine.
Who knows what he’ll do? said Isa Lanyess. We’re all really excited.
The woman doesn’t so much talk as bray. Don’t you think, Sammy?
It’s kinda crazy, said Sam. Why’s it kinda crazy Adine?
Buddy, that they can even do that sort of thing. Turn the city into a movie set, I mean.
And then don’t forget, said Isa Lanyess, starting on Saturday, Cinecity’s going to be broadcasting the Jubilee Spectacular, all weekend. And don’t forget All in Together Now, the movie for the people, by the people, that you all helped write and create!
Oh, wait, said Adine. This is the worst ever.
Ever Adine?
Ever.
The report ended. An ad for Salami Talk came on, a feline slink of bass guitars and saxophone beneath the sultry voice of its host: Tomorrow on Salami Talk we’ll —
Adine hit MUTE. This fuggin show, she growled. This fuggin guy.
They’re having Raven on tomorrow. As a guest.
Right.
Lucal Wagstaffe’s chin, said Sam, is a very big orange chin.
Hey, Sammy? How’s that thing on your face? Are you taking care of that?
Can we watch this interview Adine?
Don’t pick at it. Remember what the doctor said. And you got that ointment, make sure you’re putting that on. And food? Today’s grocery day, right? Make sure you go.
Yes. Adine? Raven’s on at one o’clock. That’s perfect, that’s when we do the work.
It is.
Adine?
Sammy?
I’m sorry.
You’re sorry.
Yes.
For?
Because you can’t see okay.
Oh. Ha. Right. Well thanks.
But we’re doing the work right Adine? We’re doing good communication. And it’s only Monday when it’s our birthday and we’re thirty-six and time’s machine —
; Indeed, buddy. I appreciate it.
Adine hung up and Sam sat for a moment with the phone pressed to his ear, waiting for the dialtone to be replaced by the machinations grinding away beneath the city’s surface. When it emerged, the sound was faint. Did that mean the machine was slowing? Sam wasn’t sure. He checked his three watches. The first two had stopped, their six hands aligned at midnight, the final watch’s three still wheeled. He put the receiver back in its cradle, looked around his room at the various parts and elements, trying to decide if a last-minute cog or gear required adding before the end.
Sam touched the scabby crust along his jawline, felt a loose flake, and pulled. The pain as it peeled from his cheek was lemony and sour, his eyes watered. The air was cold on the raw spot. He brushed his finger over the sore, paused, then stabbed inside. The hurt was sudden and sharp. Sam closed his eyes and said, This is time’s machine and not a dream, and gouged, and finally, gasping, pain blazing in his face, examined his fingertip: capped in a thimble of blood.
ON THE FERRY to Bay Junction Sam stood on the deck with his hands on the railing, the boat’s engines growled, the water frothed and sloshed, the day dimmed. An Islet-bound ferry passed transporting workers home from their downtown jobs, their own work. Citybound it was only Sam and an elderly man with his cane on his lap, whom Sam avoided. It was important workers were unseen, and good communication with Adine was important too, though Sam’s own work had many elements: good communication, proper attire, dream checks, systems maintenance — all of it, all the way to time’s reversal, and then they’d be at the beginning again, before everything went wrong and changed.
When the ferry arrived at the mainland Sam did not head down into Bay Junction Station as the old man did. He could walk to Street’s Milk & Things, though it was much farther than it had once been. When he and Adine were kids they’d lived so close that if his mother Connie needed milk for her coffee he could run over and get it before the water even boiled, though they had to go together, the Polyp’s products were often expired: you had to know the calendar, you had to check the dates.
Normally Sam walked, head down, up the path from Lakeview Campground into the woods, past the Friendly Farm Automatic Zoo and out beside the People Park Throughline, then down into the common and up through more woods, finally entering the clearing and past the houseboat to the glowing white sign of Street’s Milk & Things. But today Sam stopped at the edge of the poplars on the southern ridge of the common and stood for a moment, looking.
The common was empty, the muddy ground golden in the late-afternoon light. On television that morning the whole park had been teeming with bodies, all those bodies that existed within time’s machine, each body held a brain that made it a person, and each person had a mother and maybe a sister, or a brother, and friends, or at least other people they knew, and those people had brains and families, and more people attached to them, and it was endless, a great sprawling lattice of people and their brains upon people with more brains that grew and looped back upon itself and grew again, forever, yet everyone was so separate. Though soon time’s machine would bring them all together.
Deep underground (and monitored on Sam’s wrist) turned the three final hands, most people were oblivious, they just lived their lives. Which was fine. Only a select few could be responsible for the work, though Sam had to remind himself that anyone among the city’s bodies could be a worker — you didn’t know, you were only permitted to connect with two other workers. And his connects were Adine and the Polyp.
Atop the Grand Saloon Hotel the towerclock’s hands were locked at nine. Sam recalled Raven putting his fist to his forehead and his eyes opening and the nothing within them, they were just holes, and the clock had stopped. It had only two hands, was not official, its rotations were marked by minutes. So Sam stared at the clock and counted to sixty. The hands did not move. He counted again: nothing. Yet upon his own wrist his third watch still chipped away, seconds to minutes to hours . . .
Sam listened: birds chirruped and the leafless branches of the poplars creaked in a tired wind and on Parkside West cars went by with an airy, breathy sound — but there was no grinding of gears, no clank of levers, no steady drone of engines or tick of meters or hiss of valves from underground. The earth didn’t vibrate and hum. The towerclock was still. Sam touched his scab and felt pain. This was real. He looked out over the common and said, Hello? But to whom. The park was empty. There was nobody there.
STREET’S MILK & THINGS hadn’t changed since Sam was a kid: the sad clinking of the bells over the door as you entered, its owner the Polyp affixed to his stool behind the counter, everything furred with dust, you came out feeling grimy and damp. Near the door was a rack that held one yellowing dirty magazine and a poorly folded map, the scantily stocked shelves were organized by container type: boxes of cereal and detergent and nails, canned goods huddled together below — corn-in-a-can, catfood, motor oil, a labelless can, in black marker it asked: BEANS?
In the back of the store was a sign that heralded: MR. ADEMUS’S THINGS. Upon these shelves Sam filed the parts to be collected by another worker who passed them along to another worker to maintain time’s machine. Now though the shelves were empty. Everything was in place. The work was done. There was nothing to do now but wait for Monday, the end. But what about the towerclock, locked, and the silence —
Mr. Street the Polyp came waddling out from behind the counter. Hello, Mr. Ademus, once again. Old friend! As you can envisage for yourself, you’re a sellout. Success!
A hand came at him: a bulge of meat that slumped into a wrist, an arm, up to a humped shoulder, a neck lost under a sludge of chins. Grinning lips, yellow teeth, from the mouth a bad smell. But first the hand.
Grudgingly Sam took it: now Street had him, he squeezed. The fat man started ranting, nothing Sam wanted to hear — restribution this and historiographically that — all the while pumping Sam’s hand with his fat, hot hand. At last he pulled away grinning. Mr. Ademus!
Hi, said Sam, Mr. Street, but what about time’s machine? It’s stopped or I can’t hear it okay. And it’s supposed to be Monday that the machine reverses and time turns back, the third hands I mean. And do you think it’s Raven Mr. Street? Who might stop the work?
Pop shook his head sadly. Almost without refutation, he sighed. This charlating they’ve plotted upon our fair island, how could he not be balsamic of all your whoas?
And so? Should we do something Mr. Street?
Mr. Ademus, prehaps more work? More things, prehaps?
But should we try to stop him Mr. Street?
Unrefutably! He must — Pop looped an arm over Sam’s shoulders, placed his mouth to Sam’s ear, dropped his voice to a whisper — be stopped.
Okay.
Now, said Pop, clapping, Mr. Ademus, about you endowning me with new works.
Sam told him no.
Ah. So today you endown me only with shopping?
Sam told him yes.
Then beplease yourself and shop till you’ve dropped!
From the freezer Sam took a stack of nuclear meals, put them on the counter, and waited for Pop to ring them in.
Once again, Mr. Ademus, please consider these on my house. As grace for your things.
Sam took his groceries, turned to leave.
Until tomorrow, Mr. Ademus?
If there even is a tomorrow okay, said Sam, and headed out the jingling door, home.
VI
HE GRAND SALOON’S penthouse was in the cathedral’s former belfry. On either side of the suite’s door stood the watchmen of B-Squad: the Summoner — Starx — and Olpert Bailie.
Inside the room napped Raven, he needed his sleep, though who knew what he got up to in private, thought Olpert. There was something strange in his eyes — or, more, it seemed they weren’t there at all. The illustrationist had requested the A/C cranked, so the air was icy and brittle. Wh
ile Starx fiddled with the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt, Olpert shivered, blew into his hands, hugged himself.
Starx looked him over from head to toe and said, You haven’t thanked me yet, Belly.
Bailie, said Olpert. My name is Olpert Bailie.
Sure, sure.
You want me to thank you.
I knocked that kid the fug out!
A kid. You punched a kid.
He spat on you. And you were just standing there. What’s wrong with you?
Olpert had no idea what to do with this question.
You got a lady, Bailie?
A girlfriend.
Starx nodded.
Not currently.
You go out a lot?
Out?
To meet ladies.
Olpert thought about the last date he’d been on, nearly a year ago. His colleague Betty had set him up with her sister, Barbara, of the recent divorce and red leather pants. Things had been going fine, considering, until the nosebleed.
He shrugged. Sometimes, I guess.
Starx’s walkie-talkie crackled — Griggs, with instructions: at six p.m. they were to escort the illustrationist to the hotel’s banquet hall. The NFLM had taken the liberty of booking Olpert off work until Tuesday. So he’s all ours, said Griggs, all weekend. Then he recited the four pillars, traded Good lookin outs with Starx, and the radio went dead.
Listen, let me buy you a cider, said Starx, turning to Olpert, when we’re done tonight.
A cider.
Or two. Or nine. You ever been to the Golden Barrel?
In Upper Olde Towne ?
You sound nervous.
Nervous?
You’ll be fine with me. That’s my hood, been out there since — a while. Tell you what, we’ll do our business, bust outta here say eightish, and be over there to make wing night. The Barrel’s got a killer wing special till nine.
Wings.
Holy shet, yes.
Somewhere, the A/C came on with a whoosh. Olpert closed his eyes, shivered. Opened them.
And standing there was the illustrationist.