by Peter Ponzo
Chapter 21
I was a lousy student. I tried Electrical Engineering then switched to Civil Engineering as being less demanding, graduating at the bottom of my class. But I cultivated intelligent friends who were prepared to do my weekly assignments for the price of a beer or a bottle of cheap whiskey, and I was not above writing solutions to typical exam questions on my sleeve. In many cases I developed a close friendship with the secretaries of my professors. I would bring them flowers and, from time to time, they would let me use their computers over the lunch hour to type up an essay. At exam time, I'd browse through their files and find—voila—the final examinations on their hard disk.
When I graduated, I immediately borrowed money from friends and relatives to buy a small plastics manufacturer that was falling on hard times. It made plastic automobile parts that sold in department stores: sun visors, small fans that plugged into the cigar lighter, dolls that hung on the mirror, that kind of junk. I switched the product line to household miscellany and garden gadgets. The trick was to pick up a company on the rocks, but one with marketing skills and outlets across the country, then switch to a product which could be made in quantity, that everybody wanted. Within three years I had paid back the loans and saw another opportunity in medical supplies. Again I bought a small, but poorly run outfit whose primary product was sterile syringes. That meant they had a host of hospitals on their mailing list. I switched to pills. I bought in South America, importing without the knowledge of the Department of Health and undersold my competitors, my company name lending an air of respectability and trustworthiness to a questionable foreign product line. By the time I was thirty I was a millionaire, then I married Helen who brought another million to the household. Not too shabby for a boy from the wrong side.
When Lloyd Fleetsmith's daughter came to me, saying she had the weed her father had spoken of, and it actually worked, I knew I really had it made. I didn't want to appear overly optimistic, but I kept close tabs on Fran's research, looking into and taking copies of her computer files and visiting her lab at least twice a week, in the late evening when everyone had left. Only once had I surprised her at work. That was when I decided it was time to try her Dermafix on real people. I stole a vial and invited my secretary to administer the concoction. It was a pleasant evening; Josey was no amateur when it came to a body massage. She was a terrible secretary, but she had no qualms when it came to overtime in my apartment, or getting computer files from my competitors. In a way it had been a good thing when my wife left me. Helen was bad in bed and bad out of bed. She was a dreadful cook, an appalling conversationalist with a pea-sized brain—and she had an offensive body odour. But she did bring a million to consummate the marriage.
Josey administered the Dermafix in my apartment, on a Monday as I recall, because I had been thinking about it over the weekend. The next day I book into the Flanagan Motel on Hanover Beach, in Oakville. It's a run down facility that I intend to buy and rebuild, so my stay serves two purposes. I'd spend a few days there, checking the books and watching the effects of the Dermafix.
Within twenty-four hours I begin to feel light headed. It isn't a bad feeling. In fact, I never felt better. I have more energy and the various aches and pains I had grown accustomed to, they have somehow vanished. I seem to need little sleep so I spend the second night poring over the motel books and planning the motel expansion. I can use the place to put up company guests, with a bimbo companion, if necessary. Josey would do in a pinch.
The next evening something strange happens: I begin to shed what appears to be a smooth skin. What I thought was the elimination of the wrinkles of aging is just a smooth membrane. Beneath is a layer of what appears to be white shreds of silk, a mat of fluff. That worries me greatly. Maybe stealing the vial of Dermafix had been a mistake. Perhaps I had been somewhat hasty.
I spend the evening peeling it off, in the shower, then spend a fitful night, eventually falling asleep by three o'clock in the morning. Within an hour or two I awake, having difficulty breathing. I leap out of bed and run to the bathroom mirror. My body is completely covered in a thin, cream-colored membrane, again! Wrenching it from my face, I stagger back into the shower, scraping and tearing the membrane as I go. It seems almost to grow more quickly than I can remove it. I can't breath; the growth fills my nostrils. I fall to the shower floor, crawl to the motel door, open the door with difficulty, stagger out toward my car.
I hear the waves. I head toward the beach. I fall on the warm sand, pull the membrane from my face, gasp for air. The world seems to spin, distort, swim across my eyes in shadows that waver and die. Everything goes black.
I open my eyes. I see only darkness. Yet I feel somehow powerful. I see in my mind the vision of a beach, darkness, warm sand. I reach out to touch the sand but feel only hard steel. I am in a cage, a metal container, cold and featureless. I cry out in anger. It sounds like a growl. Scared. Then angry.
I throw my fist at the wall of my enclosure. It groans, bends. I pound the wall, again, again. It shrieks and falls away. I crawl from the drawer, turn and rip it from the wall, stagger to the end of the room, to the heavy door, push. It falls outward, into the hallway. The end of the hall—a window. I leave the building through that window. Pieces of broken glass on the outside lawn. A written language, on a sign, on the lawn. I look carefully at the sign, squinting, reading with difficulty. A morgue. I was in a morgue.
I walk for miles this night, along the highway, in the dark, along Cranberry Road to the beach. I follow the white sands to Hanover and break into my room at the Flanagan Motel. I don't know why I go back there. It seems the place to go, the thing to do. An instinct, impulse.
Young couple, sleeping in my bed. Before they move I tear the covers away, pull the young man from the bed. One blow. I break his neck. I am invincible. I can easily crush his skull with bare hands.
The girl screams. I express my discontent. It is a roar. I lift her from the bed, throw her to the wall. Her body falls silent to the floor. I feel dizzy, sway from side to side, moan quietly to myself. This is wrong. I am wrong.
I pick bodies from the floor, place each beneath an arm. They are rag dolls, weightless, limp. I stagger out the motel, beach, turn right, bridge, drop man's body in creek, turn again to beach.
Young woman lays by my side, dead. I sitting on sand, shaking head. Dizzy. Scared. Stare at my hands, dark, hairy, dim light. Not my hands. Not me. Feel funny. Gaze at girl, tear nightgown, stare at smooth skin, smooth, white. Put hand to her breast. My hand, wrinkled, crooked hand. Push to my feet, cry out, a roar, a thundering howl.
Return to motel room, walking bent, stooping, to bathroom, stare into mirror. Brow heavy, nose flat, beady eyes, hairy face.
I am gorilla.
PART EIGHT