1978 lines
82 KiB
Plaintext
1978 lines
82 KiB
Plaintext
======================================================
|
|
InterText Vol. 9, No. 6 / December 1999 - January 2000
|
|
======================================================
|
|
|
|
Contents
|
|
|
|
What Millie Would Choose.................Allison Sloane Gaylin
|
|
|
|
Blame It On the Pigeons..........................Russell Butek
|
|
|
|
Just a Little Y2K Problem......................Vincent Miskell
|
|
|
|
Shift.........................................G. L. Eikenberry
|
|
|
|
Amateur Night...................................Marcus Eubanks
|
|
|
|
These Are From New Year's Eve......................Craig Boyko
|
|
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
Editor Assistant Editor
|
|
Jason Snell Geoff Duncan
|
|
jsnell@intertext.com geoff@intertext.com
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
Submissions Panelists:
|
|
John Coon, Pat D'Amico, Joe Dudley, Diane Filkorn,
|
|
Morten Lauritsen, Heather Timer, Jason Snell
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
Send correspondence to editors@intertext.com or
|
|
intertext@intertext.com
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
InterText Vol. 9, No. 6. InterText (ISSN 1071-7676) is published
|
|
electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this
|
|
magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold
|
|
(either by itself or as part of a collection) and the entire
|
|
text of the issue remains unchanged. Copyright 1999 Jason Snell.
|
|
All stories Copyright 1999 by their respective authors. For more
|
|
information about InterText, send a message to
|
|
info@intertext.com. For submission guidelines, send a message to
|
|
guidelines@intertext.com.
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
What Millie Would Choose by Alison Sloane Gaylin
|
|
====================================================
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
She chose fame for herself and child. But someone
|
|
important didn't get a choice.
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
|
|
"What are you doing?" said Lynda's husband.
|
|
|
|
Lynda -- who was lying in bed on her back with her legs thrown
|
|
over her head, her toes touching the headboard and her privates
|
|
four inches away from her face -- replied, "Yoga?"
|
|
|
|
"Now?"
|
|
|
|
Lynda stared at herself and winced. She knew she'd have to tell
|
|
Dave at some point. But this was not the appropriate time. So
|
|
she stammered, "It feels wonderful to do this after sex. It
|
|
retains the sensation. I read about it in Cosmo."
|
|
|
|
"Can men do it too?"
|
|
|
|
"Sure."
|
|
|
|
She then watched her naked husband thrust his muscular, hairy
|
|
ass in the air, grunting and groaning and bending his knees as
|
|
he tried to kiss the headboard with the balls of his feet. "This
|
|
doesn't feel good at all," Dave said. He sounded as if he were
|
|
being politely strangled.
|
|
|
|
"Well, maybe it only works for women."
|
|
|
|
"Guess so." He eased his legs back down and placed his feet on
|
|
the floor. Before he got up to use the bathroom, Dave gave his
|
|
wife a quick look and wondered what she was thinking.
|
|
|
|
On this morning and in this position, there were only two words
|
|
in Lynda's mind: _retain_sperm_. Lynda wanted a Millennium Baby.
|
|
A baby, born on January 1, 2000, the closer to midnight the
|
|
better. A baby who would be famous from the moment she took air
|
|
into her brand new lungs; a baby who would land on the cover of
|
|
the New York Post before she so much as opened her eyes forthe
|
|
first time. How could this baby not be a success in life? How
|
|
could she not be eternally grateful to her mother, the woman who
|
|
screamed in agony while the rest of the world set off fireworks
|
|
and popped champagne corks and partied for the last time ever
|
|
like it was 1999 -- the woman who literally made her a star?
|
|
|
|
Lynda thought it was a fabulous idea, but she'd only mentioned
|
|
it once to her husband. He'd been in the midst of fixing the
|
|
kitchen sink. "Wouldn't it be fun to have a baby on New Year's,
|
|
Y2K?" she'd asked casually.
|
|
|
|
"Fun?" he'd replied, his voice bouncing off the pipes, the
|
|
wrench dropping on his knee and clattering to the floor.
|
|
"Ouch..."
|
|
|
|
"Well, maybe not fun," she'd said quickly. "More like...
|
|
important. Don't you think it would be important to have a baby
|
|
on New Year's, Y2K?"
|
|
|
|
"I guess so, honey," he'd said, as if the question and babies
|
|
and the year 2000 were all things from a distant, inhospitable
|
|
planet. "Can you grab that wrench for me?"
|
|
|
|
Lynda had sighed, squeezed Dave's foot, and handed him his
|
|
unreachable tool. "Well," she'd muttered. "That's that, I
|
|
suppose."
|
|
|
|
Of course, that wasn't _that_ at all. Lynda checked out five
|
|
fertility books from the library, calculated her ideal
|
|
conception week and got to work.
|
|
|
|
Dave was smart, but not terribly perceptive, especially when it
|
|
came to Lynda. In the past four years, she'd had many private
|
|
plans in which Dave had been an unwitting co-conspirator --
|
|
getting engaged, marrying, quitting her PR job and becoming a
|
|
homemaker, buying the house in Forrest Hills. With a mysterious
|
|
silence here, a feigned disinterest in sex there, the seemingly
|
|
unintentional rearranging of schedules and, occasionally, the
|
|
carefully timed utilization of the Big Guns (tears), Lynda could
|
|
get Dave to do practically anything.
|
|
|
|
She never felt guilty about her spousal adjustments because,
|
|
whether he knew it or not, Dave more or less shared her
|
|
feelings. This one, though. The Millennium Baby. (She'd already
|
|
named her Millie.) This one was beginning to get to her. After
|
|
all, Dave had repeatedly told her he wasn't ready to have
|
|
children. She'd repeatedly assured him she was taking her pills.
|
|
He'd repeatedly responded, "Okay, honey. I trust you."
|
|
|
|
Would he honestly believe this pregnancy was an accident? Would
|
|
he honestly catch Lynda's case of Millennium Fever? Would he
|
|
honestly learn to accept fatherhood, or would he just pack up
|
|
his golf clubs and his Aerosmith tapes and leave his sensitive
|
|
young wife and famous little Millie forever and ever and ever?
|
|
|
|
Now, _that_ would be some Post headline, Lynda thought ruefully.
|
|
Y2KISS OFF: MILLENNIUM BABY DITCHED IN DELIVERY ROOM!
|
|
|
|
Lynda lowered her legs and stared at the ceiling. She could
|
|
actually _feel_ Dave's life-makers swimming toward their
|
|
destination. She'd worked so hard at this, monitoring her
|
|
temperature, reading up on tantric, sperm-welcoming exercises,
|
|
sneaking vitamin E extract, zinc and dong quai into Dave's
|
|
morning coffee like slow-working poisons. She couldn't afford
|
|
second thoughts now. It was exactly nine months before the dawn
|
|
of a new millennium, and the future bucked and roiled before her
|
|
like a sharp current from which there was no turning back. Lynda
|
|
Tompkins was fertilized. She knew it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
For lack of a proper way to tell him, Lynda managed to hide the
|
|
early pregnancy symptoms from her husband. Morning sickness was
|
|
a no-brainer, as it typically accosted her after Dave left for
|
|
work. The only other noticeable symptom, heightened emotional
|
|
fragility, she tried her best to keep a lid on.
|
|
|
|
When she finally erupted in tears one night during Letterman's
|
|
monologue, Lynda managed to gasp "PMS!" before he grew too
|
|
curious.
|
|
|
|
All the while, she kept thinking of Millie -- thoroughly modern
|
|
Millie -- still only cell-sized, but growing larger every
|
|
second. Funny how few people knew of her now -- just Lynda and
|
|
her gynecologist -- but how many would know of her in the
|
|
future.
|
|
|
|
Crude as it sounded, she and Dave could cash in big time on
|
|
Millie's fame. Diaper and baby food companies would surely want
|
|
to put her face on their labels. Pampers: The Official Diaper of
|
|
the Millennium Baby. It didn't sound too far-fetched to Lynda,
|
|
who had seen many farther fetched things during her years in
|
|
public relations.
|
|
|
|
If Millie made them enough money, then Dave could quit his job
|
|
at the insurance firm and do what he always wanted to do. Alone
|
|
in the house, poring over her secret copy of "What to Expect
|
|
when You're Expecting," Lynda tried to remember what Dave always
|
|
wanted to do.
|
|
|
|
Oh, yes, she recalled dismally. Sail around the world.
|
|
|
|
Still, Dave will understand. She said it aloud for emphasis,
|
|
repeated it three times, like a mantra. Then she ran to the
|
|
bathroom and threw up.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
At a little over four months, Lynda's morning sickness abated,
|
|
but there was another symptom she couldn't hide. Dave noticed
|
|
it, but hoped it would go away before he actually had to bring
|
|
it up. It wasn't something you wanted to bring up with any woman
|
|
-- especially a woman as sensitive as his wife. But facts were
|
|
facts, and this fact was alarming. Lynda -- a firm
|
|
twenty-nine-year-old with a trim waist and thighs as smooth as
|
|
glass -- was beginning to develop a gut. Her heart-shaped face
|
|
was growing rounder and her large breasts were bordering on
|
|
pendulous.
|
|
|
|
Three nights in a row, he'd come home from work and found her
|
|
sitting on the couch, finishing a pint of Ben & Jerry's in front
|
|
of Live and Let Live. He'd discovered two -- _two_ -- empty
|
|
containers of chocolate sauce in the trash -- not to mention all
|
|
those wrappers. His wife had always liked cheese, but this was
|
|
unnatural. She was inhaling cheddar and Monterey jack.
|
|
|
|
Dave didn't know much about psychology, but the weight gain, the
|
|
chocolate sauce, the sudden obsession with dairy products -- it
|
|
all had to mean something.
|
|
|
|
|
|
I'll bet it's my fault, he thought guiltily. Maybe she's bored
|
|
in the suburbs. Maybe I'm taking her for granted. Maybe the sex
|
|
isn't good. Maybe she's substituting cheese for love.
|
|
|
|
He waited until after Letterman's monologue, because he knew how
|
|
it tended to upset her. (And what exactly was that about?) A
|
|
commercial came on, and Lynda jumped out of bed to fix herself a
|
|
snack.
|
|
|
|
That's my cue, Dave thought, and grabbed her wrist.
|
|
|
|
"Honey," he said softly. "What's wrong?"
|
|
|
|
Lynda's face flushed. "What do you mean?"
|
|
|
|
Dave took a deep breath. "Well, I've noticed a... a change in
|
|
you."
|
|
|
|
"What?"
|
|
|
|
"Lynda. You're still beautiful. The most beautiful girl I know.
|
|
But... I mean... You're really packing on the pounds, honey."
|
|
|
|
Lynda stared at her husband. The powerful warring forces of
|
|
guilt and vanity played tug of war with her soul until she felt
|
|
like crying out in agony. But that would only make matters
|
|
worse. She needed to get a grip. This situation was, after all,
|
|
quite simple. It all came down to two questions, which Lynda
|
|
quickly spelled out for herself: Do I want him to know that I
|
|
lied to him about getting pregnant, or do I want him to think
|
|
I'm a blimp?
|
|
|
|
Liar or blimp? she thought. Liar or blimp?
|
|
|
|
The words chased each other around inside Lynda's skull, until
|
|
she finally cornered them, grabbed them and weighed them, one at
|
|
a time. Liar... Blimp.
|
|
|
|
"Oh, for God's sake," she exploded. "Dave, I'm not fat. I'm
|
|
pregnant. I know you didn't want to have a baby yet, but this
|
|
baby is going to be so incredibly special. A Millennium Baby,
|
|
Dave. Do you know what that means? A once-in-a-thousand-years
|
|
opportunity. Our baby will be _born_ famous. And you'll be
|
|
famous too. You're going to be the father of a baby born on New
|
|
Year's 2000, Dave. You're going to be in all the papers. You're
|
|
going to be on the Today show. And don't you worry, honey. If I
|
|
can't push this baby out by midnight sharp, I'm getting a
|
|
caesarian. You know how, when I set my mind to things, I get
|
|
them? Well, this is one of those times. I'm getting it, honey.
|
|
I'm getting it for you, for me, for us. After our Millennium
|
|
Baby is born, you won't have to worry about anything ever
|
|
again."
|
|
|
|
During this entire monologue, Lynda had kept her eyes shut
|
|
tight, as if she were in prayer. It wasn't until she'd finished
|
|
speaking and opened them that she realized her husband had left
|
|
the bedroom.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
So Dave could tolerate a blimp, but not a liar. Lynda should
|
|
have known this. It was one of the many ways in which they
|
|
differed. "It's easier to lose weight than to gain trust," Dave
|
|
had said to her, after she'd chased him into the living room,
|
|
begging his forgiveness. He'd delivered the sentence in an
|
|
infuriatingly patient monotone. And, since it had been one of
|
|
the last things he'd ever said to her, it still rang in her ears
|
|
nearly five months later as she sat, huge and alone, in her den,
|
|
with her sorry white aluminum Christmas tree (at least she'd
|
|
been able to carry it) standing rigidly in front of the
|
|
fireplace and "It's A Wonderful Life" playing on the VCR for the
|
|
fifth time that day.
|
|
|
|
"George Bailey lassoes stork!" whispered Donna Reed again. Lynda
|
|
mouthed the words along with her.
|
|
|
|
This had to be Lynda's loneliest Christmas ever, and yet her
|
|
mantle was covered in cards. There was one from nearly every
|
|
print and electronic news outlet in New York -- editors, TV
|
|
producers, on-air personalities, radio talk show hosts. All it
|
|
had taken was a cleverly written one-sheet on baby pink paper, a
|
|
handful of confetti and an 8-by-10 glossy of Lynda's cherubic,
|
|
still-pretty face to make them all want to ride shotgun on the
|
|
Millie Bandwagon. "Merry Christmas!" the cards shouted out in
|
|
fresh red, green and gold ink. "Can we get an exclusive?"
|
|
|
|
Several articles had already been written about Lynda's quest to
|
|
be The Millennium Mom of New York City. By the time the
|
|
Christmas season shifted into high gear, she'd appeared on
|
|
several local news shows and Entertainment Tonight; she'd turned
|
|
down a phoner with Howard Stern; and she'd received parenting
|
|
tips, live, from both Regis and Kathie Lee. Unemployed or not,
|
|
separated or not, friendless or not, fat or not, Lynda remained
|
|
a superb publicist.
|
|
|
|
An envelope with Dave's clumsy handwriting on it lay in the
|
|
center of the coffee table. Though she'd found it in the mailbox
|
|
the previous day, she still hadn't opened it. After all, she
|
|
knew what was inside. Dave had been sending her checks every
|
|
month since he left. He never sent a note, or a description of
|
|
his whereabouts, or anything other than the check itself, with
|
|
"child support" written on the short memo line in the lower left
|
|
hand corner. Lynda justifiably took this as a dig. Since Millie
|
|
hadn't been born yet, the only child Dave was supporting was his
|
|
estranged wife. Though she always deposited the checks, Lynda
|
|
didn't take much pleasure in opening the envelopes.
|
|
|
|
On the TV screen, Donna Reed was painting the walls of her
|
|
drafty old house, which was quickly filling up with children.
|
|
Lynda reached for the tub of Heath Bar Crunch and discovered it
|
|
empty. For a few moments, she contemplated making a grilled
|
|
cheese sandwich, but she didn't feel so much like getting up to
|
|
do it.
|
|
|
|
Lynda picked up the envelope and slowly opened it. The check
|
|
fell out. So did a handwritten note on plain white paper:
|
|
|
|
Dear Lynda,
|
|
|
|
I hope you are doing well. I haven't written you all
|
|
these months because I have been too angry to do so. But
|
|
I want you to know I still care for you and have been
|
|
thinking about you a whole lot. I would like to see you,
|
|
but only under one condition: Please call off the
|
|
publicity, and make the birth of our child private. I
|
|
guess I'm ready to be a dad, but not Dad of the
|
|
Millennium Baby. I don't think it's right to make money
|
|
off of a baby, and I hope you understand my feelings.
|
|
|
|
I've saved up enough money to take a three-month hiatus
|
|
from work. If you have the baby privately (and as far
|
|
from midnight on January 1 as possible), I will move
|
|
back in and spend the three months caring for you both.
|
|
But if I see the kid on the Today show, we're through. I
|
|
will continue to send child support, but I will spend my
|
|
hiatus where I'll know I belong: on a sailboat.
|
|
|
|
With love and hope,
|
|
|
|
Dave
|
|
|
|
After rereading the note several times, Lynda found herself
|
|
smiling, and realized it was the first time she'd smiled with no
|
|
TV cameras rolling since Dave had left.
|
|
|
|
"Well," she whispered. "Well, well, well..."
|
|
|
|
She shifted her weight on the couch, and let her eyes wander
|
|
from the letter to the television screen. Uncle Billie was
|
|
misplacing the deposit money again, and Lynda knew she had a lot
|
|
to think about.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
He wouldn't take no for an answer. This will be Lynda's excuse.
|
|
I tried to beg out of it, but he wouldn't let me be.
|
|
|
|
Of course, this is not an excuse; it is the truth. But
|
|
everything sounds like an excuse to Lynda now. She's sitting at
|
|
Le Cirque 2000, eating a huge goat cheese omelet, formulating
|
|
true excuses in her head at one in the afternoon on December 27,
|
|
1999, as she stares into the chlorine blue eyes of the man who
|
|
wouldn't take no for an answer: Jeff Jeffreys, Action News
|
|
anchor and prime pursuer of Lynda's self-generated Y2K baby
|
|
story. He wants to be the only reporter in the delivery room
|
|
with Lynda. It'll be very tasteful, he's repeatedly assured her
|
|
-- soft lighting, one hand-held camera, one stationary camera,
|
|
placed unobtrusively in the corner for "visual variety," and
|
|
Jeff. With admirable tact, he's extolled the potential ratings
|
|
of such a once-in-a-lifetime TV event, remarking that little
|
|
Millie could easily rake in more viewers than the Times Square
|
|
Ball. Though she still has major reservations, Lynda is
|
|
admittedly thrilled at the prospect of beating the Ball. And
|
|
Jeff, who senses her enthusiasm all too acutely, is preparing to
|
|
drop a shiny, new ball of his own.
|
|
|
|
"Lynda," the tousle-haired anchorman whispers seductively as he
|
|
leans over his untouched mesculin salad. "Think of your baby.
|
|
Think of her future." He reminds Lynda of Dr. Mike from Live and
|
|
Let Live.
|
|
|
|
"But Jeff," Lynda replies, sounding not unlike Dr. Mike's
|
|
terminally ill love interest, Carrington. "My baby needs a
|
|
father."
|
|
|
|
"We will compensate you... generously," Jeff says, breaking the
|
|
soap opera spell. "You won't get that from 20/20."
|
|
|
|
Lynda shoves a forkful of omelet into her mouth and chews
|
|
slowly. She thinks about Dave's offer, then the potentially huge
|
|
offer from Jeff Jeffreys' employers, then Dave's offer again.
|
|
"What would Millie choose?" she wonders, but only briefly. After
|
|
all, Millie couldn't choose anything. Millie can't even breathe
|
|
on her own.
|
|
|
|
Wordlessly, Jeff pulls a Mont Blanc pen out of the jacket pocket
|
|
of his Calvin Klein suit. He plucks Lynda's pink one-sheet out
|
|
of another pocket, folds it in half, and writes a dollar amount
|
|
on the back. Staring deeply into Lynda's eyes, he slides the
|
|
folded press release across the table to her like a boxed
|
|
engagement ring.
|
|
|
|
Lynda reads the dollar amount and gasps. Her eyes moisten and
|
|
grow wide. She wants to give Jeff the go-ahead immediately, but
|
|
she can't. In her mind, she sees Dave, turning his back to her
|
|
like he did when he packed his small suitcase five months ago.
|
|
He's going to divorce me if I say yes to this, she thinks. But,
|
|
then again, Dave has never seen such a fat sum, written so
|
|
clearly on a pink piece of paper. I bet he was just bluffing in
|
|
the letter, she tries to tell herself. He wouldn't really
|
|
divorce me. Of course, she never thought he'd leave her either.
|
|
|
|
Lynda looks at Jeff's handwriting again. She can feel the
|
|
anchor's bright eyes on her, their minds intertwining as they
|
|
both envision the money, which could pay at least half of
|
|
Millie's Ivy League tuition. I'll be able to change Dave's mind,
|
|
Lynda finally decides, one way or another.... She opens her
|
|
mouth; but before she can say anything, a wave of pain overtakes
|
|
her and she cries out. "Oooh, she's kicking," Lynda sputters.
|
|
|
|
Jeff's teeth sparkle. "She's trying to tell you something,
|
|
Lynda," he says softly.
|
|
|
|
Lynda readjusts herself in her chair, thinking he may indeed be
|
|
right. She takes a deep breath and again begins to accept Jeff's
|
|
offer, but then another, fiercer cramp detonates deep within her
|
|
womb. What are you doing, Millie? Lynda thinks.
|
|
|
|
She clears her throat, envisions Dave on a small sailboat in the
|
|
Caribbean. Then, she pictures Millie and herself flying high
|
|
above him in a private jet. She wishes she could transfer this
|
|
image into the mind of her thrashing child. And, when the pain
|
|
subsides, she thinks maybe she's succeeded.
|
|
|
|
"Jeff," she says firmly. "I would be glad to... aaah!"Another,
|
|
horrific cramp barrels through her. Lynda's eyes begin to well
|
|
up with tears. Stop it, stop it, stop it, she thinks -- or says.
|
|
She isn't sure.
|
|
|
|
"Stop what?"
|
|
|
|
"Nothing, Jeff!" Lynda nearly screams. She crosses her legs
|
|
hard, seizes the arms of her chair and braces herself against
|
|
the pain. "Oh no you don't!" she hisses. "Get back up there."
|
|
|
|
"What?!"
|
|
|
|
"Oh, Jeff. I... This offer is so generous. And it really is for
|
|
my baby's own good!" Lynda grits her teeth. As her face turns a
|
|
deep, purplish red, she tries to ignore the older couple,
|
|
staring at her from the neighboring table.
|
|
|
|
"Is she okay?" the matron stage-whispers to Jeff.
|
|
|
|
If Lynda could only separate her thighs enough to do so, she'd
|
|
get up from her seat and pop the interloping old broad right in
|
|
the mouth. But of course she can't. The only one asserting
|
|
herself here is Millie. And she's doing it with greater and
|
|
greater resolve.
|
|
|
|
"Lynda," says Jeff. "I'm waiting for your decision."
|
|
|
|
Lynda squeaks, "I just don't know how I could possibly say no...
|
|
No! No! Nooooooo!"
|
|
|
|
Her water has broken.
|
|
|
|
"Goddammit!" Lynda yells. It is the first time that anyone's
|
|
voice has attained such a high decibel level in Le Cirque 2000.
|
|
|
|
She watches the waiter call for an ambulance, watches Jeff grab
|
|
the one-sheet and run away, watches customers and wait staff
|
|
she's never seen before help her out of her chair and carry her
|
|
to the door.
|
|
|
|
"It's okay," says the young, goateed busboy who supports her as
|
|
the ambulance pulls up. "It's okay."
|
|
|
|
"No it's not!" Lynda shrieks. "It's only December 27th!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wherever Dave Tompkins has been staying all these months, it
|
|
must be close to Lenox Hospital, because despite the near-record
|
|
speed of Lynda's labor, Dave arrives early enough to hold her
|
|
hand throughout most of the contractions.
|
|
|
|
"It's gonna be okay, honey," he keeps saying. It's the first
|
|
time Lynda has heard Dave's voice in nearly half a year. She'd
|
|
forgotten how soothing it could be.
|
|
|
|
Labor is like nothing Lynda has ever experienced. It's truly and
|
|
absolutely overwhelming. When you're in labor, there is no room
|
|
in your thought process for plotting or fantasy or pretense or
|
|
goal-setting, or anything even remotely related to the future.
|
|
Your brain, like your body, is filled to capacity with the
|
|
present business -- the labor -- that literally cries out for
|
|
completion. That said, Lynda is still unexpectedly grateful for
|
|
her husband's hand in hers, for his voice telling her that it's
|
|
gonna be okay.
|
|
|
|
As Millie takes her first, hollering breath, there are no
|
|
reporters, no satellite feeds, no cameras capturing images of
|
|
her tiny hands grasping gently at the air around her. Millie's
|
|
only audience consists of a doctor, three nurses and the two
|
|
people in the world who will always want to watch her. Thank
|
|
God, Lynda thinks.
|
|
|
|
Lynda feels the weight of little Millie in her arms and the
|
|
weight of Dave's hand on her shoulder.She looks deep into her
|
|
husband's eyes and sees the kindness that's always been there
|
|
and the tears, which are new, and realizes now, on this
|
|
fifth-to-last afternoon of our second millennium, that in the
|
|
future, she may be wise to let Millie make all the important
|
|
decisions.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Alison Sloane Gaylin (amgaylin@aol.com)
|
|
-----------------------------------------
|
|
Alison Sloane Gaylin is a freelance writer in upstate New York
|
|
and a graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of
|
|
Journalism. InterText stories written by Alison Sloane Gaylin
|
|
include "Getting Rid of January" (v8n2) and "Rules for
|
|
Breathing" (v9n1).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Blame it on the Pigeons by Russell Butek
|
|
============================================
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
Who you callin' a birdbrain?
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
|
|
He was yanked awake by a chorus and a storm. At least that's
|
|
what his subconscious served up for him. When he opened his eyes
|
|
-- slowly, for fear of daylight and its effects -- he found
|
|
himself laying on his side, staring across a dim, dusty, lumpy
|
|
floor. At the far end, lightly dusted by slatted moonlight, a
|
|
flutter of pigeons were landing, puffing themselves up with a
|
|
stiff, formal dignity, looking about pretentiously as if to say
|
|
_they_ had never done anything so ungainly as actually fly.
|
|
|
|
Pigeons. That must have been where the storm came from. What a
|
|
letdown. He much preferred the missing memories that his
|
|
shredded bit of dream suggested over this filthy floor.
|
|
|
|
He remembered planning to go to the Carnival, but he couldn't
|
|
remember whether he had gone. He imagined so. He hoped he had a
|
|
good time, for all the pain he was in. What a pity he couldn't
|
|
remember.
|
|
|
|
A particularly pertinent recollection would have been his reason
|
|
for being here. He guessed that _here_ was some church tower.
|
|
There were enough hints: the pigeons, the slatted windows, and a
|
|
rope dangling from the darkness and sinking through a hole in
|
|
the encrusted floor near his head. _Here_ he could deal with.
|
|
_How_ didn't much bother him, either. But _why_ was the serious
|
|
question. What inebriated streams of consciousness had led him
|
|
to this place?
|
|
|
|
Yet his frail mind wasn't ready to tackle a question of such
|
|
weight for fear of breakage. So thinking was out. He was no
|
|
longer sleepy, so he felt obligated to do something -- but under
|
|
the circumstances disobeying the laws of inertia did not seem
|
|
like a good idea. In fact, he suspected that physical exertion
|
|
was to be feared even above mental. Yet he had managed to open
|
|
his eyes without any serious permanent injury -- as long as he
|
|
had blinked slowly -- so he opted for the only activity left:
|
|
staring where his head pointed, which was toward the silly
|
|
critters at the other end of the bell tower, blustering and
|
|
prancing about as if at an Elizabethan ball.
|
|
|
|
Stupid birds.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sombulus began, "We _must_ decide tonight! The Event is
|
|
progressing as planned, and the point of no return is upon us.
|
|
Do we halt The Event or do we do nothing?"
|
|
|
|
From Bombusterbuss, "I say do nothing. Let The Event occur.
|
|
There is some risk, as I've shown before, but we have plenty of
|
|
time to prepare ourselves for the crossing of Their millennium
|
|
to find shelter for the short duration of the crisis. Afterward,
|
|
Their menace will be greatly diminished and our evolutionary
|
|
research will no longer be faced with the impossible burden of
|
|
time."
|
|
|
|
Fillibut and Penniloe were terrified of The Event. They echoed
|
|
each other in a chorus pitched to heights of alarmed fright,
|
|
though they did their best to keep panic from their arguments,
|
|
"Their menace will be greatly diminished, you say. How greatly?
|
|
Your projections show that Their destructiveness will probably
|
|
not escalate to dangerous levels, but your philosophy's
|
|
projections have been wrong before. The medieval plagues were
|
|
projected to evenly distribute Their reduction. But you remember
|
|
what happened. Entire communities vanished. For the short term,
|
|
those of us living in those communities prospered -- Their
|
|
stores were freely open to us. But they were also open to
|
|
others. The fox. The wolf. The weasel. Where the plague had
|
|
destroyed Them, the carnivores soon destroyed us. Are the risks
|
|
suitably minimized this time?"
|
|
|
|
Phulphertibig was adamantly against The Event as well. "And what
|
|
of the individual? Their higher societies are breaking down. We
|
|
agreed to that half a century ago and more. But a side-effect of
|
|
that breakdown is greater individual influence. None of your
|
|
philosophies, old or new, has yet managed to adequately codify
|
|
the individual."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
He had never seen pigeons act so strangely before. They were
|
|
supposed to be mindless, chaos-driven creatures, twitching at
|
|
everything.
|
|
|
|
But tonight their prancing about didn't look at all random. They
|
|
were still twitching, but it all seemed more... uniform. And
|
|
their cooing -- that heavenly chorus -- seemed quite odd.
|
|
|
|
Forget it. He was thinking too much. It still hurt.
|
|
|
|
Strangely enough, their odd strains didn't seem to add to his
|
|
addlement. He might even be convinced that their voices were
|
|
soothing, though maybe he was just plain feeling better. No
|
|
matter. If it meant his hangover would evaporate, he could lay
|
|
here watching and listening for hours.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Phulphertibig was still droning on. "Their individual has freer
|
|
access to Their mass-destruction capabilities than they have
|
|
ever had in the past. If only a single significant bomb or
|
|
biological agent..."
|
|
|
|
Idle Feather couldn't stand the Phlutter Beak any longer. He had
|
|
to interrupt.
|
|
|
|
"We cannot tolerate the collateral damage to ourselves from even
|
|
one such act. We recommend stopping The Event." He wasn't quite
|
|
sure who the _we_ was, but it stopped the incessant fluttering
|
|
of his compatriot.
|
|
|
|
Phasogordo, who had worked hard for The Event, squeaked out a
|
|
frustrated rebuttal, "But this is a chance of a millennium! We
|
|
will not have Their entire population quaking over a single
|
|
event again for centuries. We cannot afford to waste such a
|
|
global trigger!"
|
|
|
|
Hux cooed back, "Why not? We have many smaller, safer triggers
|
|
in place. True, we could accomplish much with this one trigger,
|
|
but there's a chance -- however small, it is still a chance --
|
|
that this trigger would result, not in reduction, but in
|
|
complete elimination."
|
|
|
|
Fillibut and Penniloe babbled again, losing control over their
|
|
panic, "Elimination! You hear her? Elimination! That doesn't
|
|
mean just Them. It also means us!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
He was definitely feeling better now. Although he wasn't
|
|
supposed to be thinking, his mind must have been doing a bit
|
|
covertly, because he suddenly had an idea for some fun. It
|
|
required a little movement, but it was stealthy movement, and he
|
|
was particularly attuned to perform such at the moment. Since
|
|
any motion painfully reminded him of the good time he must have
|
|
had during the Carnival, the slower he moved, the less he hurt.
|
|
And that kept him slow enough that the pigeons certainly weren't
|
|
going to notice.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hux still had the floor. "Many of the controls we have used in
|
|
the past are still available to us. Why use something untested
|
|
and drastic when plagues and other diseases have done quite
|
|
well, despite the opinions of some of us here? Famine and
|
|
disaster have been equally useful. And we can always find
|
|
another Luther or Lenin. And while an Attila or a Hitler is no
|
|
longer safe since Their destructive engines have become so
|
|
effective in the last few centuries that Their wars now take us
|
|
with Them, we're still a long way from breeding violence out of
|
|
Them. We can still use war on a small scale. We've been quite
|
|
successful on that point even in our own times, in Africa and
|
|
the Balkans, for instance."
|
|
|
|
Ufus the Brown pipped in dreamily, "Yes, Luther! We mustn't
|
|
forget our old friend religion. One of our best controls. It has
|
|
done wonders to keep Them in check with all the crusades and
|
|
jihads and pogroms and whatnot. And don't forget these wonderful
|
|
community halls Their religions have built for us. Yes, let's
|
|
not forget religion."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
He never saw a pigeon in the country, though he imagined they
|
|
must be there. They had to be much more virtuous than their city
|
|
cousins. He could respect the noble, hardworking, country folk.
|
|
He even considered himself charitable enough to go so far as to
|
|
offer a bit of bread in admiration to such a noble savage.
|
|
|
|
But their city cousins? They deserved nothing but contempt. Life
|
|
was too easy in the city, with all the attics and churches and
|
|
abandoned buildings for them to live in, and with all the
|
|
garbage heaps for them to live on and all the gullible people
|
|
that actually fed them.
|
|
|
|
He took a certain pleasure in harassing every pigeon he
|
|
encountered -- mitigating circumstances such as Carnival
|
|
revelries aside. And as for the fools who fed them, they made
|
|
the pigeons' lives easy beyond reason. They deserved special
|
|
scorn.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Gavrilliac retorted, "But our controls are weakening! We thought
|
|
we were breaking down their civilizations, but it's taking so
|
|
long! They've become so complacent that they have begun to make
|
|
war, not on themselves, but on us. On us!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
He had a theory about pigeons. Is it pure chance that cities
|
|
have been good for them? Of course not! They designed the
|
|
cities, you see. We _built_ them, but it's the pigeons that made
|
|
us build. We toss out all this garbage, but it's the pigeons
|
|
that make us wasteful. We do all the work, and the pigeons live
|
|
off our leavings. Their dumber-than-a-rock image is all just an
|
|
act.
|
|
|
|
Why haven't we chased them out of the cities? We got rid of the
|
|
rats, didn't we? (He didn't really know for sure, but he
|
|
couldn't imagine a modern city with such an archaic pestilence
|
|
as rats.) No sensible city allows livestock within its limits,
|
|
does it? No tigers or wolves or bears. Then why do we allow
|
|
pigeons? Simple. Because we don't have any say in the matter.
|
|
It's the other way around. Pigeons allow us.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
By this time, Peckelscot was wholly disgusted. "Enough of this
|
|
nonsense! We're approaching a crisis and we have an opportunity
|
|
to forestall this crisis. From the beginning we bred Them to be
|
|
prolific, and we induced cultural constraints to enforce that
|
|
breeding. They died off so easily during most of Their existence
|
|
that we had no choice. But now They are exceeding Their bounds,
|
|
and They will continue to do so. In the last few centuries we
|
|
have begun a new breeding program, giving Them reasons other
|
|
than procreation to exist. This program is finally beginning to
|
|
take hold in Their more advanced countries, and the
|
|
corresponding societal pressures are becoming mainstay --
|
|
women's rights, environmental consciousness, and the like. But
|
|
things like this take time, and we have had almost no success at
|
|
all with most of Their populations. It will take centuries --
|
|
centuries we do not have. If gone unchecked, They will choke
|
|
this world, and us with it, in a matter of decades, a century or
|
|
two at the outside."
|
|
|
|
Bombusterbuss finally heard someone he could coo with. "Yes!
|
|
Their populations are ballooning. They're living longer. They
|
|
are outpacing our controls. Do you know how long some analysts
|
|
give until all our controls are useless? Two or three lifetimes.
|
|
That's all! We don't even have the two centuries that my
|
|
esteemed colleague optimistically opines. We _must_ take drastic
|
|
action, despite the risks." He unconsciously lifted a claw and
|
|
flexed it. "We _must_ weaken Them now!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If his theory were correct, then perhaps this very gaggle -- no,
|
|
that was geese; what's a flock of pigeons? a clutch? a coop?
|
|
make it a belfry -- perhaps this belfry is a conclave of their
|
|
leaders. He had never seen pigeons act as strangely as these.
|
|
Perhaps the fate of the world lay in the hands, er, beaks, of
|
|
this bedraggled toss of feathers.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Someone pondered aloud wistfully, "If we only had another
|
|
millennium without the risk of Their chaos, another millennium
|
|
to breed Them to our liking, there we might find Utopia."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
His theory was grand for all its possibilities. But he really
|
|
didn't believe in it. Pigeons were just stupid, brainless birds.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sombulus quietly interceded, and a hush swept through the room,
|
|
"We did not come here to argue. We've all heard each other
|
|
before. We came here to vote. All in favor of letting The Event
|
|
run its cour..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
He was finally in position. For the love of a lark he threw his
|
|
agonies to the wind and yanked the rope, and the pigeons were
|
|
scattered in a frenzy by the spirited bells.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Russell Butek (butek@attglobal.net)
|
|
-------------------------------------
|
|
Russell Butek is a nomadic software type who can't decide where
|
|
he really wants to live. He grew up in the Cold White North of
|
|
Wisconsin and got his education there, and has lived on the east
|
|
coast, west coast, and places in between, along with a brief
|
|
stint in Munich -- a city, like all of Europe, firmly in the
|
|
grip of the pigeons. He currently lives in Austin, Texas.
|
|
InterText stories written by Russell Butek include "The Web"
|
|
(v6n6) and "Grendel" (v8n5).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Just a Little Y2K Problem by Vincent Miskell
|
|
================================================
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
Of course chaos can be your enemy. But sometimes it can be
|
|
your ally.
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
|
|
As long as enough things go wrong, Jay thinks his plan will be
|
|
perfect.
|
|
|
|
Running shoes, blond-gray wig, makeup and mirror, black tennis
|
|
shoes, water bottle, tool kit, firecrackers, and C4 -- almost
|
|
everything for the job is neatly packed into a woman's black
|
|
leather mini-backpack. The solid green-glass fake champagne
|
|
bottle he picked up in St. Louis (by bribing the clerk in the
|
|
liquor store $30) can be carried by its gold foil-covered neck
|
|
and won't look too out of place on New Millennium's Eve. But
|
|
he's created a leather sling to hold it for when he needs both
|
|
hands free.
|
|
|
|
Under a security guard's gray-and-black uniform (two sizes too
|
|
large for him), he wears an expensive-looking black evening
|
|
dress with the lower portion rolled up around his waist, giving
|
|
him the "spare-tire" bulge of a sedentary middle-aged man. The
|
|
recently sprayed silver streaks through the hair around his
|
|
temples and the lightly yellow-tinted glasses with the thick
|
|
black frames reinforce the image. The "Sgt. Makowski" name flap
|
|
on his shirt pocket might also help if the police catch him, but
|
|
he plans to avoid that.
|
|
|
|
Without bothering to check out of his motel room, he grabs the
|
|
mini-backpack and steps out into the mild Central Florida night,
|
|
his nose drinking in the rich perfume of semi-tropical plants
|
|
and moist earth. His newly shaven legs itch terribly under black
|
|
starched pants as he hurries to the distant space where he's
|
|
parked a twenty-year-old oil-leaking, gas-guzzling junker.
|
|
Unless someone spots him now, no one should associate him with
|
|
the faded dark-blue '79 Chevy. Before touching the car, he slips
|
|
on some beige-colored latex gloves.
|
|
|
|
As he pumps the gas pedal and turns over the ignition, he half
|
|
sings, half hums "It's Now or Never" in his best Elvis. By the
|
|
time he gets to a dramatically drawn- out "Tomorrow may be too
|
|
late," he's heading east on Colonial Drive.
|
|
|
|
"Tomorrow _will_ be too late," he says to himself, grinning like
|
|
a young man on his way to a lovely date. Several
|
|
camouflage-painted army vehicles full of helmeted National Guard
|
|
soldiers pass, heading in the opposite direction, toward
|
|
downtown Orlando. If there's trouble, it's expected to be around
|
|
the tourist area of Church Street Station -- not this part of
|
|
the city.
|
|
|
|
Only minutes later, Jay takes a left on McGuire Boulevard and
|
|
pulls into one of the Koger Center parking lots that border each
|
|
of the dozens of two-story office buildings a half-block from
|
|
Fashion Square Mall. Parked under a large tree still thick with
|
|
leaves, the car is completely enveloped in shadows, making it
|
|
almost invisible. Popping the trunk, he checks the firm tires of
|
|
a well-used girl's bike one last time. Then he uses a looped
|
|
piece of wire to hold the trunk almost shut, but not completely.
|
|
Even if it flies open, the light won't go on because he's
|
|
removed the bulb.
|
|
|
|
Slowly lowering himself down on one knee, Jay uses finger
|
|
tension alone to unscrew the already loose license plate.
|
|
Throwing the minipack over his shoulder and securing the solid
|
|
champagne bottle in its sling, he walks several yards away and
|
|
buries the plate face down under some mulch and wood chips.
|
|
|
|
Straightening up, he reads his unisex Atomic Watch, for which he
|
|
paid $199 cash at The Sharper Image. At 1 a.m. every day, the
|
|
watch tunes into the U.S. Atomic Clock's broadcast, resetting
|
|
itself to the exact second. Now, in the bright moonlight, its
|
|
black hands clearly show 10:24. A slightly cool breeze tugs at
|
|
Jay's streaked hair as he saunters toward the mall.
|
|
|
|
He knows he should be rehearsing his plan step by step, but
|
|
involuntarily he thinks back a year to when all the Y2K warnings
|
|
began to hit the media. Predictions began to snowball into an
|
|
outright apocalypse: power outages; ATMs and phone service down;
|
|
banking, government, and airline computers going berserk; alarms
|
|
disabled and police powerless. Maybe this, maybe that. Because
|
|
two digits are changing from 99 to 00 at midnight on December
|
|
31, 1999, computer chips embedded in all sorts of machines and
|
|
computerized systems are going to create failures. Nobody can
|
|
say just which kinds, where, or how bad. But whether they're a
|
|
few blips or the equivalent of a nuclear missile attack, Jay
|
|
plans to cash in.
|
|
|
|
He heads left around the north end of the mall to a rear
|
|
entrance of Dillard's. If any store's got its alarm system
|
|
primed, it has to be the big department store. They have the
|
|
most to lose. Removing the heavy champagne bottle from its
|
|
sling, Jay slams it against the glass of an outer door. Nothing
|
|
happens. He pounds twice more before the high-pitched ringing
|
|
alarm sounds. Then he jogs back across the street and hides
|
|
behind some bushes in a parking lot, two over from where shadows
|
|
hide the huge junker.
|
|
|
|
Almost 12 minutes later, a white Orlando patrol car shows up
|
|
with a single officer slowly sweeping his searchlight around the
|
|
door and parking area. The mall's alarm company must have some
|
|
sort of reset switch, because several minutes after the officer
|
|
reports that he can't see anything, the ringing stops. A second
|
|
white patrol car appears, and the two cops confer for another
|
|
several minutes. Then they drive away in different directions.
|
|
|
|
Jay's watch shows 10:56. He waits until 11:10 and then returns
|
|
to the same door and pounds it until the alarm begins its
|
|
piercing rings again. Then he runs and hides.
|
|
|
|
Both patrol cars appear within minutes of each other. They are
|
|
much faster this time; in less than nine minutes they are at the
|
|
entrance. Now, while one officer beams a flashlight through the
|
|
glass door, the other rapidly drives around the entire mall,
|
|
flashing the powerful searchlight erratically, as if to catch a
|
|
band of thieves as they bob and weave, scattering like insects
|
|
through the deep shadows.
|
|
|
|
Jay covers his mouth as he smiles, suppressing an anxious laugh.
|
|
|
|
The cops confer again until some radio call gets them to scream
|
|
away, with blue and red lights strobing and sirens blaring,
|
|
toward Colonial Drive. It is now 11:46 -- just fourteen minutes
|
|
before all the millennium bugs will hit Orlando and the rest of
|
|
the east coast.
|
|
|
|
Jay stands in the shadow of a tree at the edge of a parking lot,
|
|
waiting several more minutes. Almost twitching from adrenaline,
|
|
he can no longer resist bending down to scratch his itchy legs.
|
|
Every few seconds his eyes dart nervously to his watch.
|
|
|
|
Then suddenly it is 11:57 -- time to move! Jay tries not to run,
|
|
but his pounding heart and hard rapid breathing slam
|
|
intensifying energy into his stride as he heads back to
|
|
Dillard's rear doors. As he half-jogs, he almost doesn't hear
|
|
the distant fireworks explosions. "They're early," he says aloud
|
|
as he glances at his watch.
|
|
|
|
It is 11:59.
|
|
|
|
At exactly midnight, four blows from the heavy glass bottle make
|
|
the alarm sound. But there is noise everywhere now.
|
|
|
|
It is the New Millennium.
|
|
|
|
He deliberately sprints around Dillard's to another entrance, as
|
|
though driven by the incessant ringing of the alarm.
|
|
|
|
At 12:01, he fishes some C4 and two firecrackers from the black
|
|
bag and pushes a small clump of the plastique explosive between
|
|
two of the locked doors. The strong plastic smell makes him a
|
|
little nauseous, but he swallows the feeling away. Carefully, he
|
|
inserts a firecracker in the C4 clump and lights it. As he runs
|
|
like crazy around to the safety of the building's edge, the
|
|
ringing spookily stops, making him almost tumble as he loses a
|
|
step.
|
|
|
|
_Boom._
|
|
|
|
The deafening shock wave rattles the building and shakes the
|
|
ground below him so much that he almost falls to the pavement.
|
|
He swears.
|
|
|
|
He's used too much.
|
|
|
|
He waits a few seconds and peeks around the corner. A rain of
|
|
smoky debris gently pelts the ground like misty hail and the
|
|
powerful smell of burnt plastic and charred dust is everywhere.
|
|
With weeping eyes, Jay holds his breath and gingerly steps
|
|
through the destroyed entrance. All six doors lay twisted aside
|
|
as though some powerful tornado decided to go shopping. The
|
|
inner set of doors are punched through too, so a second blast
|
|
won't be needed here.
|
|
|
|
Jay grabs the flashlight from the black minipack and heads
|
|
toward the back of the jewelry department, where they keep the
|
|
safe.
|
|
|
|
It is 12:08. He is on schedule.
|
|
|
|
More C4 blasts follow, but Jay uses much smaller clumps and
|
|
ducks behind the escalator each time. Except for two strings of
|
|
pearls, he limits his take to necklaces, bracelets, and large
|
|
carat rings -- all white diamonds, slipping them into an inner
|
|
pouch of the minipack.
|
|
|
|
Jay has a choice of almost a dozen jewelry stores, but he knows
|
|
that he only has time for a few more: Marks, Mayor, Elegant, and
|
|
Lundstrom are the closest. Each has an outer glass or plastic
|
|
barrier and a small closet at the back with a safe full of
|
|
diamonds. So, it's blast, blast, tinker with the tools, hide,
|
|
blast, and pick up the diamonds. Only the Mayor safe fails to
|
|
open.
|
|
|
|
12:48.
|
|
|
|
With his bag heavy with jewels, he shoulders his way out an
|
|
emergency fire exit door that gives a feeble two rings. Except
|
|
for some moonlight intermittently obscured by thick clouds, it
|
|
is almost as dark outside as inside the mall. A dozen distant
|
|
sirens make it sound like Orlando's panicking about its first
|
|
ever air raid.
|
|
|
|
All the street lamps are dark now, and there's no glow of
|
|
electric lights in any direction he looks. Y2K has fully kicked
|
|
in as promised.
|
|
|
|
Jay sprints across McGuire and rapidly strips off the uniform,
|
|
slips on the black tennis shoes, and fixes the wig firmly on his
|
|
head. Rapidly, he applies makeup and lipstick and takes a big
|
|
slug from the water bottle, which removes half of the lipstick
|
|
he just put on. Then he dumps the uniform and everything in his
|
|
minipack except the jewelry behind some bushes. The fake
|
|
champagne bottle is now his only weapon.
|
|
|
|
From the Chevy trunk, he pulls out the girl's bike, and with the
|
|
jewelry-laden minipack tight against his back and the champagne
|
|
bottle in the bike's basket, he hikes up his dress and pedals
|
|
through several Koger Center parking lots, north toward
|
|
Executive Drive. He tosses the latex gloves over his shoulder.
|
|
By weaving through back streets, Jay can circle around to Bumby
|
|
Avenue and Colonial Drive and make it back to his real car,
|
|
which is still parked at the hotel. Just an innocent old woman,
|
|
ready to drive to New Orleans.
|
|
|
|
Though he is pumping hard to keep the old bicycle wheeling along
|
|
on the sidewalk, his bare arms and legs feel chilly. Most of the
|
|
apartment houses he passes are silent and dark, but whenever he
|
|
hears any noise or sees candles or flashlights through windows,
|
|
he crosses to the opposite sidewalk. Almost crashing into some
|
|
bushes on Plaza Terrace, he stops to rub his arms and scratch
|
|
his insanely itching legs as he straddles the bike. From some
|
|
shadows on the other side of the street, he catches the end of a
|
|
low whistle and some muted laughter.
|
|
|
|
Before he can start pumping the pedals again, five or six
|
|
college-aged youths are blocking his path. Pitching his voice
|
|
up, he yells, "Excuse me. I'm meeting some friends, and I'm very
|
|
late. I need to get by."
|
|
|
|
All the youths giggle as though this is the funniest thing they
|
|
have ever heard. As they crowd toward him, they sway and nudge
|
|
each other and laugh hysterically. Jay can't see them clearly,
|
|
but he's sure they're all high.
|
|
|
|
"Well, you know, lady," the largest one of the group slurs as he
|
|
grabs the handlebars, "this is a private street and you got to
|
|
pay a toll to ride through here."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, a toll!" another one shouts. The others laugh
|
|
uproariously.
|
|
|
|
"Come on, fellas," Jay says as sweetly as he can. "It's New
|
|
Year's. Have a heart and let an old woman through. I don't have
|
|
any money on me anyway."
|
|
|
|
"Oh yeah," a smaller one says reaching for the champagne bottle,
|
|
which Jay quickly snatches up, "where'd you get the big bucks
|
|
for the champagne then?"
|
|
|
|
"Leave me alone!" Jay shrieks.
|
|
|
|
"No need to get so twitchy, lady!" the big one says. "Jus' let
|
|
us look in your bag. We'll jus' take a five, maybe a ten, an'
|
|
you can get on to your party."
|
|
|
|
"Party!" another shouts and starts singing something.
|
|
|
|
Shaking his head and almost rolling up his eyes, Jay pulls off
|
|
his watch and offers it. "Here, take this and let me through,"
|
|
he says. "It's worth two hundred dollars. One of those Atomic
|
|
Watches from The Shaper Image." But even he can see that the
|
|
watch is going berserk. It should be almost 1:30 by now, but
|
|
like tiny black scissors, the hands keep swinging back and forth
|
|
between 12 and 12:15. The National Institute of Standards and
|
|
Technology and its Atomic Clock have been bitten by the
|
|
millennium bug.
|
|
|
|
"This watch ain't no good!" shouts one of the group. "We don't
|
|
want no broken old lady's watch." The watch is tossed into the
|
|
shadows.
|
|
|
|
Jay swears under his breath. If only the watch had been working,
|
|
he knows this crew would have taken it and let him go. Stepping
|
|
away from the bike and snatching off the wig, he holds the
|
|
bottle in front of him with both hands. "Okay, guys," he says
|
|
using his regular voice, "enough is enough. I was playing a
|
|
little joke on my friends. That's why I'm dressed like this. I
|
|
really don't have any money on me. But come with me to my car,
|
|
and I'll give each of you ten bucks. What do you say?"
|
|
|
|
Before anyone can speak, the small one circles around and grabs
|
|
onto the minipack. Automatically Jay swings and catches the
|
|
youth in the head with the bottle, savagely striking him to the
|
|
pavement.
|
|
|
|
The big one roars and flings the bike down toward Jay's feet.
|
|
"Tune! Tune!" he shouts. One of the others bends down over the
|
|
sprawled body. "I think Tune's dead, Jeffy," he whispers.
|
|
|
|
Somebody shouts, "Let's get him!" Jay is tackled and beaten
|
|
unconscious with his own fake champagne bottle. The loose
|
|
minipack spills diamonds and pearls over the sidewalk.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Soon after one ambulance takes Tune's corpse away, Jay wakes up
|
|
in another. A National Guard soldier stares down at the beaten
|
|
and heavily bandaged body and asks, "What happened?"
|
|
|
|
Jay can barely see through his swollen eyes, but murmurs over
|
|
battered teeth, "Just a little Y2K problem."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Vincent Miskell (vmiskell@email.msn.com)
|
|
-------------------------------------------
|
|
Vincent Miskell has had his fiction published in Rosebud,
|
|
Frontiers, Mad Scientist, Eclipse, and Millennium. He lives with
|
|
his wife and two children in Florida, where he works as an
|
|
instructional designer at a multimedia company.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Shift by G.L. Eikenberry
|
|
============================
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
Reality is tenuous on New Year's Eve even in the
|
|
best of situations.
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
|
|
In the beginning -- every beginning -- there is only awareness.
|
|
|
|
This is pure consciousness that is not differentiated into
|
|
sensation -- no sight, sound, touch, taste or smell, but direct
|
|
experience of the flow of energy. For at one level, the only
|
|
level in the beginning, everything is energy. Energy: the wave
|
|
form of the most minute particle, the tallest mountain, the most
|
|
immensely imaginable proto-stellar mass.
|
|
|
|
That, of course, is in the beginning. With awareness comes
|
|
identity, and with identity comes alienation from the cosmic
|
|
whole.
|
|
|
|
Only the most highly evolved beings experience both identity
|
|
(the I) and oneness (the I am) in a single self -- a single
|
|
eternal breath.
|
|
|
|
Jack Lee, at least at the moment that concerns our tale, is not
|
|
among the community of most highly evolved beings. Jack Lee is
|
|
just an accidental savant in a world that has escaped from the
|
|
rigid predictability of high school Judeo-Christian science,
|
|
with its addiction to linear causality.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The brown bag shrouded bottle of chateau-whatever-was-cheapest
|
|
nudges Jack's shoulder. He isn't really paying attention.
|
|
Nothing new about that. Dark. Cold. Pain like heavy, dense fog,
|
|
permeating joints, stomach and head. Not really paying attention
|
|
is a survival skill.
|
|
|
|
"Hey shitface! You drinking?"
|
|
|
|
Jack is not wasted. Jack is not schizo. Not that you can tell
|
|
from the blank look on his face as he slowly turns his head to
|
|
face Monk.
|
|
|
|
"Planet Earth calling Cap'n Jack. We got a job to do here,
|
|
Jackie, and we're gonna get it done. We got us three bottles of
|
|
this recycled piss. That's two for this milli-whatever, and two
|
|
for the next. Now according to that clock on the Scotiabank over
|
|
there, we only got us 11 minutes. I can't do this by myself, so
|
|
drink up, bucko."
|
|
|
|
The clock on the Scotiabank has been stopped at 11:44 for weeks.
|
|
|
|
"Two and two is four. What did you do with the other bottle? And
|
|
it's _sixteen_ minutes. Sixteen minutes now and sixteen minutes
|
|
three hours from now. This particular spot appears to be
|
|
millennium-proof."
|
|
|
|
"Aw, fuck you! How's about I just take however the fuck many
|
|
bottles I got and just fuck right off and find somebody else to
|
|
party with?"
|
|
|
|
No answer. Jack has turned his head back now.
|
|
|
|
"I don't wanna do this, Jacko, but don't matter who scored the
|
|
coin for the booze, you don't leave me much choice."
|
|
|
|
No answer.
|
|
|
|
"When I get up to go, I'm gone."
|
|
|
|
No answer. No Jack.
|
|
|
|
"Goddammit, man don't go fucking disappearing on me like that!
|
|
Shit, man, I hate it when you go slipping in and out of reality
|
|
like that. If I didn't know I was a fucking drunked up, schizoid
|
|
bum I'd think I was fucking nuts!..." And on and on -- Monk goes
|
|
lurching and muttering his way along the sidewalk. He almost
|
|
falls off into the street twice before he turns on to Cumberland
|
|
and walks into a parking meter.
|
|
|
|
He rebounds off the meter and sits down hard, clutching the bag
|
|
to his chest to protect its precious cargo. Damn! Two bottles
|
|
crack against each other and at least one breaks inside the bag.
|
|
Cheap wine is leaking through the paper onto his pants. Looks
|
|
like he's pissed himself.
|
|
|
|
He'll get back up as soon as he formulates a plan for doing it
|
|
without losing the rest of his supply through the now soaked
|
|
worthless bag.
|
|
|
|
"Gonna miss the goddam fucking milli-nen-i-mum and have to wait
|
|
another hundred fucking years..."
|
|
|
|
"Thousand," somebody says and grabs him by the collar and drags
|
|
him to his feet. Before he can figure out what's happening, Monk
|
|
is inside sitting on a threadbare sofa. His crotch is still
|
|
soaked, but he must have dropped the bag.
|
|
|
|
"Fuck you, Jack! Where the fuck's my party supplies?"
|
|
|
|
For a second Jack just glares, hoping that will be enough, but
|
|
as Monk's jaw starts to flap again he knows that even a
|
|
third-degree stare won't suffice on someone with the attention
|
|
span of a meson. "Just shut up and listen."
|
|
|
|
"Listen to what? Goddammit, Jack, I ain't half drunk enough for
|
|
this shit!"
|
|
|
|
"Forget the millennium, Monk; it's just another cold night.
|
|
_This_ is important."
|
|
|
|
"Nothing's important anymore. Just leave me the fuck--"
|
|
|
|
"Shut up! Just hear me out for a few minutes and then I'll give
|
|
you another ten bucks and disappear."
|
|
|
|
"Where'd you get another ten bucks? You some kind of fucking
|
|
space alien or something?"
|
|
|
|
"You ready to listen?" Monk will probably never be ready to
|
|
listen. There's too much noise inside his head. But at least he
|
|
can stop talking and sulk. He can probably even maintain a
|
|
silent sulk for a full five minutes if there's ten bucks in it.
|
|
|
|
"This millennium thing is just some arbitrary hash mark on some
|
|
arbitrary timeline. Time doesn't really exist. You don't exist.
|
|
I don't exist. Nothing exists except energy and consciousness.
|
|
Okay?
|
|
|
|
"Listen, the only thing special about this night is that the
|
|
consensual reality is a little fuzzy around the edges right now.
|
|
I figure there might be a chance to sort of cut things loose and
|
|
rearrange them a bit, but I need more minds working at it than
|
|
just mine. The thing is, once you know that time and space are
|
|
just images in the cosmic hologram, you aren't constrained by
|
|
them. I've got as long as I need to collect as many recruits as
|
|
I need. But I need minds like yours, Monk, minds that are
|
|
already outside the box. So how about it, Monk, are you with
|
|
me?"
|
|
|
|
"What, quiet time's over? I can talk? This better not be a
|
|
trick."
|
|
|
|
"Are you with me?"
|
|
|
|
"Where's the ten bucks?"
|
|
|
|
"Okay, listen, just close your eyes and repeat after me: I am
|
|
energy. The universe flows through me -- just say it, dammit!"
|
|
|
|
"The ten?"
|
|
|
|
"I am energy. The universe flows through me."
|
|
|
|
"Whatever. I'm energy. The universe -- whatever.
|
|
|
|
"I am energy. The universe flows through me."
|
|
|
|
"Okay, okay! I am energy. The universe flows through me."
|
|
|
|
"Again."
|
|
|
|
"I am energy. The universe flows through me."
|
|
|
|
"Again."
|
|
|
|
"I am energy. The universe flows through me."
|
|
|
|
"Okay, good. Now just keep saying it. I'll be right back."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
At least it's warm. All the churches in town are doing the
|
|
jubilee thing, with free flops and food.
|
|
|
|
"Hey, Jacko, what're you doing here? Come on, have a seat. You
|
|
got turkey? Better go back and get more gravy -- the white
|
|
meat's drier than -- whatever. She's dry, though."
|
|
|
|
"Hi, Monk. Do you remember anything from last night?"
|
|
|
|
"You mean the 'universal flowers in me' shit? What the fuck was
|
|
you on, man?"
|
|
|
|
"Watch your language. You're in a church. Anyway, I pretty much
|
|
gave it up. You know, we could have entirely reshaped reality.
|
|
But what happens? For you it's a bottle of rum. For others it
|
|
was a car, a house, a different job, a sweepstakes, a bar exam
|
|
-- I don't know if it has to do with chaos or entropy or
|
|
differentiation or what, but apparently it's totally
|
|
self-sustaining. I'm just dropping in to say so long. You had
|
|
your chance. I tried."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah, well, whatever. Better eat your turkey. Can't be
|
|
travelling on an empty stomach -- God, I hate it when he does
|
|
that! You'd think he could at least say goodbye before he
|
|
disappears like that!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
G.L. Eikenberry (garyeik@geconsult.com)
|
|
-----------------------------------------
|
|
G.L. Eikenberry works as a freelance information systems and
|
|
communications consultant, as well as being the chief instructor
|
|
for Gloucester HupKwonDo. He's been writing fiction for more
|
|
than twenty years. His work has been published in a wide (often
|
|
obscure and mostly Canadian) variety of hard-copy publications
|
|
as well as in electronic media. He lives, works and writes in
|
|
Ottawa, Canada with his wife and three sons. InterText stories
|
|
written by G.L. Eikenberry include "Eddie's Blues" (v3n5),
|
|
"Reality Error" (v4n2), "The Loneliness of the Late-Night Donut
|
|
Shop" (v4n4), "River" (v5n1), "Oak, Ax and Raven" (v6n2), and
|
|
"Schrodinger's Keys" (v7n1).
|
|
|
|
<http://www.geconsult.com/biblio.html>
|
|
<http://www.ghkdi.org/>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Amateur Night by Marcus Eubanks
|
|
===================================
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
For some, even the most remarkable of nights is
|
|
just another night.
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
|
|
Some nights I feel like I'm the fucking Grim Reaper. It varies.
|
|
I don't know why, 'cause when I go back over the numbers,
|
|
they're about the same either way. Tonight seems like it's going
|
|
to be weird though, even though it probably won't.
|
|
|
|
I stroll in from the parking lot, safely ensconced in my totally
|
|
illegal parking space. It's clearly labeled Ambulance Parking
|
|
Only, and my beat-up little Saturn in no way resembles an
|
|
ambulance. Still, the security folks like me, so I get away with
|
|
it.
|
|
|
|
"S'okay if I park here for a little bit?"
|
|
|
|
"How long do you think you'll be?"
|
|
|
|
"About... all night."
|
|
|
|
"Yeah sure, whatever. Have a good night, Marcus. Come out and
|
|
have a smoke with us later, huh?"
|
|
|
|
"Oh, yeah."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Walk into the main nursing station grinning like an idiot. "Ah,"
|
|
I announce. "Happy faces. I have entered into a bastion of
|
|
strength." I clap my hands once and begin to chortle evilly.
|
|
|
|
The charge nurse looks at me blankly and shakes his head. "I'm
|
|
going home. Good luck."
|
|
|
|
The off-going attending grins and blows bubbles into her coffee.
|
|
"It's a zoo," she says, waving at the board.
|
|
|
|
"Zoo? What zoo? Just 'cause its Friday night and the idiots are
|
|
out? There is no zoo. There is only zen -- the zen of the mother
|
|
ship. We can do anything. We have the power... I don't like the
|
|
way he said 'Good luck.' "
|
|
|
|
She contemplates her coffee, which is now starting to dribble
|
|
over the edge of the cup onto the carpet. "You were dropped too
|
|
many times as a child."
|
|
|
|
"As a child I was _blessed_. " I retort. She rolls her eyes, and
|
|
a nurse wandering by snorts in contempt. I continue, not
|
|
pausing: "Blessed upside the head with a baseball bat."
|
|
|
|
She gives me sign-out, and then gathers her stuff. "Party time
|
|
for this girl tonight," she announces. "Gonna go catch me
|
|
something big and stupid that I can kick out in the morning."
|
|
|
|
"Have one for me," I tell her.
|
|
|
|
"A drink, or something big and stupid?"
|
|
|
|
"Whatever. Go. Escape while you can."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I survey my team. I'm lucky tonight -- good residents, good
|
|
nurses. I can suffer no harm. I tell them this, and they look at
|
|
me warily. They're skittish, and I can't really blame them.
|
|
Tonight is amateur night.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We see little things. A twisted ankle. A head cold. Back pain,
|
|
some real, some weasely.
|
|
|
|
"How long has your back been hurting you?"
|
|
|
|
"I injured it at work three years ago. I've been on comp ever
|
|
since -- chronic pain."
|
|
|
|
"I see. And how can we help you this evening?"
|
|
|
|
"I ran out of my medicine. I need you to write me a prescription
|
|
for a refill."
|
|
|
|
"I don't mean to sound cynical, but are you trying to tell me
|
|
that in three years of requiring narcotics for your chronic
|
|
pain, you haven't learned to anticipate when you're going to run
|
|
out in time to get your doc to write you a refill?"
|
|
|
|
"Well, you see, he's out of town."
|
|
|
|
"What's his name -- I'll call his answering service."
|
|
|
|
"Uh -- I don't remember."
|
|
|
|
"You don't remember the name of the guy who writes your pain
|
|
prescriptions?"
|
|
|
|
"I just started seeing him."
|
|
|
|
"Who did you see before him?"
|
|
|
|
"Um..."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It is demonstrated to us once again that profoundly drunk rich
|
|
people are The Worst.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I read the line on a woman's palm -- an intern's suture job.
|
|
"Huh. Why did you put in so many stitches?"
|
|
|
|
"Well you see, the ones I was putting in kept pulling through
|
|
the skin."
|
|
|
|
The wound should have five, perhaps six sutures. "Hang on for a
|
|
sec, before you take down the field," I tell him. Grab myself a
|
|
pair of sterile gloves and the iris scissors, counting to myself
|
|
as I cut them out. They're all about a millimeter from the wound
|
|
margin grabbing only skin, no meat. Of course they were pulling
|
|
out. I remove twenty-one stitches, and then put one new one
|
|
right in the middle of the wound, taking a big bite, then tie it
|
|
while the 'tern watches.
|
|
|
|
"I would like you to put four more stitches in, just like mine,
|
|
two on either side, then get one of the nurses to show you the
|
|
best way to dress it. Better not ask her to dress it and walk
|
|
away, 'cause she'll just laugh at you."
|
|
|
|
"But -- "
|
|
|
|
"Four more," I say, holding up four gloved fingers.
|
|
|
|
"You see, I -- "
|
|
|
|
Now the patient gets into it. "Honey, I think he wants you to
|
|
put in four more, just like he said." She holds up four fingers
|
|
of her other hand, grinning at both of us.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We see that people who don't take their seizure medicines for
|
|
various reasons sometimes have seizures at inopportune times.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The lights flicker at midnight. It happens from time to time,
|
|
usually transient. We have hospital-wide backup generators just
|
|
in case, but...
|
|
|
|
"Please, not tonight," I think to myself. "We're too damned busy
|
|
for this." It's New Year's Eve. Dire predictions of millennial
|
|
wrath have been so pervasive that none of us have really been
|
|
hearing them. I figure that if New Year's Eve is generally
|
|
amateur night, this one should reign supreme.
|
|
|
|
And now the goddamned lights are flickering.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Down the hall there's a nurse standing at an open breaker box.
|
|
"Just kidding," he says.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dude comes in all drunk and stupid from a nasty car crash,
|
|
oblivious to his unstable open right ankle fracture. Seems that
|
|
phone pole just jumped right out in front of him. I play games
|
|
with the trauma team, for the airway belongs to me and my
|
|
people.
|
|
|
|
Trauma 'tern says, "pupils are equal and reactive."
|
|
|
|
His airway is fine, evidenced by his mindless babble. No
|
|
intubation for my resident, alas.
|
|
|
|
Trauma wants to scan his head, I'm hip -- not that they need my
|
|
approval.
|
|
|
|
I take a quick peek in the peepers to confirm Trauma Boy's
|
|
findings and say, "Er -- his pupils _look_ equal, but they
|
|
aren't." I'm trying to be politic. "And how about this
|
|
penetrating globe injury with the vitreous leaking out of it?"
|
|
Something has poked a hole in Mister Dude's eye.
|
|
|
|
Trauma says, "Oops."
|
|
|
|
Mister Dude is drunk and moaning and generally being a pain in
|
|
the ass so I suggest sedating the shit out of him, 'cause I
|
|
reckon every time he hollers, the pressure inside his eye is
|
|
going up, which causes eyeball goop to slop out onto his face.
|
|
|
|
But it's "No, no, we want to follow his neuro status." Ouch. I
|
|
am overruled. Their patient, they win. I am but a lowly
|
|
consultant.
|
|
|
|
So then in the CT scanner, he does a fish flop and finds the
|
|
floor. I can't resist: "Bet that was good for his eye."
|
|
|
|
Trauma glares at me. Hell, what does he care? His eyeball isn't
|
|
popped, so he can glare just fine.
|
|
|
|
"We can fix this for you," I tell him. "Look at my boy here. He
|
|
wants nothing more than to help you to make Mister Dude more
|
|
comfortable." I look at my resident; he nods vigorously. "Think
|
|
of it this way: we'll give him a little something for _your_
|
|
nerves, okay?"
|
|
|
|
They acquiesce and Mister Dude gets strong sedatives, paralytic
|
|
drugs, and a nice plastic tube which connects his throat to the
|
|
ventilator. My resident gets a procedure. Problem solved.
|
|
Another blow for freedom.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We learn for the umpteenth time that unassuming little guys who
|
|
calmly tell you, "I can't really describe it to you doc... it
|
|
just hurts real bad," generally have something very badly wrong
|
|
with them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Another trauma comes in around one in the morning, hard on the
|
|
heels of Mister Dude and his wacky leaking eyeball. It's billed
|
|
to us as gunshot wound to the neck by our dispatchers, who give
|
|
us the three-minute advance warning.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The patient is drawn and thin and appears to be having rather a
|
|
hard time breathing. Once again, the show belongs to the
|
|
surgeons. I stand at the side, next to the trauma attending,
|
|
with whom I swap witty sotto voce wisecracks. "He'll have been
|
|
standing on a corner, minding his own business," I say. The
|
|
trauma surgeon grunts his assent -- it's uncanny how many folks
|
|
get assaulted while minding their own business. We reckon that
|
|
its far safer to be nosy and obnoxious, because those folks
|
|
never seem to get hurt.
|
|
|
|
He has a single wound high up where his right shoulder and neck
|
|
merge. "Breath sounds markedly decreased on the right," the
|
|
senior trauma resident announces, while asking the patient,
|
|
"What happened?"
|
|
|
|
"I was just walking up the sidewalk, minding my own business! I
|
|
don't know," he says, panting. The trauma team rolls its
|
|
collective eyes.
|
|
|
|
The chest X-ray demonstrates more or less what we expected: the
|
|
place where his right lung is supposed to be is filled with a
|
|
mixture of air and blood, indicating that his right lung is
|
|
down, and that he's bleeding from somewhere. The bullet is low
|
|
in his chest, probably sitting on top of his diaphragm. This
|
|
does not surprise us: any bullet can go _anywhere_. You can
|
|
deduce nothing on whence it came from where it ends up.
|
|
|
|
Thirty seconds later, the trauma team has inserted a chest tube
|
|
while their attending and I watch with half an eye. Blood and
|
|
air gush out, and his breathing gets better.
|
|
|
|
His blood pressure is terrible, though. The surgeons cackle
|
|
quietly in their minds while making frantic preparations to get
|
|
him to the operating room so they can take a look inside and fix
|
|
him.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Minutes later, the trauma team is gone, leaving in their wake a
|
|
puddle of blood from the chest tube and bits of throw-away
|
|
medical paraphernalia strewn about the room. I'm staring at the
|
|
mess when I feel a large cold presence at my shoulder. Cold
|
|
because he just came in from outside, and large because -- well,
|
|
because he's just a damned big cop.
|
|
|
|
"They're in the O.R.," I tell him. "He's sick, but he'll
|
|
probably live."
|
|
|
|
The cop just stands there, surveying the room.
|
|
|
|
"Uh -- what's the story on this one, anyhow?" I ask.
|
|
|
|
"Witnesses say that he was just walking up the street minding
|
|
his own business," the cop says. This is where the language of
|
|
law-enforcement overlaps the language of emergency medicine.
|
|
|
|
"Aw, come on. What do _you_ think happened?"
|
|
|
|
He swivels to look at me directly. "I think that folks were
|
|
shooting guns into the air to ring in the millennium. I think he
|
|
was hit by a falling bullet."
|
|
|
|
"Well fuck me," I answer. "Go figger."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Three teenagers are brought in by medics, drunk. Too many shots
|
|
of some alcohol-laden syrup called "Hot Damn."
|
|
|
|
"How much did you guys drink, anyhow?"
|
|
|
|
"I... los' track after we finished off the tequila," one of them
|
|
slurs. Another chimes in, "You won'... pump our stomachs will
|
|
you? Omigod, you won't tell our parents -- " He cuts himself off
|
|
to vomit impressively into his lap.
|
|
|
|
The nurse in the room wrinkles her nose at the mess. "Honey,
|
|
you're pumping your own stomach just fine. Your folks are in the
|
|
waiting room."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I call the radio station at five-thirty in the morning. "Can you
|
|
please play 'Lunatic Fringe?' Or maybe 'Might as Well Go for a
|
|
Soda?' "
|
|
|
|
"Who is this?"
|
|
|
|
"The ER at AGH. We need it. Bad."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
At six-thirty in the morning, I walk outside. things have calmed
|
|
down considerably. The drunk kids went home with their folks
|
|
about an hour ago, only vaguely aware of the parental wrath that
|
|
will descend upon them when they awaken with horrible hangovers.
|
|
There are a couple of folks with belly pain which may or may not
|
|
be from overindulgence, and one person who is about to be
|
|
whisked off to the cath lab so that his heart-attack can be
|
|
aborted by the interventional cardiologists. There's a guy who
|
|
woke up with absolutely no clue how his hand got broken.
|
|
|
|
Things are Under Control, and I get to go home in about forty
|
|
minutes. It's cold as hell out, and utterly clear. It's going to
|
|
be sunny today. One of the helicopters is cranking up on the
|
|
heli-pad, dispatched to the scene of a car crash about forty
|
|
miles away. While fishing for a cigarette, I ask myself: Bad
|
|
luck... or another amateur?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Marcus Eubanks (eubanks@riotcentral.com)
|
|
-------------------------------------------
|
|
Marcus Eubanks is an ER doc in a big hospital in Pittsburgh. His
|
|
stories have twice been selected to appear in eScene, the Best
|
|
of Net Fiction anthology. InterText stories written by Marcus
|
|
Eubanks include "Mr. McKenna is Dying" (v4n4), "Josie" (v5n2),
|
|
"Selections From the New World" (v6n3), and "Cinderblock"
|
|
(v9n2).
|
|
|
|
<http://www.riotcentral.com/>
|
|
<http://www.escene.org/>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
These Are from New Year's Eve by Craig Boyko
|
|
================================================
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
Why do we sometimes save memories of things we don't really
|
|
want to remember?
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
|
|
These are from New Year's Eve. This is me, sitting on the south
|
|
side of a love seat near the window in Gabriel and Deborah's
|
|
spacious seventeenth-floor apartment, where I was positioned
|
|
most of the night. In my hand is a beer bottle, unopened.
|
|
|
|
This is me drinking from an opened beer bottle. Next to me is
|
|
Carter, whom I dislike. I am on the right. He is looking in the
|
|
opposite direction. In his left hand is a tall glass, half
|
|
filled with red liquid. He is wearing a tie.
|
|
|
|
This one shows Gabriel next to me on the love seat, asking me
|
|
about Hellen. "How is Hellen? Where is she tonight?" That's me,
|
|
listening to his inquiry, preparing my response, which will be,
|
|
"She wasn't feeling good tonight; she stayed in."
|
|
|
|
This is Gabriel, with his hand on my knee, looking sympathetic
|
|
and disappointed but simultaneously optimistic. He's saying
|
|
"Hey, that's too bad, but tell her I said hi. Tell her I hope
|
|
she's feeling better."
|
|
|
|
This is me taking my first piss of the night. I am looking
|
|
sideways into the mirror, studying a ruptured blood vessel under
|
|
my right eye. I can not remember if I have ever noticed this
|
|
particular ruptured blood vessel before.
|
|
|
|
This is me being intercepted in the hallway by Janice, whom I
|
|
like. I am on the left. Due to the constraints of the hallway,
|
|
as you can see, we are standing quite close to one another. She
|
|
is asking me about my time away from work. She is holding a
|
|
clear glass with two hands and seems to be quite interested in
|
|
my answer. "Was it a holiday?" she is asking.
|
|
|
|
This is me, as above, with my hand in my hair. I am saying, "It
|
|
wasn't exactly a holiday." I'm saying, "It was time off." That's
|
|
the sort of thing I am saying to Janice, whom I work with
|
|
peripherally, and whom I like. I am not making eye contact. I'm
|
|
saying, "It was good to get away for awhile."
|
|
|
|
This is me looking in the refrigerator for ice cubes or seltzer.
|
|
In the background, that's Deborah -- our hostess, Gabriel's
|
|
common-law wife -- talking to Kensworth. Kensworth, strictly
|
|
speaking, is my superior, but we never cross paths. Kensworth is
|
|
gesturing animatedly with his hands, making some point. Deborah
|
|
appears engrossed.
|
|
|
|
This is me, alone on the south side of the love seat, by the
|
|
window, staring at the television. In the background: blurred,
|
|
talking faces. The television is off.
|
|
|
|
This is me, as above. Next to me is Julian, who works my shift,
|
|
but on weekends. We do not really know each other. He is asking
|
|
me about my time away; he had to cover most of my shifts. He is
|
|
being pleasant about it. We've never spoken before. Julian is
|
|
wearing corduroys and a Hawaiian-style t-shirt. It's warm in
|
|
here; however, the patio doors are slid half open, so I am
|
|
wondering if he isn't a little cold. I do not ask him this. I am
|
|
wearing a green sweater over a dark blue t-shirt. My pants are
|
|
khaki. My socks are argyle.
|
|
|
|
I'm sorry. You can see that.
|
|
|
|
This is me saying, "I had to leave the city for a few weeks.
|
|
Family emergency." Julian's eyes are not focussed on me, but on
|
|
something or someone behind me. He is holding a beer bottle,
|
|
identical to my own.
|
|
|
|
This is Deborah trying to organize a friendly game of
|
|
Balderdash.
|
|
|
|
This is me taking my second piss of the night. I am looking at
|
|
the toilet, the splash of the urine. I appear engrossed.
|
|
|
|
This is me, on the south side of the love seat, twisted around
|
|
sideways, looking over my shoulder, out the window. From my
|
|
vantage point, I am able to see half of the layout of downtown.
|
|
It is lit up quite prettily against the blackening purple of the
|
|
sky. Sitting next to me is Eunice, whom I work with on Tuesdays
|
|
and Thursdays. We are not talking. She is looking intensely at
|
|
her lap, trying to tell if she spilled any of her Beefeater and
|
|
7-Up. She is wearing a dull-looking floral-patterned skirt. I am
|
|
thinking of nothing.
|
|
|
|
Here is Kensworth, standing over me, asking about my being back
|
|
at work. Am I glad to be back. How was my time off. Am I feeling
|
|
better. Am I feeling 100 percent again. You can't see his face,
|
|
but his facial expression is best described as _concerned._ I am
|
|
looking at his shoes and nodding.
|
|
|
|
Here I am peeling the label from my beer bottle. Next to me on
|
|
the love seat is Janice, talking excitedly, smilingly, to
|
|
someone on her right. She is leaning toward them, away from me,
|
|
her elbows on her knees. I am thinking about her perfume. I
|
|
appear engrossed.
|
|
|
|
Here is someone I don't know, have never seen before, asking me
|
|
about Hellen. "Couldn't she make it?" I am about to say "No, she
|
|
could not make it. She is in Montana. She is harvesting peyote
|
|
in Montana." You can see the words forming on my lips, if you
|
|
look closely.
|
|
|
|
This is me, watching other people talk.
|
|
|
|
This is me, in the bathroom, after taking a third piss. After
|
|
looking through Gabriel and Deborah's medicine cabinet. After
|
|
purloining an unlabeled pill bottle which looked, to me,
|
|
promising. I am standing in front of the mirror, my hands wet,
|
|
tracing streaks across the mirror with my thumbs. I am studying
|
|
my face with great curiosity and sedulousness. I am thinking, "I
|
|
should have. I should have."
|
|
|
|
This is me, out on the balcony, balancing my beer bottle on the
|
|
railing. This is the same balcony that Gabriel asked all the
|
|
guests not to go out on tonight, since they had just cleaned it,
|
|
and building management was supposed to be painting it sometime
|
|
next week. I am looking down at the street, where one car is
|
|
passing slowly by the front of the building. The car is a taxi.
|
|
My brow is perspiring. In the background, some of the guests
|
|
seem to be looking my way. _Concerned._
|
|
|
|
This is me, back on the love seat, looking at my watch. Carter
|
|
is standing up from the love seat, after just having watched me
|
|
watch my watch for some minutes. I am thinking, "Thirty-seven
|
|
minutes. Thirty-seven minutes."
|
|
|
|
Here is Morton, hand on my shoulder, face red, telling me about
|
|
an equation that he has discovered but not quite refined. Morton
|
|
is younger than I am and makes more money than I do by doing the
|
|
same job that I do. He dresses poorly and has sour breath. He
|
|
has been drinking nothing but white rum on ice all night. "It
|
|
has to do with expectations," he is saying. "The closer we get
|
|
to a long-awaited moment, the less time there is for things to
|
|
change sufficiently to impress us, or surprise us. The less time
|
|
there is, the closer we get, the lower our expectations. The
|
|
greater our disappointment."
|
|
|
|
This is me, asking him if he could possibly graph such an
|
|
equation. If he wouldn't mind. Maybe right now.
|
|
|
|
This is me, making a face at the music, which I find too loud.
|
|
|
|
This is a young coworker of mine who demands to be called
|
|
"Elvis," though Elvis is not his real name. He has brought a
|
|
short blond girl with very significant breasts who follows him
|
|
around everywhere he goes through Gabriel and Deborah's
|
|
apartment and who never says anything unless spoken directly to.
|
|
She smiles a lot. Indiscriminately. At everyone. Elvis is
|
|
leaning toward me, saying, with great vim and feeling, "That's
|
|
too bad. Well, tell her I said hi." I have just, moments
|
|
earlier, responded to his question, "Where's Hellen, man?" with,
|
|
"She is not here. She is dead. I have not seen her for six
|
|
months. She's not feeling well. She is in Montana. She is with
|
|
loved ones and loving ones." Elvis' girl is smiling at me.
|
|
|
|
This is me, head between my knees. In the background, faces.
|
|
Faces.
|
|
|
|
This is Deborah, kneeling next to me, speaking to me in
|
|
whispers, in serious tones.
|
|
|
|
This is me wondering if I can take another millennium.
|
|
|
|
This is the countdown. "Ten, nine." Everyone is wearing
|
|
cheap-looking paper hats and holding flutes of champagne in one
|
|
hand and noisemakers in the other. "Eight, seven." Notice the
|
|
smiles. Many are looking at a clock on the wall. "Six, five."
|
|
Some are holding hands, some are embracing. "Four." One couple
|
|
in the background, kissing, arms around each other's necks.
|
|
"Three." I am saying, "I know what comes next."
|
|
|
|
Or... wait. Am I in this one?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Craig Boyko (cboyko@home.com)
|
|
--------------------------------
|
|
Craig Boyko is a sometimes student at the University of Calgary
|
|
in Alberta. He's constantly being shushed by his next-door
|
|
neighbor. InterText stories written by Craig Boyko include
|
|
"Decisions" (v6n1), "Wave" (v6n2), "Gone" (v6n6), and "Ghettoboy
|
|
and Dos" (v8n2).
|
|
|
|
<http://www.geocities.com/Paris/3308/top.html>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FYI
|
|
=====
|
|
|
|
Back Issues of InterText
|
|
--------------------------
|
|
|
|
Back issues of InterText can be found via anonymous FTP at:
|
|
|
|
<ftp://ftp.etext.org/pub/Zines/InterText/>
|
|
|
|
On the World Wide Web, point your WWW browser to:
|
|
|
|
<http://www.intertext.com/>
|
|
|
|
|
|
Submissions to InterText
|
|
--------------------------
|
|
|
|
InterText's stories are made up _entirely_ of electronic
|
|
submissions. Send submissions to <submissions@intertext.com>.
|
|
For a copy of our writers' guidelines, send e-mail to
|
|
<guidelines@intertext.com>.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Subscribe to InterText
|
|
------------------------
|
|
|
|
To subscribe to one of these lists, simply send any message to
|
|
the appropriate address:
|
|
|
|
ASCII: <intertext-ascii-on@intertext.com>
|
|
|
|
PDF: <intertext-pdf-on@intertext.com>
|
|
|
|
Notification: <intertext-notify-on@intertext.com>
|
|
|
|
For more information about these three options, mail
|
|
<subscriptions@intertext.com>.
|
|
|
|
....................................................................
|
|
|
|
3... 2... 1... Happy New Year!
|
|
..
|
|
|
|
This issue is wrapped as a setext. For more information send
|
|
e-mail to <setext@tidbits.com>, or contact the InterText staff
|
|
directly at <editors@intertext.com>.
|
|
|
|
$$
|