7
DONNER
She’s on the couch. I’m down in front of her. In my entire life, I have never been so terrified. Not even when that gangbanger held a modified Tech-9 to my head last year.
Marry me, I blurt.
Ooh, he got down on his knees and everything, Elise giggles. I kinda like you down there.
I give her a don’t tease me at a time like this look.
Okay. Let’s see. I can keep my own name, right?
I act wounded. What am I, a Neanderthal?
Just checking. Actually, I like your name better. But it’s the principle of the thing.
Elise!
Do you promise to love, cherish and protect me?
I hesitate. Hmm.
She kicks me, and I laugh. Cross my heart. Hope to die.
Will you bring me roses on my birthday?
Big red ones.
No, big blue ones.
Blue?
Big blue ones.
Okay, big blue ones.
She crinkles up her face in thought. An infinite moment. Okay. You’ve got yourself a deal.
I have never been so relieved in my life. She slides off the couch into my arms.
You are such a push-over, she sighs.
***
The hot ash made contact with my skin, waking me. I jerked up, flinging the cigarette away. There was a moment of disorientation.
My ribs were still tender, but the raccoon eyes had faded to yellow-green splotches. The busted toes would knit crooked, but who cared. All in all, I’d taken the thrashing pretty well for a seventy-five-year-old man.
I took in my surroundings. The new place.
My apartment had been furnished (as in “provided by”) by the city, and furnished (as in “decorated by”) the city as well. They’d put me in the Slope, a stone’s throw from my old haunts. I didn’t know if it was accidental or a deliberate attempt to make me feel more at home. As if that were possible.
I’d expected some subsidized government shit hole. But the building had turned out to be a trim brick six-pack within walking distance of Grand Army Plaza and the park. Not totally shabby, either. The staircases were free of graffiti, the floors were clean, and the locks were solid. The building had a name edged in stone over the front door, from a time when they named buildings. The Hoover. “I’m at the Hoover,” you’d tell someone, and they’d know exactly where you meant, the hell with an address. Because they were natives and knew every inch of the terrain. They’d probably never ventured more than twenty miles from where they’d been born. Manhattan? That was just something to dress up the horizon.
The past didn’t die all at once. Maybe it never died. Even after a couple centuries you could still find a few slate squares amid the neocrete sidewalks of the city.
My furnishings consisted of overstuffed couches and chairs, hardwood bureaus, and heavy gilded mirrors. The walls contained cheap art prints, early Deco period. All in all, I suppose an average Necropolitan would have rated it as satisfactory.
I hated it. Everything was something it wasn’t. The chrome appliances in the kitchen looked like leftovers from Donna Reed’s garage sale but responded to voice commands. The iron bed had eight settings, including heat, massage, and something terrifying called “virtual pleasure partner.” Worst, the bookcase wasn’t a bookcase at all, but a hologram that turned into an enormous screen.
So I destroyed it.
Slowly, methodically. I ripped the stuffing from the couch, pulled the paintings from the walls, tore down cabinets. It took most of a drunken day. When the heavy furniture proved too much for me, I went out, bought a hack saw, came home, and continued. The pieces were stacked against the wall like cordwood. Somewhere in the back of my mind it occurred to me that what I was doing was deranged, but I didn’t care. If I was living in hell, it should look like it.
Now I was at a table that I’d allowed to survive, working my way through a bottle of JD. I brought the whiskey to my lips, welcoming the burn. Leaned over to pour another and went white.
Floating in the air, a few feet away, was Elise.
It was a photo of her from her 35th birthday party. I’d hired a Mariachi band to surprise her… actually hid them in the walk-in pantry, five chubby Mexicans with their sombreros and instruments. She’d screamed, then howled in delight as they tore into “Jarabe Tapatio” amidst the boxes of instant mashed potatoes and Tuna Helper. When she’d turned back to me, aglow with delight, I’d snapped that picture.
Now it floated in front of me like an angel’s reproach.
I flung the drink aside and brought my fists down hard enough to splinter the table. The picture of Elise dissolved into another face. Maggie.
“You asked for that photo last night. Or don’t you remember?”
I didn’t. I lit a cigarette. Maggie looked impressed. “How’d you get those? Smoking’s illegal.”
I ignored her.
“It’s bad for your health,” she added.
“So’s dying,” I replied. “I got through that okay.”
“Negative health behaviors accelerate the youthing process. Or haven’t you scanned your dickenjane?”
I grappled with the remote, trying to turn her off. Instead, the bookshelf reformed into a websquirt. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. America, and all you ships at sea—let’s go to press!” The announcer’s voice had the archaic, nasal style popular in old movies. In the age of Bogart and Mitchum, it had embodied toughness and cynicism. Now it just sounded like the guy needed to have his adenoids removed. “This is Walter Winchell, to dish the dirt and gab the gossip for all you reborn skirts and shirts. In entertainment, the Beatles’ long-anticipated reunion concert got underway last night.” I perked up. They’d rebuilt Shea Stadium and it was overflowing with thousands of screaming fans. There they were, reborn octogenarians Paul, Ringo, George, and… Pete Best? Lennon hadn’t come back. What a cosmic fucking insult.
“Unfortunately,” Winchell continued, “the second set came to a tragic halt when Ringo suffered a mild stroke during ‘Get Back.’” On the screen, Ringo stopped drumming, gurgled, and pitched off his stool.
“Christ,” I said, shutting it off.
“With the smoking and drinking, you’ve probably youthed two weeks for the one week you’ve been back. Switch from Jack to smack and you could be fifteen in a couple months. Then again, a gun against the soft palate would do the job instantly.”
“Beat it.”
“I’m serious. What are you hanging around for, taking up space? C’mon, let’s get this over right now. Free up this place for some Joe who’ll actually use his second chance.”
My lips curled. “You’re not so clever. Reverse psychology got me a lot of confessions in my day.”
“But it ain’t your day, Donner. That’s the whole point.”
I picked up the overturned whiskey bottle. There was still a finger of forgetfulness in it, which I quickly drained. I checked my watch and wobbled to my feet.
“Where are you going?”
To find something familiar, I thought.
But what I said was, “None of your fucking business.”