Swallowing a Donkey's Eye Read online

  He says, “I know what you’re thinking, kiddo, but we’re on the other side of Annotte.”

  Goddamn ESP bastard. I think his ESP only works to make me miserable.

  At least we’re out of the alleys and walking on some main roads now. We walk past the Thomas Square market place. City workers erect a giant, circular tent and venders and shoppe keepers are all scurrying about. There’s a grill and a deep-fry set up and I hear something sizzling and I smell doughnuts and cooked meat and my stomach folds into itself I’m so hungry, so hungry that I have to ask.

  “Can we stop and get something to eat here?”

  “Aw, asking Daddy if he can have little snack . . . no. We’re on a tight schedule.”

  “I’m going to die if I don’t eat,” I say like a whiney little kid.

  “A little suffering never killed anyone.”

  We don’t stop for food. We walk through and then away from Thomas Square, and through more winds and curves and everything is maddeningly circular in Annotte. Pedestrians pack the cobblestone streets. Another two hours of walking passes into three, then four. It has to be past noon now. My limbs shake. My head hurts. I alternate watching my feet plant on the grimy cobblestone with boring a hole into my father’s back and then gazing at the sky to see Annotte’s pillars and assorted cylindrical buildings disappear into murk. But I still follow him. A walking machine, my thinking circuits turned off and needing a reboot, there’s only left foot, right foot, left foot.

  Annotte’s cobblestones finally and abruptly give way to cracked and pot-holed pavement. Finally, we leave Annotte and hit Downtown. And there, right after that line in the sand, is the church.

  There’s only one Catholic Church in City compared to countless Temples of the Pier and the assortment of one-room back-alley joints catering to other religions and cults. It’s only one church, but it is a big sucker. A magnificent wood, brick, and marble cathedral, five stories tall, replete with stained glass and spires sharp enough to make the sky bleed. I follow him up the marble front stairs that taper off and drop us at gargantuan, wooden front doors. He parts the great doors, my Moses of cured and stained wood, and their creak echoes inside the dark and cavernous church, and to me it sounds like the Pier is falling.

  Faux-candles alternated with real ones line the walls and there’s more walking. More lefts and rights and then a room-for-one-person stairwell and our footsteps echo like old, unanswered prayers. At some point we cross into the rectory section of the church as we pass empty living quarters, then up more stairs and into another lonely hallway, we stop halfway down and my father unlocks a solitary door and then into the lonely no-window room. There’s one bed, and I go to it.

  27

  GROWING LIKE A MELANOMA

  He enters the room like an explosion, and I wake up.

  He says, “Like my dwelling? Fit for a humble servant of the Lord.”

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  He doesn’t answer. I think he wants to keep me confused, hungry, exhausted, compliant. But the joke is on him because I’m used to it.

  He says, “I don’t stay here as much as I used to.” There’s a bed, a closet, a desk with nothing on it, not even a Bible, a crucifix, and that’s it other than the hardwood floors and plaster walls. He walks into his closet and defrocks.

  I guess I’m supposed to care why he doesn’t stay here as much as he used to, or care about where and what he’s doing now. I don’t. And I won’t pretend I do. I sit up on his bed. The springs clang and groan. My head is a cloud and I get the sense I managed an impressive Rip Van Winkle impersonation.

  He says from the closet, “It’s not much, but it’s still a good set up. Free room and board. Four Dominican Brothers take care of the church maintenance, prepare my readings and homilies on the rare occasion I need to do anything like that, and they look after the rectory. Those old boys don’t like me very much. Guess they don’t approve of my lifestyle.”

  I say, “Who does?”

  “Good point. Hey, if we’re leaving and they see you and ask you anything, just tell them you’re from below Pier. They’re suckers for charity cases like that.”

  “What, I can’t tell them I’m your son? Ashamed to have the bosses see me?”

  “Hardly. You just can’t afford to be seen yet. Sheesh, you are a paranoid martyr type, ain’t ya? Too much like your mother.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “And may God bless you.”

  “Killing a priest in a church would bring seven years bad luck or something like that, right?”

  “Nah. But you’d have such guilt.” He steps out of the closet and he’s not wearing his suit of trade. Black cowboy boots, worn blue-jeans, white button-down shirt opened to the sternum showing off a mouse of pepper-gray chest hair, a black leather overcoat partially cinched at the waist, and what I have to assume are night-vision glasses. The lenses take up most of his face. His hair is slicked back too, like he’s going nightclubbing or something.

  “Do you always dress like this?”

  He smiles like some kind of predator; you choose what kind. “You’re just jealous of my skills.”

  He’s starting to grow on me. Like a melanoma. I say, “You look like a mid-life crisis stooge.” A fresh wave of hunger pangs attack along with the realization that no matter what I do, no matter what this guy set up for me, I’m in over my head. And no matter how bad off I’ll be, it’s probably already worse for my mother.

  “That’s the spirit, kiddo,” he says. He walks over to his bed and bends over. I don’t move. He shoves his hands beneath the mattress and they emerge with a fistful of cash and a small pistol. He holds the cash up and says, “Passport,” then the gun, “and the insurance policy.”

  The threads and glasses and slicked hair add up to a good look for him. I can admit it. He could be some aging but hip movie star, or even a comic book character. How about Priest-Man? A cross in one hand and a can of whoop-ass in the other. He tucks the gun into his right boot and quick, like it fits, like it’s supposed to be there.

  “Let’s go,” he says.

  “Goddamn it, I need something to eat. You have any food?”

  “The cupboard is bare.”

  “What the fuck were you doing while I was asleep? We have time for you to get all duded up, but I can’t get a morsel to eat? I haven’t eaten since Farm breakfast, which was a century ago.”

  “Buck up, buckeroo. This side trip was necessary. I can’t take you into the Zone empty handed, so to speak,” he pauses, tightens his overcoat and adds, “and dressed like Father What’s-his-face from Our Town. What are you bitching about? You took a big old nap. Now come on, we were supposed to meet with your campaign managers ten minutes ago.”

  28

  IN THE ZONE

  He let me sleep a long time. It’s night again, but not sure exactly when, or even what day it is. I adjust my slept-upon disguise and we’re out of the church and into Downtown. Lights and signs flashing and a sea of downtown noise, revving engines, horns, street chatter, and all the ad jingles playing from speakers of unknown origin and coming from the Ad Walkers. Those Ad Walkers work all hours, wearing their silver jumpsuits with flat, holo-screens on their chests and oversized baseball hats branded with company logos. They grab people from the crowded streets and force them to watch their ads. People usually break through a lone Ad Walker, but the larger ad campaigns tend to work in gangs and are more successful in trapping quarry. Just ahead is a gaggle of Farm recruitment Walkers with their hands all over a young male. That guy is all done. They have one arm pinned to his chest, the other in a chicken wing, his legs tangled in their legs, and his head in a headlock. He’ll have to watch every one of their ads before they release him back into the wild. My favourite Farm ad is the one that says, “Do you have what it takes?” as it shows some muscle-bound stud scaling the Upshore Cliffs, and when he reaches the top, he stands overall-clad in fr
ont of an army of overall-clad clones looking ready to kick some ass for Farm.

  Papa Padre turns to me and says, “Those guys get real aggressive during the evening commute. Gotta keep it moving, and quick.” We kick our pace up a notch, actively working at not getting hassled or sidetracked, or in my case, arrested and/or shot.

  I think about ditching Father Fuck-up right here. I could easily get lost in this crowd. But what then? I have no money and nowhere to go. I don’t believe his kaka story about campaign managers and me running for Mayor. Not for one second. I do believe one part of his tall tale though: me being set up as some sort of patsy.

  My father says this out of the side of his mouth and despite the crowd and all the noise, I hear it. “I know what you’re thinking, but you can’t run now, kiddo. Nowhere to go.”

  I choose the I-will-hate-you-silently technique of nonresponse.

  He says, in concert with one of the giant ads playing on a holo-board above us, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”

  Would the psychic priest see my fist colliding with the back of his skull before it happens?

  We pass under another holo-board that spans the width of the street. This one showing a clip of a busty young mom driving a continent-sized global-warming-on-4-wheels SUV dropping off her nerdy son at school, but all the kids think he’s cool because of his pimpin’ ride.

  We swim upstream, passing packed coffee shops and cafe nodes. There’s a ton of suits working through the crowd. I assume most of them can afford City-approved stun guns to scare off the Ad Walkers. Buses as big as whales struggle down the cramped streets and then beach at street corners. Cabbies and cops knife through the traffic. We’re just two blocks from the Zone and across the street is a Pier Wagon. Four cops swinging light-batons spill out of an alley with a stunned and flash-burnt homeless person in tow and stuff him into the van. At least I’m supposed to assume the person is homeless given the deployment of a Pier Wagon. There’s a wind and a buzz above us, something flying overhead, its spotlight cuts through the night and fog and shines on the van and then randomly on the buildings. A group of kids applaud the Wagon show, before sprinting away from three Ad Walkers and their Toy-Taser ads. Most of the adults walkin’ and workin’ these streets turn their backs and tend to their own business. They know better. They know that they’re only one paycheck away from being loaded into a Pier Wagon.

  We turn right and my father says, “We’re here. Watch yourself.”

  The Zone. It’s a dead end street that’s closed off to traffic. Holo-boards broadcast condom and natural male enhancement ads, spotlights and laser anime and neon signs hang off gutted and converted brownstones and leer through giant glass windows of the newer sex shops. Ad Walkers and Baiters wearing cat-suits (some red, some black, some flesh-coloured) and microphone headsets stand in front of their respective places of business barking and selling their wares to a backbeat of loud and fast electronic music, the same kind of crap they played at us during Farm social night. It’s almost enough to make me check the overalls I’m no longer wearing. Other vendors and dope dealers aren’t relegated to the sidewalk shadows in the Zone. They set up camp in the middle of the street.

  A pulsing sea of people jam the Zone but I don’t worry about being recognized here. It’s the type of place where folks agree to be anonymous. My father sure has been recognized, though. Men and women shout his name and he shoots them back a nod or a smirk, super hip super cool padre that he is. More than a few folks pat him on the back and whisper in his ear. No one gives me an I-see-you-and-acknowledge-your-existence glance. I like it that way.

  We walk past the Voyeur Dome, 2on1, The Animal Farm, and countless other places toward the dead end, funneling into the Boutique’s rounded and metallic façade. A blue, cursive neon sign hangs above a blue awning that stretches from one side of the street to the other. When I lived in City, this place had the rep of being the cleanest and safest and therefore most expensive joint in the Zone. As kids, we used to sneak into the Zone’s back alleys but would always get chased off by bouncers and other security.

  There’s a line of people contained within velvet ropes. No idea how fast this line moves, but I would guess it’d be hours before some of these people get in. My father grabs my shirt and leads us to the front. There’s some booing and hissing in our direction but electronica music overwhelms the rabble’s complaints. Three Hulk-sized bouncers wearing headsets and an assortment of weapons strapped to their belts man the front door. Each goon visibly recognizes my father, and they even crack a smile as he uses some of his passport to line their palms. They let us in.

  I say, “Come here often?”

  He says, “Yes and yes, and oh yeah.”

  I almost wish that I knew or . . . cough . . . loved my father well enough to be disgusted at his double-entendre response.

  There’s a clear, bubble-shaped booth straight ahead. An older woman sits inside, smoking two cigarettes at once, purple lipstick smeared all over the filters, as if the cancer sticks had been dipped into a plum. The smoke stays trapped in the bubble, forming clouds around her head and clinging to the clear walls. She exchanges money for colour-coded key-chips.

  “What do you think, kiddo? Time for a quickie? Sonya is my favourite.”

  This is where, if I had any guts, I’d punch him in the face or whatever body part opportunity might present. But I have no guts. I’m too tired, hungry, and lost to have any. I say nothing and sidestep the booth.

  He knocks on the bubble. The woman waves her cigarette hand and raises her skin-curtain into a smile, showing us more purple lipstick on her teeth.

  We’re allowed to pass through an employees only door, and we walk up a metallic spiral stairwell, four flights and then four more. We emerge into a corridor with no doors and smooth, metallic, tube-shaped walls. Florescent lights above have a blue tint, like the neon signs out front. My father’s boots crack like gunshots on the black linoleum floor. After maybe twenty steps there’s a door on our left. It’s flush with the wall and it’s the kind of thing you can only see if you’re looking for it.

  I say, “What have you gotten me into?”

  My father says, “No worries. Stand here and look handsome, like me.”

  29

  PERV LIKE ME

  The door opens and there’s classical music playing. Piano and violins sound canned and tinny in the metallic hallway. There’s a big boardroom with mahogany (just like the Arbitrator’s room back at Farm) desks and molding. The floor is hardwood. Flickering flat-screen monitors fill one wall and giant bay windows take up the far wall. Greeting us are a youngish woman and youngish man in matching, dark blue business suits and white, button-down shirts displaying their matching socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds, and their matching hands folded in front of their bodies with matching heights and matching hair length and matching skin tone and complexion, and matching smiles that should be reserved for greeting a Messiah, not a patsy.

  I shouldn’t walk into this room. But I’m doing it anyway. I should be doing this: leaving. Instinct is telling me to fly baby fly and then hide out somewhere, become anonymous, find some shit job in City and lay low and look for my mother my own way on my own time, but I’m not, I’m telling instinct that I know what I’m doing, telling instinct to bugger off.

  The suits say, “This is fantastic, Father, really,” then, “You getting him here in one piece,” then, “Amazing. Stupendous,” then, “Your service will not be forgotten.”

  I don’t know which person in a suit spoke first, their voices fall into the same gender-neutral but falsely exuberant tone, and the words come out so fast I can’t lip read to see who’s saying what. They each reach for something on the back of their wrists and the music’s volume fades into the background of the big room.

  They say: “You are truly a prince of City, Father,” then, “We should be propping you up to be Mayor,” then, “Ha ha,” then, “Ha ha.” The
y exchange a glance and walk toward us with extended hands. Everything they’ve said and done has occurred during the time it took for us to walk through the doorway.

  Padre says, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, nice to see you, God bless, mazeltov. Kid, meet Chris Zrike and Kris Cotter. They’re to be your campaign managers.”

  “Wonderful to meet you,” then, “Pleasure is all ours.” They both pump my hand, and even their handshakes feel the same.

  “Come in,” then, “Make yourselves comfortable,” then, “Drink?” then, “Food?”

  There’s a catered spread just to the right of the entrance. I say, “Hell yes,” and dig in. Cheese, fruit, rolls, cold cuts, and some fancy chicken-tuna-potato-salad type finger sandwiches. I swallow three whole without chewing. Then two more. There’re sweating bottles of beer, pitchers of water, and coffee. I drink. I eat. Repeat. And at this point, I don’t care if it’s my last supper.

  Padre says, “Don’t you know it’s impolite to binge alone?”

  I look up from my feeding frenzy and notice my father is over by the huge bay windows, standing and talking to the suits. To my right is a wall of flat-screen monitors. Some screens are in colour, some in infrared.

  Filling those screens are the Boutique clientele, the Janes and Johns, and they’re all fucking like mad. I can tell who are the buyers and who are the sellers as the sellers have blue hearts branded on their shoulders. There’s no volume to go with the wall of naked and animated flesh.

  The canned classical music floats around the room like a commissioned ghost. Almost looks like the fucking-folks are wrestling. Maybe some of them are. All the colours from the sexual rainbow are represented here. There are some rooms where I don’t really know what’s going on nor do I care to. And holy shit, there’s a guy in a duck suit (what is it with those fucking ducks?) getting his groove on with a doe-eyed, spread-eagled Boutique beauty.