As the car slowed before the garage, I could see attendants, cooks, maids, and workers running toward us. Some were wailing and crying as if I were a coffin containing myself. They clustered around the car, and as I exited, I said, "Thank you. I'm fine. I'm fine, everyone."
Joelene jumped in front to shield me as a tall orange family satin with a golden visor subdued a maid who was tearing off her clothes to expose a complicated set of sharp-looking bands and wires across her chest and crotch. "I'm the one, Michael. It's me. I'm the one who really loves you!"
Years ago, when I danced, I told myself I enjoyed these hopeless displays, like the time an army of teenage girls, dressed in lanolin wools, marched up from the valley, surrounded the compound and demanded all my dancing outfits, toiletries, shaven hairs, and a week's worth of excretions. Now, all of it embarrassed me. As the woman was taken away, Joelene and I hurried in the other direction to my building.
Before my heart attack, my house had been rather like an enormous egg carton inside, with a dozen different rooms. The floors of each room were speaker heads and the place reverberated day and night with heavy bone-jarring thuds and squealing highs. Besides the music, each room was decorated with a theme, like the blinding red light room and the dead lamb room. When I demanded to be taken from the PartyHaus to somewhere quiet and dim, the place had been gutted. Over time, I had decorated and now it had polished muslin walls, black iron floor tiles, and just a few upholstered pieces sat here and there. Two surveillance cameras, little more than black bugs, were mounted on the walls. And while they were there for my safety, I had positioned my bed, desk, and couch out of their range.
Once we were inside and Joelene had shut the cast-iron front door, I felt like I wanted to get in bed and bury myself beneath a hundred layers of wool. I started toward my bed only to jump back in surprise. My mother lay there.
She was a few years younger than father and had at least as much surgery, but seemed older. Her skin was dark and had a leathery quality. Last time I saw her, a year ago, her hair had been long, straight, and hung to her waist. This time it was frizzed like a giant tumble weed and dyed a hundred different colors. Her robe of a dress looked like something a cavewoman would wear. Made of a patchwork of small tanned pelts, I could see tiny rat claws here and there. The bones in her face were beautiful and proud, but now she looked like a former beauty queen who had been forced to fend for herself in the wilderness.
While I felt bad for her, and I had tried not to let Father's poisoned opinion influence me, I distrusted her. Every time I saw her, she wanted something. And not just that, but she always got shrill and hysterical like her generation.
"Thank goodness you're ok!" she said, as she leaped up and came toward me with open arms. "You have to leave," she said, as she hugged me. She smelled of barbecue smoke and soap. "Leave before it's too late."
"Mrs. Rivers-Zssne," said Joelene, pulling Mother's arms from me. "I don't believe you're authorized to be here today."
Mother stepped back and glared at my advisor with her wide, fearsome sage-colored eyes. "I am!"
"May I see your pass, please?"
"A mother needs a pass to come and hug her son! And to think that we were supposed to be the perfect family. What a lie it all was!"
"Regardless," said Joelene, smiling stiffly, "I must see your pass."
As embarrassed as I felt for my mother, my advisor was right—especially after a terrible security breach.
While glaring at me as if this were my doing, Mother pulled a card from her pouch. Somehow she'd been able to bend the hard plastic. After straightening the crease, Joelene checked her screens. "It
was
valid," she said. "It expired one hour ago."
"I spoke to his father," said Mother, trilling her fingers dismissively. "He said I could have a word with my poor, injured son."
Joelene handed back the pass. "No disrespect, but you did not speak directly to his father, and we are extremely busy. Additionally, I would advise you to hurry if you want to, wisely, avoid Mr. Rivers senior."
"If you don't mind!" bristled Mother. "A moment, please."
Joelene didn't blink. "If you're asking to be alone with Michael, I'm afraid that won't be possible."
I wanted to tell Joelene that it wasn't necessary, that I'd be fine, but I knew she wasn't going to budge. She probably felt responsible for the freeboot's bullets.
"It's okay," I told Mother, "we can talk. She's family."
Mother's face paled; her mouth shrunk to a dot. "Don't confuse family.
She
is not your family. She never will be. Your real family loves you. And they desperately need you," she said, her tone shifting into her familiar pleading. "They're waiting to meet you. They've been waiting for so long. It just breaks my heart." Mother covered her face and began to sob. "I'm so sorry for everything! I'm so sorry!"
"I feel fine." I held out my hands with their tiny scars for her to see. "I'm healthy." I thought that was the answer to the question she hadn't asked.
Mother wiped her face, glared at Joelene, and hugged me again. I put my arms around her and, up close, I could see that a multitude of tiny metal and glass charms had been woven into her rainbow hair: birds, hearts, aphids, cars, sunglasses, phalluses, and what looked like a tiny caribou stared back at me.
"You really must leave," she said, sniffing. "It's not good here. It's all about the wrong things, and your father uses everyone and anyone he can. Look what's happened to you." She took my left hand in hers and rubbed my palm with her thumbs.
"It was a random breach. I'm perfectly fine." The words came off my tongue too easily and I regretted that I was, after two minutes, trying to appease her so she'd leave.
"Come with me," she whispered. "Come be part of Tanoshi No Wah."
"Ma'am," said Joelene, stiffly, "please."
"We live honestly, and we're not ashamed," continued Mother. "We show ourselves. And I'd love for you to see who you really are."
"Please," said Joelene, raising her voice.
"The families and their laws are pollution to the human spirit. They're all hypocrites! We're trying to do what's right."
"Mrs. Rivers, we're late for an appointment!"
"Think about it, Michael. You're not part of this anymore. You've changed from the beast you were. Change a little more, and you'll see what I mean. Come with me."
I couldn't imagine her life in the slubs, eating grilled rats, living in tents. In the shows, she sang, stripped nude, and ate fire, I'd heard. "I found someone." I said, not sure if she knew of Nora. "I'm in love."
She shook her head frantically, but one of the charms in her hair spun around and hit her on the nose. "Trust me," she said, grimacing and rubbing the spot. "There's nothing to love in the families. They're evil and ruthless. They're all dead lumps of stolen flesh! Come with me. You need to find your real family."
By now, Joelene's face turned red. "Mrs. Rivers, I'm warning you!"
"Please, Michael!" She put her hands on my shoulders. "It's time you came home. They're waiting. They adore you. And you'd make such a lovely addition. You could dance with us."
That was the worse thing she could have suggested. "Mother," I said, squirming away. "You know I don't dance anymore."
"Fine!" she said, angrily. "Don't dance!"
"It's time for you to go," said Joelene.
Mother combed her hair from her face and regained her composure. "I always thought you would be a poet. A lovely poet. But you don't have to do anything in the show. You could be my assistant. Wouldn't that be nice? You could hold my clothes while I strip."
"Mother!" I said, flummoxed. "I don't want to perform. I don't want you doing it either!"
"Mrs. Rivers," said Joelene, wedging herself between us. "Leave now, or I'll be forced to call security."
"Michael, come and find out who you are."
"That's it!" Joelene pushed mother backward. "You must go now."
"How dare you touch me! You're just like all of them. You're sucking his blood. You're just using his talent and fame!" Mother had that crazy look in her eyes. A second later she clenched her fists and lunged at Joelene as if to pummel her. Joelene was stronger and knew the fighting arts. In one second, she had Mother in a headlock and called the satins.
"Let go of me, you bitch!" screamed Mother. "Let Michael come with me and find out the truth!"
"Mother!" I said, wishing she wouldn't be like this. "I know the truth."
"Let go!" she said, thrashing in Joelene's grip. "Let go or I'll bite."
Two especially tall, satin beasts, with angular but impassive faces, rushed in and grabbed her. One held her arms; the other, her legs, and they carried her out as if they were dealing with so much meat.
"Get these things off of me!" she shrieked.
"Joelene's only trying to protect me," I said, as they came to the door.
"Your father is a mutation!" she screamed. "Ask him what that means! Ask him!"
The door slammed shut.
Plopping onto my grey wool couch, I slumped forward and told myself that I hated her. Every time I saw her, she wound up screaming and ranting. I had the worst parents. They were loud, obnoxious, selfish, and awful.
Joelene sat beside me and stroked my shoulder. "Eventually," she said, "we
will
talk with her. She is a good person. It's circumstance."
"I don't want to see her ever again."
Joelene's hand slid off my back. "Judith Rivers-Zssne," she pronounced Mother's name slowly as if she were going to define the words, "has led a difficult life. As have all the women who have been with your father. I know she loves you, but she expected too much from her marriage and . . . " After she glanced at me gently, she said, "She probably thought you would save her."
"Me?" I asked, as if it were absurd. "From what?"
"Unhappiness," she said, staring into space. Her eyes found mine. With a shrug, she added, "Years ago, your mother tried to fight the system. She petitioned the families to let her change her identity. Of course, they refused, as that's wholly illegal—tantamount to treason. Since then, she's done the best she can."
I didn't want to think about Mother and her problems. I didn't want her in my bed when I came home, and I certainly didn't want her asking me to hold her clothes while she stripped. I said, "She scares me."
Joelene folded her hands in her lap and tilted her head in just that way she had when regurgitating her facts. "Reports indicate that she's taking a combination of self-administered color therapy and an illegal and powerful painkiller, strengthener, and mood shaper: aru."
"aru?"
"Actually, it's an amazing and useful drug." She frowned. "The families have exaggerated the dangers of everything the 'Ceutical Warlords make. Whatever else they are, the slub rulers are masters of biochemistry." I thought she was going to continue in that vein, but she shrugged. "In any case, your mother's group, Tanoshi No Wah, is losing money. You would be a huge draw, of course."
"Everyone just wants to use me," I complained.
She pursed her lips as if she were going to speak, but stood abruptly. "We have a meeting."
Instead of being driven to the business building across the compound, Joelene suggested we walk along the oxygen gardens and the reflecting pool. It sounded like a good idea, but the temperature-regulated air and the filtered sunlight didn't lift my spirits. Instead, I felt crushed under the vast, ashen sky. While nothing that had happened was Mother's fault, her tantrum made me feel doomed. I would never escape my family. I would never escape their wishes and their desires for me. As we approached the wood-shingled office building, I asked Joelene, "Why?" knowing she would understand.
She stopped before the door and spoke quietly as if telling a secret. "I have diverted some of your discretionary funds to Tanoshi No Wah to try and help your mother and her friends. They have a lot of medical needs, and I believe they're poorly managed. It's the best we can do now."
I didn't even know I had discretionary funds. "But why is she with a carnival in the slubs? Why did she leave us for that?" I felt she did it to embarrass me, like everything else she did.
Joelene glanced to her right as if she were trying to think what to say, but then she stood there, as if momentarily transfixed.
I turned to see that she was staring at the PartyHaus. At one time it had been the crown jewel of the compound, but now its black and gold Rococo façade was matted with dirt and dust. From the roof were long, pale green lines of oxidation. And at the top of the stairs, the enormous front doors were splattered with droppings as thousands of birds had made nests in the intricately carved fornicating animals. It was a combination disco, hotel, brothel, and amusement park where I had spent the nights of my youth at one hundred and fifty beats per minute.
When Joelene's eyes met mine, I felt that we both had the same mood: a nebulous sense of defeat, under-painted with the caustic dread of seeing Father.
Finally, she nodded toward the door. We entered the building, and found meeting theater five. The three-hundred-seat auditorium was empty, dark, and cold. Joelene located the controls, and as she turned on house lights, I sat in one of the orange, over-stuffed chairs toward the front. Above the stage hung an enormous, glowing estimator clock—a family antique. Across the top it read: Hiro Bruce Rivers Arrival Time. Below were the stylized, red numbers.
"Joelene," I said, at once relieved and annoyed to see that it read: one hour and thirty-three minutes. "I'm not waiting."
"That can't be right," she muttered as she opened a screen and checked with his people. "They say five or ten."
As if the estimator clock had heard, the glowing numbers on the clock's face flickered then read fourteen minutes eighty-one seconds and began counting down.
"The freeboot who shot you," said Joelene, reading from her screen, "is suspected to have been from Antarctica. The family council reports that the medicated bullets were prototypes stolen in Europa two weeks ago. They suspected he was a lone gunman. What little has been discovered suggests that he trafficked contraband including aru and other pain caustics."