Just a Couple of Days (18 page)

“Check it out.” Blip studied the motionless flame. “Fire is a process of oxidation, manifest here as a chemical reaction between butane and oxygen, catalyzed by a spark. No one would argue that this is fire, but we fail to see the flames when the oxidation process is slower.” He took a deep, demonstrative breath. “Respiration is an oxidation process. So is metabolism. We eat food and
burn
calories. And it doesn't even stop there. Everywhere you look, things are oxidizing—decaying, rotting, rusting, metabolizing, burning, combusting, exploding. Everything is on fire, bro, we just don't realize it. We've been splashing around in the lake of fire since birth. Do you understand? We are in hell
right now
.”

“Shit,” Manny said.

“Nah.” Blip waved him off. “Don't worry about it. It's all good. Hell isn't permanent, and it certainly isn't as bad as Brother Zebediah here thinks.” He snapped the Zippo shut. “Hell is part of the process. You know, yin and yang, and all that jazz. We'll get ourselves back to the Garden eventually.”

“Beast! Beast! Beast!” Brother Zebediah pounded his fists on the table in zealous fury.

“Exactly! Now you're starting to get the picture, Brother. But listen,” Blip smiled, “didn't Jesus say the kingdom of heaven is within you?”

“Oooo,” Brother Zebediah mocked him. “Mr. Big Shot, think you can quote the Bible now, eh?”

Blip, not wanting to get into a Bible-quoting match, ignored him and continued to wax metaphysical. “I take that to mean that paradise is a matter of perception. We exist here and now only for a short time, yet we waste our existence on selfish endeavors, deluding ourselves into hell. The kingdom of heaven is right in front of our freaking faces, and we're blind to it, man. Wake up!”

“Heathen! You wake up!” Brother Zebediah turned to Manny, as if the argument he was having with Blip had become a contest for Manny's soul. “You see where he's going, don't you? That immoral idealist has a first-class ticket to
hell
!”

“Hell yes I'm an idealist,” Blip interjected, imitating Brother Zebediah's pulpitine intonations. “Romantics of the world, rejoice! The return of the romantic reaction and triumph is at hand!” Ceasing his sarcasm, he continued: “Anyway, what's the alternative? Realism? No thanks. I'll take ideality over reality any time. If I were a realist I'd have to kill myself.”

“Ain't you the hopeless romantic?” Manny jeered, slapping Blip good-naturedly on the arm.

“A hopeless romantic is a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron,” Blip corrected him. “I'm a hopeful romantic.”

“Either way, you're going to hell. Paradise isn't for you, Satan!” Brother Zebediah looked to Manny, who was rattling the dice in his hand. “Isn't that right?” he asked, as if here, down in a dungeon in the bowels of the Earth, these three men had just reached
the
moment of reckoning, judgment day, revelation, and now, the word of Manny Malarkey would decide the profound fate of the universe for eternity.

“Paradise?” said Manny, and he tossed the cubes upon the table. “Paradise is pair a' dice.”

 

61
“Snake eyes!” Manny hooted. “How 'bout that?”

“They're snake eyes all right, the eyes of Satan!” Brother Zebediah picked up the dice and hurled them across the room toward the mirrored wall, causing the four of us to instinctively duck and shield our faces.

“Whoa!” General Kiljoy blurted as the dice bounced off the glass. “That looked real!”

“It
was
real,” I said.

“Well, yeah, but you know what I mean,” General Kiljoy laughed. “It's like TV.”

“Shh!” Miss Mary and Tynee shushed him.

Back on screen, Manny was offering a cigarette to Brother Zebediah. “How 'bout a smoke, bro? You need to relax.”

“Please remove that devilish drug from my presence. Only the vile and the wicked depend upon such things.”

“Well, I was on the preacher's side till that,” Miss Mary spoke up, exhaling defiantly. No one acknowledged her vomitous remark.

“How 'bout you, Doc?” Manny offered a cigarette to Blip.

“No thanks.”

“You think it's devilish, too?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I'm just allergic to poison.”

“Allergic to poison, eh?” Manny eyed his cigarette suspiciously. “I guess I'm addicted to poison then, this poison anyway. Everybody's got a poison though. What's your poison, Doc?”

Blip smirked. “Me? I don't really have any poisons.” He considered a moment, grinning to himself, then shrugged. “I do enjoy a little grass on occasion.”

“Grass?” Manny laughed. “The perfessor likes the joy smoke.”

“Devil smoke,” Brother Zebediah corrected, then added, “Potheads are going to hell, you know.”

“I can just see you tokin' up with your long white hair,” Manny continued. “Pot-smoking perfessor, how 'bout that? We gotta get together after we're outta here.”

“Sure thing.”

“Smoke that pot, you're gonna rot!” Brother Zebediah reprimanded them both.

“Man, shut up.” Manny turned to Brother Zebediah. “God made marijuana, didn't he?”

“God made poison ivy, too, that doesn't mean you should roll around in it!” Blip joined Brother Zebediah in reciting his standard reply to that line of reasoning. Tynee shifted in his seat at the mention of his cherished botanical.

“What's that s'posed to mean?” asked Manny. “Who's rollin' around in marijuana?”

Brother Zebediah spoke, slow and condescending. “Just because God made marijuana doesn't mean you should smoke it.”

“You're crazy, Brother.” Manny pointed at the Bible in Brother Zebediah's hand. “Who d'ya s'pose wrote that there Bible?”

“These . . .” Brother Zebediah lifted his Bible. “These are the inspired words of God himself.”

“Well, just 'cause God wrote the Bible don't mean you should read it.”

“Heretic!” Brother Zebediah yelled, his eyes wide in unfeigned horror.

“Hypocrite!” Manny returned the favor. “I know what your poison is, Padre. Religion. You make yourself feel good by puttin' others down. You like to inject your soul with that hellfire and damnation talk, pointin' out everyone else's flaws. Yeah, that's right, that Bible's your poison. Every time you point your finger at someone you're stickin' a needle in your arm, shootin' yourself fulla pride and self-righteousness. You think you know somethin' the rest of us don't? Bullshit. You don't know shit. No one knows shit. And anyone who thinks they know shit definitely don't.”

Brother Zebediah was flabbergasted, so much so that he was, for a thick moment, at a loss for words. “My God, may God strike you down this instant!”

“There you go, you see what I'm sayin'? There ain't enough trucks in this country to haul the load of bullshit you're try'na sell.” He looked at the fluorescent lights on the ceiling of their cell. “I don't see no lightning, Brother.”

“It doesn't seem likely,” Blip entered their argument, gazing pensively at the ceiling. “It doesn't seem likely that lightning could come into an enclosed room.”

“Wouldn't matter if it could,” Manny said. “I've already been struck by lightning.”

This revelation brought a pause to the conversation, as both Blip and Brother Zebediah (as well as the assembled studio audience) studied Manny's face to ascertain whether or not he was serious.

“No lie. When I was fifteen I tried out for the football team at my high school. I was tacklin' on a weighted dummy when suddenly it kicked back. I guess it threw me about thirty feet. I had all my gear on, but it still felt like I'd just gotten my ass run over by an eighteen-wheeler.”

“Jesus,” said Blip. “You might have told me that when we met. That's like having a twin. You're not supposed to keep something like that a secret.”

Manny smiled and shrugged. “Anyway, I couldn't sleep for a couple weeks after that. I wasn't even tired. I still only need a couple hours' sleep a night now. That's why I got into haulin', plus I wanted to see the country. I found out soon enough that would be difficult, what with a billboard every time I turned a bend tellin' me what I needed or what lay ahead, just like you, Brother Zachariah. I say fuck that. I know what I need and I'll see what's ahead when I get there. So, I use my spare time doin' billboard jobs.”

“Cool,” said Blip.

“You're abusing a blessing from God,” Brother Zebediah informed Manny.

“A blessin' my ass. I couldn't make the team 'cause of that.”

“Why not?” Blip asked.

“Ever since that day I ain't never shed a drop of sweat on the whole left side of my body.”

“Come on . . . ,” said Blip.

“No lie, Doc. I can't sweat on my left side. Look.” Manny lifted his arms to display his armpits. Sure enough, the underarm of his shirt on the left side was a virtual antiperspirant commercial, as sure as the Statue of Liberty, while the fabric on the right was darkened with dampness.

“Now that's something, eh, Brother?”

“Remarkable,” Brother Zebediah responded with uncharacteristic geniality, his mind preoccupied momentarily with something other than Biblical literalism.

“And the nice thing is,” Manny peeled off his shirt, revealing a mountainous build. He pulled it back on inside out. “When the right side of the shirt gets all wet, I can turn it inside out and practically have a fresh shirt on.”

 

62
The mad tea party continued along in much the same manner. At one point I turned to General Kiljoy to inquire what the itinerary for the day was, only to discover that he and the others were no longer sitting with me. So engrossed was I in the squabbles of the trio before me that I hadn't noticed the others had moved to the far side of the room, where they were now talking quietly at the bar. Stupid as General Kiljoy's earlier comment had been, it
was
like TV.

I stood up to join them, and they abruptly ceased their hushed conversation. Pretending not to notice, I raised the question of the day's activities.

“This is it,” General Kiljoy responded, gesturing across the room with his palms.

“We're going to watch them all day?”

“It should get interesting shortly,” Miss Mary assured me.

“It's been interesting,” I said, “but I'd like to have a few words with Blip before we,” I fumbled, “before you get down to business.”

“Impossible,” General Kiljoy said flatly. Tynee and Miss Mary chuckled as if watching the antics of a four-year-old.

“The least you could grant me is a meeting with him before you begin experimenting on him.”

General Kiljoy shrugged his chin, considering. “It's not that I wouldn't grant you that,” he said, emphasizing that it would indeed be a regal gesture. “But we've already begun the experiment.” The three of them looked at me as if they'd just whooped “Surprise!” at a birthday party.

I turned and looked at Blip, Brother Zebediah, and Manny, who were still sitting around the table, talking, arguing, and drinking tea. Blip asked Manny if he was deaf on the same side he couldn't sweat on. He was.

“The tea, Doctor,” Miss Mary informed me, smiling with the depravity of an executioner.

“What about the tea?” I asked, glancing at the incongruously opulent teapot, with which Brother Zebediah was pouring himself another cup.

“Your friend should love it.” Tynee smiled. “It's an invigorating herbal blend.”

“But it's sweetened,” General Kiljoy continued, “with our very own secret ingredient.”

“The Pied Piper virus!” Miss Mary exclaimed. Happy birthday!

Astounded beyond reaction, I slumped down onto a barstool, then immediately hopped up and walked around the bar to pour myself a drink. I grabbed the meanest bottle I could find, Wild Turkey. I wanted punishment. “How long before its effects manifest?” I asked, after belting back a shot and shuddering as the ethanol spirits possessed me.

“I donated the teapot,” Miss Mary crowed.

“How long?” I repeated.

General Kiljoy glanced at his watch. “Typically takes about one-and-a-half, two hours. That gives them about a half hour to forty-five minutes, tops.”

I took another slug of whiskey, and though I was salivating madly from the alcohol, began to feel a John Wayne edge coming on. “I want to talk with him,” I said, swallowing the bile rising in my throat.

“That's not an option, Doctor,” General Kiljoy responded evenly. He was more John Wayne than me.

I took another shot, swallowed my gag as a chaser, and regained my composure. “Work something out.” I slammed the glass down on the bar. Tynee commandeered the bottle, but I would've rather bitten on a fork than toss back another nip of that demonswill. “I want to meet with him now,” I continued, loud and surly, “or I'm off this project.” I spoke my
j
's as if pronouncing
Jacques
. “Release me, kill me, or throw me in there with them, do what you want, but you'll get no cooperation from me. I've only one request.” I also pronounced my
qu
's as in
Jacques
. “I want to talk to him while he can still talk back.”

General Kiljoy looked at me, his eyes narrow. Miss Mary and Tynee retreated to the sofas. “You got balls after all, Fountain.” He gazed at me, scanning my features, looking for signs of a bluff. But I held my cool. I was a wild turkey, after all, fast and furious, look out. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his remote control. Still looking at me, he hit a button, and the bookcase to the left of the observation window slid open. “I'll send him in in a minute. There'll be a glass wall separating you to protect you from exposure, naturally, but you'll be able to see and hear each other.”