The n-Body Problem (6 page)

Things get moving pretty early in this town. Streets get swept. The message box gets changed out in front of the Evangelical Church to “He is Risen.” I recognize Russel with the letters. I wave. He looks. The sky is covered again. Low cloud. Probably best. I’m in a low-intensity mood. High school kids are out. Golden Apple is open for breakfast. Y is walking just back a bit, studying the signs of things. He catches up.

“It’s not really bad out here.”

He’s relieved. That’s better, tough guy.

“Nope. I guess it ain’t.”

People live here. That’s what I see. Husband and wife rolling wheelbarrows into place outside the Home Hardware. You can’t tell what you’re looking at. I’m pretty sure these people are talking about suicide. Just not to me.

“Let’s eat some food.”

Golden Apple is all pine booths and blond wainscoting. Heavy lacquer. Three old guys in overalls and tractor caps stop talking when we walk past. I almost say hello.

Y orders himself breakfast. Three eggs. Sausage. Bacon. Home fries. Rye toast. Large orange juice. I remember that. The pills give you a new appetite. For a while. I order coffee and a single scrambled egg. Line up the oils. My side is sore where I hit the ground. My belly has swollen a bit more in the last fifteen minutes or so. Y has frown lines. He’s ageing. Something’s up there.

“You get hurt at all?”

Kid’s light. Probably hit the ground like a snowflake. He dismisses the question. My eggs come first. The waitress has a pine look to her. Knotty and yellow. Cigarettes. Why not?

“We need a base.”

Thought he’d like that.

“Fuckin’ right we do.”

I knock some ketchup on the plate.

“Don’t swear all the time. I don’t.”

I give and I can take away. He accepts.

“There any other B and Bs in town?” I ask.

“Nope. Only one.”

“And now that’s up in smoke.”

“I forgot to check,” Y says. “Could you see the ladies in there?”

Y leans back as his plate lands.

“That is one horrific thing to see,” I say.

“What?”

“When they get scrambled up in a fire like that. They get mixed into everything. Everything moves. You gotta look closely to see it. Give you nightmares.”

He’s eating fast. I push the oils closer to him. I’m worried about withdrawal.

“How long was I out?” I ask.

“Two days.”

That’s not bad. He’ll feel it but it won’t kill him. I gotta figure out why my stomach is getting larger.

“Did fire trucks come?”

“Nope. I think the guy next door was hosing down his roof in case it spread.”

One of the old guys is staring at us. He’s wondering what the fuck. I glance at Y. He’s downing the oils now.

“People know you’re not my son.”

Y is having trouble with the omega. He’ll get used to it.

“I’m your uncle.”

Y accepts, swallowing. “This about the Seller in town?”

“What about the Seller in town?”

“I don’t know much. Mom took me to the car a couple days after he showed.”

“Yeah. It’s about the Seller.”

“Okay. Well. His name is Art something.”

“No, it ain’t, but whatever.”

“He was at the soccer field a lot. That’s all I know. People seemed to know he was a Seller and some liked it.”

“Yeah. That’s where he started. By now he’s established a place. He’s holding meetings.”

Teenage mom with a rape baby sits in the booth behind us. You can bet she’s onside with the Seller by now. You can tell cause she likes her baby. Talks to it. She wouldn’t do that if she thought they had long to live.

“Time to go,” I say. We grab our shit and head out.

It’s raining again. I prefer that. Hide the damn sky so I can think.

“Can I ask you a question?”

I’m torn about my decision to cut the kid off. There is an upside to having him focused like this. Who knows what he’ll be like? I decide to ditch him if he reverts too much.

“This is a job, right?”

“Yeah. That’s what I said.”

“Who hired you?”

Is there harm in answering that?

“School board.”

Y laughs. He can laugh at that. It’s pretty funny. Bunch of administrative educators hiring a hit man. Truth is, they are legally obliged to get a Hunter if they think a Seller has been in contact with anyone on school property.

“This Seller’s a sick one. He’ll start hitting people who don’t climb on.”

“Hitting?”

“Torture relatives. Drug people. Kill some. School board’s probably bought already.”

Another teenage mom with a rape baby. Man, you can see what this place was like a year ago. She’s happy, too. Dixon.

“He’s done thousands at a time. All singing the same song. He doesn’t really like to hurt them when they live.”

I salute the young mom. Who the fuck knows why.

“Anyway. He’s not somebody you wanna die around.”

We’re coming to the end of Main Street. Man, these towns are small. Hard to hide.

“Look, I got a feeling he’s closed on a lot of people. We gotta be careful. Can’t buy much. Can’t talk too much. Can’t stay anywhere anyone knows. Is there a park?”

“Down the alley between Ole Pizza and the chocolate store.”

“Ok. Let’s go live in the trees.”

I pull out a pad.

“Here’s what you need to steal. Meet me in the park.”

I write: Razor. Soap. Shampoo. Large tub of vaseline.

“Don’t buy it. Steal it.”

Probably be better if I had one of those rape-baby moms. Bet they shoplift all day.

I only make it halfway through the alley and have to lean against the brick. There is a sharp pain in my stomach. And it’s distended now to the point where it handicaps me. I push a hand in. Very soft. Like it’s full of water. I can feel a corner of the liver is hardened. Cirrhosis? Maybe. Too much anxiety about meds. Too much looking at the sky. This could be big. All my pushing has made me need to shit. I drop my pants and slide my back down the wall. It comes out as water. Like a tap I turn on under my nuts. I bounce over as it moves around my feet. There’s more. Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s irritable bowel. I watch the dark leafy fluid run down the alley. If there’s blood then I am fucked. Crohn’s disease would explain the pain. Longitudinal ulcer in the large intestine. Inflamed, even morbid, splenetic plicture. Could explain the hard liver. Spleen might be going up too. What a mess. I study my shit for blood. So far nothing. What would be the outcome? Without steroids I might bleed to death. God, I regret dumping all those benzos now. Sometimes they can be magic. Feel good and everything falls back in line. I need a full spectrum light too. I finally stop shitting. I close my eyes and try to recall the scent of cedar, but all I’m getting is the bland filth rolling down this alley. I pull up my pants. The fabric fuses to my ass and wicks the muck up. Did he say there was a stream? Gotta be. Gotta move.

I launch off the wall and fall down. My palms in shit. No blood. I crawl to the dry wall. A loud fart that opens my body from asshole to mouth. I wonder if there were any opioids in that box. Fuck. That’d be great. Shut the digestive system down like it had a switch. Hard as hell to live clean. Not so sure it’s the best idea anymore. It feels like something is hanging off me. I can feel gravity on my belly. I stand. My belly is bigger. This is in my abdominal cavity. This isn’t Crohn’s or IBS. This could be far worse. Definitely cancer. And lots. I’m cascading here. I think I know what it is. I’m afraid to say. Sometimes accepting contains it and sometimes it just blows the shit right up.

“Holy shit. Are you okay?”

I sit on the ground and pull out my pad.

“Go back to the shed. Check the box for these.”

I write: Diazepam. Lorazepam. Xanax. Tylenol 3. Fentanyl. Oxicontin.

’“But, I thought . . .”

“This is an emergency. Emergencies are different. Don’t bring back anything but these.”

He drops a razor, soap, shampoo, and a huge tub of Vaseline on the ground. Grabs the list and runs. I’m scaring the hell out of this kid. He does not like it when grownups shit themselves.

I call out after him.

“I’ll be in the goddam river!”

Y turns the corner.

“Hey! Is there a river?”

It’s not quite a river. A stream. A crick. A mom nursing by the slide. A couple small bridges. Some trees. Big willows. Back up there there’s poplar. Birch. Manitoba maple. Lots of scrub. Don’t know what I was picturing but this ain’t it. Can’t live in a fuckin’ birch tree.

I salute the mom from a distance. It’s something I’ve picked up. Saluting teen moms with rape babies. The banks are landscaped and have good dropped shoulders so I can sit out of sight. I kick off my shoes and work the pants down. Just gonna lay all this under rocks and rub myself on the grass like a dog. There is strain on my rib cage. My lungs are pulling shallow. Pain hits again. Cold, waxy sweat rubs off solid in the grass. I am really fucking sick now. Hands and feet buzzing. Peripheral neuropathy. Feel like heavy socks and gloves. Could be unrelated. Who knows? If this is a cascade then I could have minutes. Shit.

I lie still on my side. I can feel some light on my naked body. Bad light is still bad light. I should cover up, but I’m dying.

“Shit! Shit! Hey! Talk to me!”

That’s Y. I must have drifted off. I’m shivering. He sits me up. I can’t stop shaking. There’s shit soaked into the grass around me. White vomit on my arm.

“What do you want? What do you want?”

The stroke egg is strobing. Y shoves the box into my hands. He brought everything. I thought I said . . . 

“Just take something!”

Hard to read. My eyes feel dry and sticky.

“Oxycontin.”

Y flips the bottles around in the box.

“Here! Here! How many?”

I can feel a thick python separate my lungs.

“Six.”

I eat them like peanuts. Make a paste. Hold it sublingually. That’s the way. By the time it’s in my throat I can feel my toes curl a bit. A warmth in my eyes. A harmonica.

“What else? What else?”

“Diazepam.”

Y digs.

“Nope. None.”

“Shit. Ok. Lorazepam.”

Y pulls out a long thin bottle.

“They 1s or 2s?”

Read it, pal. Read.

“2.”

“Ok. Then four.”

I hold them under my tongue till they disappear. Lorazepam leaves the system after about eight hours. They’re tougher in large doses than diazepam, which sits in you for a good long while. My arms turn to pillows. My shoulders into smooth falling sacs. I close my eyes. I greet the egg. It is my old friend. No one has seen you. No one knows what you are. You are mine.

“Better?”

I keep my eyes closed and reach out to lay a hand on the grass near Y. I can hear water moving. He’s getting my clothes. Doesn’t like to see his uncle naked in the park.

“I’m sorry. These are wet.”

They are. I move my head so that the egg is in my shoe. Not sure why. I salute Y.

“Get dressed,” Y says.

I fall asleep for a second. “Okay. Help me.”

Y sits me up and drops the icy shirt over my head. It’s good. I wake.

“I found something else. Look.”

I drag the denim up my thighs and pinch the button closed.

“Look.”

A portable full-spectrum lamp. I haven’t seen one of these in a long time. Very expensive.

“It was in our trunk. My dad bought it for my mom for her birthday.”

I turn it on. Bright. Good batteries. Holy shit.

“My dad had money. He owned the quarry.”

I hold the light up to my face. Y keeps talking.

“What’s wrong with your stomach? It’s huge.”

I can’t answer. The light and the pills are profound in me. It’s like the cells are giddy. Everything is turning in every direction. There is so much good.

“My mom’s gone.”

That’s good. Made the pick-up.

“She’ll be up there.”

I grunt. I feel freshly split cedar in my marrow. Dark rich hardwood in my veins.

“We could clean up the car.”

Nope.

“I mean. It’s a car.”

Not a chance.

“How you feel now?”

I pass Y the spectrum.

“Much better. Here. Take a turn. Five minutes.”

I have stopped the cascade. Not solved the problem but at least I won’t die in the park this morning.

“Thanks. Your belly is still big.”

It is. Not getting bigger any more. But if this is what I think it is then it’s left me a little present. Y looks thirty. Teen mom appears behind Y.

“What are you guys doing?”

She takes it in. She turns, runs.

“Shit.”

Y stands to see where she goes.

“What?”

“We just lost an advantage.”

Y looks like he’s going to run after her.

“Why?”

“Your Seller knows we’re still alive.”

Y takes a step back. Attaboy.

“Let her go. Can’t go around killing moms in the park.”

I try to stand. There is pain but it’s not from anything advancing. It’s from the volume in my abdomen. I can walk.

“Let’s go find a sharp knife. I’m gonna need you to cut me open.”