The New and Improved Romie Futch (30 page)

“Something light and refreshing. How about a gin and tonic?”

I ordered two gin and tonics and decided to start off easy with the subject of genetically modified rats, about which Jarvis had no problem free-associating.

“Plague of frogs, plague of blood, plague of boils,” he began grandly, “lice, flies, chiggers, rivers of wormwood. Just your garden-variety plagues, man's stupidity backfiring, hoisted by his own petard.”

Jarvis took a slurp of gin. A frown passed over his face.

“Just as God once smote the world with frogs,” he said, “the Lord has seen fit to unleash a plague of rats.”

Men cut their conversations short, turned upon their stools to listen to Jarvis. Some of them grinned condescendingly, while others hearkened with more somber miens. Jarvis continued, enhancing his tirade with singsongy intonations.

“I have seen them in throngs, gathered at the edges of my campfire, bald as worms, unholy eyes blinking upon their backs.” Jarvis paused, took a dramatic glug of drink, and wiped his mouth with a crumpled napkin. “I have awakened to the gaze of one hundred eyes, sightless and staring in pure ignorance. They have devoured my provisions. They have crawled upon my body. Unholy creatures from man's unholy experiments.”

Jarvis Riddle went on for five minutes about the sons of God who slept with the daughters of Cain, those creatures who gave men the gift of metalworking and harlotry. At last, he mentioned GenExcel, a subsidiary of BioFutures Incorporated. Called it Satan's laboratory and the crucible of sin. Said multitudes of rats had escaped after God smote the laboratory with fire.

“I smelled burning chemicals,” said Jarvis. “Saw toxic smoke billowing over the forest, moving south toward the Piggly Wiggly.”

Jarvis polished off his drink and fixed me with a sly grin.

“Would you like another?” I asked.

“Wouldn't mind a whiskey sour,” he said.

Like magic, the lizard bartender came creeping through the dim room with our drinks.

“What do you think the rats are for?” I asked.

“Sign of the end-time.” Jarvis frowned.

“Practically speaking.”

“My best educated guess says product testing: no-tears shampoo, waterproof mascara, that kind of thing.”

“Makes sense,” I said. We slurped in silence. I waited for Jarvis to finish his drink and then visit the pisser, after which I noticed that he had combed his wild hair into a greasy ducktail. He'd scrubbed filth from his facial creases and washed his grimy hands. Reeking of industrial cherry-scented soap, he sat down.

“How about something healthy this time,” he said. “Like a screwdriver. I could use a dose of vitamin C.”

“How about you give me the scoop on Hogzilla,” I said.

We sat for a few seconds, the meat on the table between us.

“Buy me that drink and we'll see what I can remember.”

I bought him the drink. I myself switched back to Miller Lite, for I was starting to feel a bit dizzy.

“In my opinion,” said Jarvis. “Hogzilla also hails from the evil labs of GenExcel. They probably put some kind of bird gene in the creature to make a leaner pork—hence the wings on his back, his odd affinity for gliding, his predilection for bearing down from the sky like a wily dragon from days of yore. I can attest from personal experience that his slaver is corrosive, that his breath will literally knock you out. Men ought not dabble with God's work, son, tinkering with the genes and whatnot.”

According to Jarvis, the airborne hog once chased him through R.V. Garland's cornfield. After Jarvis tumbled to the ground to avoid the squawking beast, Hogzilla glided over him and treated him to a blast of his breath.

“Passed out immediately,” said Jarvis. “And my lungs ached for days after, like I'd spent the day huffing butane. And even weirder, there was a clean strip of red on my left forearm where, I believe, the animal licked me—took the topmost skin right off. Don't know why the pig didn't kill me.”

Jarvis paused to crack the knuckles of his right hand, one by one.

“As I recall,” he said, “'twas the beast that took your pinkie finger.”

“That's right,” I said.

“And now you're all fired up with revenge.”

I nodded. Jarvis snorted and shook his head.

“Where does the hog sleep?” I whispered.

“Depends,” said the old man, “on the state of the moon.”

“Meaning?”

Jarvis Riddle jerked his head back and closed his eyes with an affected convulsion, as though receiving a vision from the empyrean.

“When the moon is full”—he opened his eyes—“the animal harkens back toward its diabolical origins.”

“GenExcel?”

“Perhaps.” Jarvis whistled a haunting, vaguely familiar tune and cracked a yellow grin.

“Would you like another drink?”

“Would love one,” he said. “But let me relieve my bladder first.”

Jarvis Riddle pulled himself up from his chair, shook the kink from his back, and strode to the restroom. After ten minutes, I went to check on him, but the stalls were empty. A faint odor of leaf mold haunted the air.

•  •

By the time I got home, late afternoon light was shining at the bleakest angle upon my rotted roof. Recalling the telepathic rodents from the movie
Willard
, I unloaded my rats, stashing them in my shop garage. And then I went into my shop to check the refrigerator for the two Millers I vaguely remembered secreting there last week.

I heard a contrived cough. I turned from the fridge to see two dark shapes perched on stools behind my counter. I flicked on the overhead lights, expecting a rush of robbers, a bullet blast to the heart, a sinking of vampire teeth into my leathery neck. But the men didn't budge. Dressed in the kind of expensive outdoorsy clothing you find in catalogs catering to would-be country gentlemen, they kept their seats. One was slender and balding, with squinty eyes flickering above a long fox-like nose. The other had the blubbery face of a seal—undefined features, thick dark hair that almost blended with his luxurious eyebrows.

“Roman Futch?” said the plump one.

“And to whom do I owe the honor of this breaking and entering?”

“Don't worry, we've done all the paperwork.”

Like smug TV goons, they flashed badges and search warrants.

“FDA,” said the thin one, “Department of Bioterrorism and Environmental Protection.”

“Let's not beat around the bush,” said the plump one. “We're here about the rat in your refrigerator.”

“How did you—”

“RFID microchip on its hind leg.”

“Duh.”

“Where did you find said rat?”

“Not mine. A client's.”

“Whose?”

“I signed a confidentiality form.”

“Scovel Boughknight.” The plump one grinned, revealing thick white donkey teeth.

“We've already read his specification form.”

“Then why bother asking?”

“Where was the specimen harvested?” asked the thin guy.

“Near GenExcel, of course,” I said, getting it over with, thinking I might save Scovel some hassle, wondering when they were going to ask about the live rats in my garage.

“Can you be more specific, please?”

“Twenty yards and ten millimeters from their security fence, south side.”

Both men nodded, the plump one grinning, the thin one frowning.

“How did you lose the finger?” the former asked.

“Lawn mower accident.”

“Ouch.”

“Mr. Futch,” said the thin one, “can you tell us about the experiments you participated in at the Center for Cybernetic Neuroscience in Atlanta?”

“What the hell does that have to do with genetically modified rats?”

“We'll do the questioning here.”

“It involved downloading information into my brain. They used some kind of biological computer to implant wet chips and direct nanobots to restructure my neurons. At least that's what the contract said—the confidential contract, I might add. From what I gather, you've already given it a look-see. Otherwise, how would you—”

“Do you have any idea who they're working for?”

“Vague question.”

“Ever heard of BioFutures Inc.?”

“Yes, but—”

“Mr. Futch.” The skinny one pulled an Oracle9 from his pocket and tapped its screen with long, elegant fingers. “Since the experiments, have you experienced any blackouts or lost time? Have you found yourself waking up in unfamiliar places?”

“No. I mean, I've passed out before. What's this all about?”

“Again, we'll do the questioning here. Where have you suffered blackouts?”

“I've passed out after drinking at home a few times. Once while hunting.”

“Can you be more specific? Hunting what?”

“Squirrels.”

“Why squirrels?”

“For eating. Well, that and a taxidermy project.”

“By which you're referring to the prison.”

“So you've been snooping in my workshop.”

The agents flashed an official flurry of papers again.

“Mutant squirrels, Mr. Futch. Do you have a license for that?”

“Yes, I do. I mean, not for mutants specifically. SCDNR doesn't make such distinctions.”

“Why a prison, Mr. Futch?” asked the thin one.

“Why not a prison? It's just art, a statement on the twenty-first-century predicament, hierarchical surveillance, which is ironic considering our little question-and-answer session, which I hope is drawing to a close.”

“Actually, it is, but we're going to have to take your rat.”

The thin agent held up a Baggie, cold limp rat encased. He finally rose from his stool.

“It's been surreal,” I said, thinking of Kafka as I walked the men to the door.

Of course there was no vehicle outside in the drive, and I imagined a black sedan or some such parked a few blocks away, down
where the neighborhood dips into a flood zone. It was dusk by then. As I stood outside my shop, watching the agents disappear down Cypress Street, I felt an ache in my phantom pinkie finger—deep in the spectral bone. I thought about my last blackout, trying to figure out exactly when I'd gone under and how long I'd been out.

I recalled an episode of
In Search of
. . . in which Leonard Nimoy, that game-show host of the occult, probed the mysteries of hypnosis. Remote regions of the brain could be tapped for good or evil designs. With the aid of hypnosis, an old man in Massachusetts had quit smoking after sixty years. Via the same mesmerizing techniques perfected by Nazi scientists, an ordinary Russian plumber had been turned into a robot flunky by the KGB. With the utterance of the word
moonbeam
, delivered via telephone, the plumber would lapse into zombie mode and stop whatever he was doing to report to some odd location in Moscow. Dressed in bathrobe and slippers, mustard stains on his chin, he'd once blown up an American spy's car.

I rubbed the scars on the dome of my skull where the three BC transmitters had once nested. I closed my eyes. Stopping up my ears with my fingers, I listened to the roar inside my head—it sounded like a distant volcano, steadily erupting lava, endless quantities of molten rock drawn from tumultuous depths.

THIRTEEN

Tucked cozily into a tolerable drunk, sitting on my couch, laptop trembling on my knees, I was chatting with PigSlayer, aka “Vic.” Despite my darkest suspicions, I kept a flicker of hope alive, envisioning her as a voluptuous Amazon warrior decked out in a bikini of jaguar hide. When I brought up the subject of the FDA and Bio-Futures, she said that these nebulous entities were part of a larger conspiracy involving the corporate takeover of the American food supply. She said that BioFutures, Monsanto, the FDA, and the CIA were probably in cahoots.

—
They want to turn plants and animals into products
, she said.

We shot the shit about Monsanto—terminator seeds and patented animals. Talked about GM rogue crops and cryogenic zoos.

—
Actually
, I found myself bragging,
I'm kind of a postmodern taxidermist, specializing in mutant and postnatural dioramas
.

—
That's pretty sick
.

My heart sank, for Victor had reared his pimply python head again.

—
Do you mean
sick
as in
killer
or sick as in
twisted and gross
?

—
Killer, though I use contemporary slang w/ a trace of irony. I teach high school English, so YK, subjected to their infectious jargon
.

I recalled my own high school English teacher, Miss Fripp, a romantic dumpling of a woman who wore Gunne Sax dresses and smelled of dry cat food. Now Victor morphed into Vicky, a plump frump with facial moles and a hundred cats. I could see her lolling upon a frilly bed on a pile of accent pillows, the air hazy with fur. I could see her quivering with excitement as she forged a new identity with PigSlayer, decking her fantastic body in neoprimitive ammo and charging the hog-hunting cyberscene.

—
What you doing teaching English in this godforsaken land?

PIGSLAYER IS TYPING flashed on the screen and remained there for a suspicious two minutes. “Vic” was probably racking his/her brains to come up with a convincing answer.

—
Student loan forgiveness. Teach in a backwater for five years, debt gets erased
.

—
Really? Sweet deal
.

—
And housing in these parts is cheap as all get-out
.

—
What parts?

—
Typical godforsaken low-country swamp hole. Beaufort's not too far away
.

—
How far?

—
A hop, skip, and a jump, good sir. Tell me more about your taxidermy
.

I told her about my Panopticon diorama, pretentiously paraphrasing Foucault and throwing in some quotes from
Simulacra and Simulation
for good measure. I told her about hunting for squirrels and frogs, about my plan to throw GM rats into the mix, explaining my postmodern critique of naïve naturalism.