Backteria and Other Improbable Tales Read online

  “We heard you the first time,” panted Charlie. “Come on. Shave him!”

  They slammed the prisoner down on the bunk and twisted his arms behind him. He screamed until Charlie backhanded him across the mouth.

  “Shut up!”

  The prisoner sat trembling while his hair fluttered to the floor in dark heaps. Tufts of hair stuck to his eyebrows. A trickle of blood ran from the edge of his mouth. His eyes were stricken with horror.

  When the third man had finished on the prisoner’s head, he bent down and slashed open his pants.

  “Mmmm,” he grunted, “Burned legs.”

  The prisoner jerked down his head and looked. His mouth formed soundless words. The he cried out.

  “Flash burns! Can you see them? They’re from an atomic explosion. Now will you believe me?”

  Charlie grinned. They let go of the prisoner and he fell down on the bunk. He pushed up quickly and clutched at Mac’s arm.

  “You’re intelligent,” he said. “Look at my legs. Can’t you see that they’re flash burns?”

  Mac picked the prisoner’s fingers off his arm.

  “Take it easy,” he said.

  The prisoner moved toward the third man.

  “You saw them,” he pleaded. “Don’t you know a flash burn? Look. L-look. Take my word for it. It’s a flash burn. No other kind of heat could make such scars. Look at it!”

  “Sure, sure, sure,” said Charlie moving into the corridor. “We’ll take your word for it. We’ll get your clothes and you can go right home to your wife in Saint Louis.”

  “I’m telling you they’re flash burns!”

  The three men were out of the cell. They slid the door shut. The prisoner reached through the bars and tried to stop them. Charlie punched his arm and shoved him back. The prisoner sprawled onto the bunk.

  “For God’s sake,” he sobbed, his face twisted with childish frenzy. “What’s the matter with you? Why don’t you listen to me?”

  He heard the men talking as they went down the corridor. He wept in the silence of his cell.

  After a while the priest came back. The prisoner looked up and saw him standing at the door. He stood up and ran to the door. He clutched at the priest’s arm.

  “You reached her? You reached her?”

  The priest didn’t say anything.

  “You did, didn’t you?”

  “There was no one there by that name.”

  “What?”

  “There was no wife of Phillip Johnson there. Now will you listen to me?”

  “Then she moved. Of course! She left the city after I…after the explosion. You have to find her.”

  “There’s no such person.”

  The prisoner stared at him in disbelief.

  “But I told you…”

  “I’m speaking truth. You’re making it all up in a vain hope to cheat…”

  “I’m not making it up! For God’s sake listen to me. Can’t you…wait, wait.”

  He held his right leg up.

  “Look,” he said eagerly. “These are flash burns. From an atomic explosion. Don’t you see what that means?”

  “Listen to me, my son.”

  “Don’t you understand?”

  “Will you listen to me?”

  “Yes but…”

  “Even if what you say is true…” “It is true.”

  “Even if it is. You still committed the crimes you’re here to pay for.”

  “But it wasn’t me!”

  “Can you prove it?” asked the priest.

  “I…I…” faltered the prisoner. “These legs…”

  “They’re no proof.”

  “My wife…”

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. But you can find her. She’ll tell you. She can save me.”

  “I’m afraid there’s nothing that can be done.”

  “But there has to be! Can’t you look for my wife? Can’t you get a stay of execution while you look for her? Look, I have friends, a lot of them. I’ll give you all their addresses. I’ll give you names of people who work for the government who…”

  “What would I say, Riley?” interrupted the priest sharply.

  “Johnson!”

  “Whatever you wish to be called. What would I say to these people? I’m calling about a man who was in an explosion ten years ago? But he didn’t die? He was blown into…” He stopped.

  “Can’t you see?” he entreated. “You must face this. You’re only making it more difficult for yourself.” “But…”

  “Shall I come in and pray for you?”

  The prisoner stared at him. Then the tautness sapped from his face and stance. He slumped visibly. He turned and staggered back to his bunk and fell down on it. He leaned against the wall and clutched his shirtfront with dead curled fingers.

  “No hope,” he said. “There’s no hope. No one will believe me. No one.”

  He was lying down on his bunk when the other two guards came. He was staring, glassy-eyed, at the wall. The priest was sitting on the stool and praying.

  The prisoner didn’t speak as they led him down the corridor, only once he raised his head and looked around as though all the world was a strange incomprehensible cruelty.

  Then he lowered his head and shuffled mutely between the guards. The priest followed, hands folded, head lowered, his lips moving in silent prayer.

  Later, when Mac and Charlie were playing cards the lights went out. They sat there waiting. They heard the other prisoners in death row stirring restlessly.

  Then the lights went on.

  “You deal,” said Charlie.

  The Last Blah in the ETC

  You are awake, pale thing, your muddy eyes perusing. There the ceiling, there the walls; security in plaster and paint, in parchment jiggled with coordinate lilies. Primo: Lousigoddam wallpaper. It is, has been and never more will be your opening reflection. Secundo: Mildred isajerk. This thought may continue.

  Slumber-fogged, your gaze seeks out the clock. It has not clarioned the dawn. It is, indeed, not even cognizant of dawn’s most rosy rise, its black arms pointing frozenly to midnight’s XII—

  —or noon! You start, eyes bugged and marbleized, mouth a precipitate sanctuary for some indigent gnat. Wotnth’ell!. And—snap! Body parallel with mattress becomes body squared. You are—presto! —ninety degrees of male American athrob; a sitting inflammation. With a crunch of the cervix, a crackle of the clavicle, you look around the room, you look around the—

  Silence. All and only silence. (Pallid thing)

  “Mil!” you call. What, no sibilance of frizzling bacon, no scent of coffee? “Millie!” No savor of charred toast, no lilt of nagging on the air?

  “Mildred!” Wot’nth’blublazinghellis—

  Silence. Oh so silence.

  Your brow is rill-eroded now. A curious dismay guerillas in your craw. Too silent this. Too—deadly silent. Yes?

  “MILDRED!”

  Ah, no reply, blanched thing. Your corn-cobbed toes compress the rug, your torso goes aloft, you find erection. “What’s goin’ on?” mumble you. You thump across the room, shanks athwart, terror tapping tunes along your spine. You reach the hall. “Mil!” you cry. No Mil. The hallway is your racetrack. You are Mercury and Ariel. You are Puck in pink pajamas. “Millie!” No Millie. You blunder like a village-razing mammoth through the chambers of your home. “Mildred!”

  No—need I append?—Mildred.

  In fact, nothing. Whether sign of exodus, Goinghometomother note or hint of counternatural removal. Pale thing, you are aghast. Panic rings the tocsin in your wooly brain. Where—eh?—is Mildred? Why—ask you—at noon, are you alone, self-wakened?

  Noon? But see, the black arms still point alike.

  The clock has stopped.

  Pulsing with alarm, you seek the phone, le pachyderme en difficulté. Digits clutch receiver, receiver cups ear. Hark; you listen. Your mouth is cavernized anew. Why?

  Dead as the doornail. (proverbial) That’s why
.

  “Hello,” you state, regardless. You tap distress rhythms. “Hello! Hello! Hey!”

  No answer. (Achromatic you) You drop the dumb Bell and worry a channel to the windows. You yank the cord and up goes the shade, flapping in maniacal orbits around its roller and through this paneful frame you view the picture of your street.

  Empty.

  “Huh?” Your very word. “Wot the—”

  Strange tides rise darkly. Terror is a blankness. It is cessation, emptiness; figures, fog-licked, hardly heard, vaguely seen. “Mil?” you mutter.

  No Mil.

  Dress! Probe! Nose out! Get to bottom! Resolution hammers manly nails; your framework bolsters. Up—you vow—and at them. There’s an explanation for everything. (Of course) You are the captain of your shape, the master of your soles. Once more into the britches! Onward!

  Etiolated thing.

  Bones garbed vitement, feet ensconced in Thom McCann’s, you plunge through bedroom, hall, living room, kitchen, out through doorway and—

  The neighbors! The crossthehallwhydon’ttheymindtheirowndambusiness neighbors!

  You arc the gap to their door, heartbeat a cardiac ragtime. Manifest really. (Sez you to you) Mil, Millie, Mildred, MILDRED has gone to pirate a dole of flour, a driblet of sugar. She laughs, blabbing and blabs, laughing with the neighbor’s wife. She forgets old mortality. (Oohwilu-giverhell!) And the phone lines suffer breach. Q: And the barren street? A: Nearby, a parade, a fire, an accident alluringly sanguineous and the neighborhood emptying to view it.

  Only this and nothing more. (Rationalize chalky, poem-lifting you)

  Forthwith: Skin-puffed knuckles harden, your hand is become a fist. Rap, rap, it goes. Inside, silence. Knock, knock. Ditto. Bang, bang. Also. You bluff. “Hullo!” you call. “Anyone t’home?”

  No reply. Boom! You teach the door a lesson. But nothing. Terror-veined fury claims you. You twist the knob, the door creaks open.

  Consternation.

  No Mildred, no neighbors. The kitchen devoid of all—save (shade of Marie-Celeste?) a skilletful of orange-eyed eyes, awash in sibilant butter; a flame-perched pot with a delicate volcano of coffee in its dome; a toaster ticking like a chrome-cased bomb; the table set.

  “Hey.” The cry drips feebly from your lips. “Where is everybody?” (Where, indeed?) You clump into the living room. Devoid. The bedrooms, all—bodiless. Your next remark, wan thing? I quote.

  “What’s goin’ on here?” (Un—as you say—quote)

  Now resolution finger-dangles from the sawed-edge cliff of fear. (Quelle tasty simile) standing at the window, heart an eighty-mile-an-hour piston, you gape down at the street again. Empty; so empty. Panic looms.

  “No!” Underground resistance again. Chin up, gauntlet down. Avant! Socratic you will plumb this poser to its roots. This Too Shall Pass!

  You betcha.

  Whirling, you greyhound to the door and exit. Pegasus could not pass you on the stairs—or make more noise. Three flights cannon-balling and the vestibule is yours.

  Confusion plus. Boxes bulging mail like any day. Delivered papers strewn as always. “Huh?” Your quasi-gibbous eyes peruse the headline. FIND STARLET TORSO IN FIRKIN. No answer there. You plunge into the street, exploring.

  One vast length of nothing, sir. One spacious, sidewalk-sided span of silence. (Quelle alliteration) In the middle of the street you stand, goggling. Ovez—nothing. Not one soul, one movement. You are alone—blank, marmoreal thing.

  “No!” cries the hero—that’s you. You slam the door in evidence’s face. This cannot be! There Has To Be A Reasonable Explanation. Things Like This Just Don’t Happen. (It says where?) Terror ricochets off reason’s wall and comes back courage. You’re off!

  Ah, picture you, sallow, slapdash sleuth you are, running a forty-minute mile to Main Street, pulpy legs awaggle, breath like radiator steam; The Picture Of Durance In Gray. Alone the crypt-still thorough fare you scud, hunting for a fellow soul.

  Doorbell ringing is futility you’ve found; knocking, a bootless cause; peering in at windows, inutility at its primest. Worse than inutility— guignol with its actorless scenes of a.m. enterprise—food boiling, frying, toasting, poaching; tables set and stoves alive. And even, propped on sugar bowls, the morning papers.

  But no one there to eat, serve, read.

  Onward. (Every Effect Has Its Cause) (Naturellement)

  Approaching Main Street you come upon a fresh obscurity. A halted car standing in its proper lane, hood still pulsing with engine tremors. Standing there as though its operator were waiting for the lights to change.

  Empty though. (Ice mice batten on your heart) You waver beside its open window, staring in. A bag of groceries sags beside the driver’s place; a morning paper next to that. BUTT HOLDS STARLET, reads the head. No aid there.

  “I don’t get it,” you announce. (You will, discolored thing) Pain-points etch lines around your face. Your fingers tremble, your glands secrete.

  Courage, mon passé.

  You press on again, the, apace, return to take the car. Desperate dilemmas dictate desperate deeds. (Quelle something or other) Sliding in behind the wheel, you slap the gears into mesh (The hand brake isn’t even out) and press the pedal mightily. The car leaps off with gas-fed growlings. The silence is undone.

  A thought! Hunching forward, you finger prod a silvery radio button, then, leaning back, await.

  A moment.

  “, lo-ve,” sings a woman, “lo-ve, lo-ve,” in eerie oscillating weariness, “lo-ve, lo-ve, lo-ve,”

  Somewhere, a diamond needle, groove-imprisoned, pendulums the word, untouched because unheard. A city station too. Does that mean the city is tenantless? What about—

  —the world? Yes, that too, (To you) dun, albescent, pale as witches thing.

  “, lo-ve, lo-ve, lo-ve, lo-” You cut her off, poking in another button. Silence. Another button. Ditto. Another, the same. Another. “, lo-ve, lo-ve, lo-ve” You’re back again. Eyes frozen grapes, you snap the radio off. Nothing but nerve impalings there.

  Drive on. Drive on. Drive on and on.

  Main Street’s intersection. You signal for a turn, abash, draw in your arm. You turn—

  —and, horror-tossed, slam on the brakes, stalling the motor. Breath hisses in and chills.

  “Gudgawd!” (Literal translation)

  “Til now there was a chamber in your brain that still housed disbelief. A chamber of contention with the facts. Q: So what was it? A: Everyone in town, by some strange rule of mob, was gone to view a movie star, the President, a fire, an accident, some incredible attraction. That was why the streets were empty, the houses extempore exited.

  But no. The length of Main Street is a humanless alley strewn with unmoving, engine-purring cars. You stare at this, candescence. You gape upon a people-reft world. You are struck dumb with cognizance.

  “No,” you mutter. (Yes) “Oh, no.” (Oh, yes) “No!” (Ah, but yes)

  Oozing, mindless, from the car, you stumble forth, stricken as a zombie. Legged on wooden struts you clump across the gutter, goggle-eyed. No, you insist, despite the obvious; No, it can’t be true. Denial breeds traction though. And gestation nears completion. In cob-webbed wombs stirs lunacy.

  “Hey!” you howl. “Hey-ey!”

  Snarling, you leap the curb and elephant your way along the sidewalk.

  First National Bank. You fling your jangled self into the pie-slice opening of its revolving door and, spinning a desperate arc, plunge inside. Yelling. “Hey-ey! HEY!”

  Silence.

  “HEY-EY!”

  The aberration of your voice handballs off marble walls, ricochets from polished v.p. desk and wriggles, troublous, between the bars of empty teller cages.

  Unnerving you. Whirling, hissing, shaking, you exit à pas de géant (Running like hell) too distraught to concentrate on stealing money.

  The street again. You rush into a woman’s shop, clods thumping on the rug. You race by rows of dress racks.

  “
Hey!” you call. “Anyone here!” No one. You exit.

  An appliance store—row on row of stoves and sinks and washing machines—snowy headstones in a linoleum churchyard.

  “Hello!” you shout. “Hel-LO!” No reply. (You’ll crack soon)

  Turning, you find the street again, ice cubes dancing in your stomach. A candy store. You dash against its newsstand and headlines leap at you. STARLET WEDGED IN CRUSE; TORSO OF ACTRESS FOUND IN TUN; STARLET BODY IN DEMIJOHN. And, on one, in tiny letters, near the bottom. Strange Sighting.

  (Ain’t it the way?—wan, wishy-washy thing?)

  Where was I?

  Oh. You tear your gaze away and stare into the candy store. Empty; silent. Cups and dishes strew the counter, unattended. And hark: behind the counter, a malted mixer buzzes like an outboard motor n the distance.

  “No,” you mutter. (Thirty-forty seconds at the outside) “No. Hello! Dammit, Hel-LOOOOOO!” fury adds its rabid spine to fear.

  They can’t do this to you!

  “HEY-EY-EY-EY!”

  You stagger-swoop along the middle of Main Street, bypassing cars like raging tide around islands. “HEY-EY!” You cry havoc. “WHERE’N’TH’HELL IS EVERYBODY!”

  Breath gives out. A stitch (in time) pokes needlepoints into your side. Pupils like worlds swimming in chaos, your eyes whip around, searching. There has to be an answer. Fury rises. There has to be AN ANSWER!

  “There has to be!” you scream.

  And, sired by malfunction, rage is born. (Right on schedule)

  Hell-fire-eyed, you rush into a pottery shop.

  “HEL-LO!” you challenge. No reply. Your lips compress.

  “I said HEL-LO!” you ultimatum.

  No reply.

  Pulsing with distemper, you grab a firkin mug and let fly. Strike one! A hand-wrought chafing dish explodes into china shrapnel. The floor is sprinkled with its splinters. Angry satisfaction fires your insides.

  “Well?” you ask. Nothing.

  Your hand shoots out and grabs a miniature patella. Whiz-z-z-z!—it goes. Ca-rash! Strike two! A hail of gold-fringed porringer fragments sprays the floor and wall. “I SAID HELLO!” you shout. Not mad exactly; more infuriated than deranged. Arm extended, spar-like, you pound along the counter, sweeping trenchers, salvers, goblets, bowls and cylixs into one great Dresden bomb.