Chapter Six: Children of Cronos

 

Chapter Six: Children of Cronos

 

 

“When you reach the part

Where the heartache comes,

The hero would be me.

But heroes often fail.”

 

- Gordon Lightfoot

 

In which the corpses come rolling, rolling, rolling out.

 

If life was a carnival, then Frank Burczyk's piece was something like a Ferris wheel. Round and round and round and round and round. Not too fast, thanks, and please don't rock the carriage. Plenty of folks wanted roller coaster lives, or pretended to, but most people, people like Frank, were pleased enough with the Ferris wheel.

Ferris wheel, bumper cars, Tilt-A-Whirl, nothing too wild. Not roller coasters, and screw the Zipper and anything that turned upside down. And also the one that spun like a 78 RPM record and created enough centrifugal force to pin riders against the wall—maybe it was called the Gravitron—he didn't like that one because the bottom always dropped out from under him. (Horrible thing, when the bottom drops out.)

He was going back to Mexico, and that's all there was to it. He was happy that Gia had lit this tiny fire under his ass. He had the official t-shirt, red and green letters on white cotton, pre-shrunk, machine washable, which said, Aztecs Forever. Whatever that meant, he thought it apt, and he wore it regularly for two months before departing.

His mother, expert in the field of mental health and wellness, thought he'd gone off his nut. She never missed an opportunity to tell him so. Over the telephone, she said, “Ugh. Mexico! Nobody goes there. It's so far away. We'll never see you again. You won't know anybody, and nobody will know you. More than that, the economy is in the laundry hamper. You're going to be murdered. People get murdered in Mexico! Oh, this is madness—your father would rolling his eyes as we speak, even at this very moment, if he was still alive.”

Frank said, “We aren't moving to Mexico. It's a vacation. Our anniversary.”

“Why not go to Florida once a year, like everyone else? Stay at the Riu.”

“Come on, Mom—“

“Have you given any thought to Gia's needs?”

“Mexico is Gia's idea. We've been there before. And when I tell you how much money we saved you'll probably faint. We're going for ten days and most of it is all-inclusive. We're going to be staying at the Cairo Palace in Nuevo Vallarta.”

“Lorna Redman went to Nuevo Vallarta in 1999 and came home with a chemical burn on her rear end. Two burns, as I recall. One on her rear and one on her arm. Ghastly! They'll tell you the water is all miracles and magic, like at Rebowken, but it's second rate. Just pollution. Bad acid and garbage. It's all factory waste. The tanneries came along and spilled arsenic all over God's Creation. All that spent pickle liquor!”

“Mom, the Indians were bathing in Mexico long before there were tanneries.”

“But the tanneries surely made it worse.”

“I don't know how to respond. I don't know about tanneries. Puerto Vallarta is all about fishing and tourism. I don't think they manufacture raw leather. What have you been reading?”

“People don't just up and go to Mexico. You have to plan carefully.”

“Actually, people go there all the time. On a minute's notice.”

“Tourists get murdered. Do you recall the Canadian whose face ended up being sewn onto a football? That's what happens down there. If it's not acid pollution then it's deranged cocaine dealers chopping good people into bits and pieces. Watch the news.”

“You gave the same spiel to Gia, last year.”

“That was the first time you went. Who needs to go to Mexico two years in a row?”

“We earned this, Mom.  We have worked hard and now we can afford things like this. Good things are important, and difficult to come by. It's like it was meant to be. That's what Gia thinks. She says the gears of the universe aligned ever so delicately, ever so perfectly, just for our sakes. It's astronomical.”

“You know I don't believe in outer space, darling.”

“You worry too much, Mom. You have to trust me to know what I'm doing.”

“Oh Frank—I think it's a farce, and your father would agree.”

Frank imagined Francis hollering in the background, “No I wouldn't, son.”

Dora said, “You've inherited his bad heart, in your genes. And his taste for the drink. You need to mind yourself. You're 39. Remember the stress test your father went for, just before he died? He has told to be careful. You should know from his experience that you need to be careful, too. Bad karma, huh? Twenty years is nothing. It passes like a dream.”

“And how are you doing, these days, Mother?” Frank asked. “How's your foot?”

“There's no circulation there. None at all. It's not good. There was the foot, and then came the lumps, and now my cholesterol is up as high as your father's ever was. Doom is coming for me. I know Doom when I see it, let me tell you that. Doom is the boyo. Doom is the Mexican bag-man.”

“Listen, I'll call you the week after next, when we're home.”

“Please reconsider things, Frankie. You have to think about Gia.”

“Goodbye, Mom. Take care of yourself.”

“I will. Just please think about what you're ge—”

Frank hung up the phone.

Click.

...

 

Anyway, just one year after the honeymoon, Frank Wayne Burczyk was going back to Mexico—not a damn thing anyone could do about it—and he was taking his lovely wife, his dream-girl, with him. That was the turning point, the end of his mediocre old life and the beginning of his fascinating new life.

No looking back.

Reinvigorated.

You must be at least this tall to ride.

Something like that.

...

 

The Nero constituted fully one half of Emathios' twelve acres, as well as the eastern shore of  the cold, thick soup called Lake Neronia. Modelled on ancient Rome, the hotel was a labyrinth of narrow, cobbled streets, concrete fountains and tacky ornamentation—goddesses minted with already missing limbs and broken faces—and cut-stone condominiums ranging in size from modest single-room cubes to the segmented excess of suite eleven-eleven (and larger). In three distinct spots the suites were stacked like hastily-placed building blocks, suggesting lopsided urbania and upheaval, with the overall effect tasting like one of Picasso's more architectural cut-scenes. Frank said, “Everything is over the top in Mexico,” and the Nero was perfect proof of that. The air was sticky with dew and eastern fragrances, as well as the ever-present whisper of pan-pipes.

Gia said, “It's what I always imagined Atlantis to be like.”

Frank said,  “Actually, sweetie, Atlantis was built of concentric circles. Supposedly.”

“Which do you mean? Actually or supposedly? They're opposites.”

“Well, Atlantis is a fairy-tale, G.”

“Then it can look just like this, in my opinion.”

“Yes, I reckon it can.”

“It can look any way I want it to.”

“Yes. I agree. I was just making conversation.”

“I don't like it when you make me feel small, Frank.”

“I know. Again, I'm sorry.”

Kiss, kiss.

Frank gazed across the water, catching the eyes of a white-shirted beggar on the other shore, and said to Gia, “I can't tell where one place ends and another place begins. It's like Hell and Paradise were baked together in a casserole dish, then sprinkled with salt and palm trees. The poor and destitute existing within smooching distance of the well-to-do.”

Gia said, “We're hardly well-to-do.” And then she added, “Paradise, for your information, is the place with flush toilets and air conditioning.”

...

 

They were at Emathios for three weeks, but it felt like ages.

Gia woke from a nightmare, one bright morning after a late-night dip in the lake.

She was livid, breathing hard. She told it all to Frank while it was all still fresh in her head, “It's you and a group of people. Strangers. I don't know where I am. Bob Scieszka is there, maybe. It's him or someone who looks a lot like him. But there's no me—like I'm a ghost or a memory. Sadness. Overwhelming. You and a bunch of strangers in an empty apartment, arguing about.... God, or something. And it's dark, and there are noises, awful noises.”

Frank said, “Baby, it's just bad dreams,” even though it all sounded very familiar to him.

...

 

Frank's mom called the cell phone and Frank declined to answer.

Frank told Gia, “She can't leave us alone for half a day.”

Gia sighed in agreement.

That woman!

Gia said, “ I seriously crave a decent cup of joe.”

Everything about the Nero was grand, but the coffee was lousy.

Gia said, “I shouldn't complain. This place is paradise and my knees feel great. But I haven't had a decent cup since we left Discord. What am I supposed to do? Drink wine for breakfast?”

Frank suggested maybe orange juice.

Shortly, Raful came to the door and presented Frank with a yellow card. He said, “This will take you anywhere you'd like to go. Just show it to the taxi driver and he will take you, no charge. No fees at all—you don't even need to tip him. Just show the card. You can go anywhere. Touring, shopping, wherever you'd like to go.”

Frank thanked him.

Raful wondered if they'd been swimming in Lake Neronia yet.

Frank told him that in fact they had, that they'd stayed up late in order to do so.

“Yes, night is the best time for it,”  Raful said. “You have to remember that the lake has strong therapeutic properties. It's very sacred.”

“Yes, I've heard.”

“Maybe you will get lucky and encounter the fire serpent.”

“I don't know if I'd like that.”

“Live a little, Frank. It's a big year. You're forty now. Don't be afraid.”

“Actually, I'm just thirty-nine.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don't turn forty for another year.”

“Perhaps you are mixed up. Maybe this is already next year, no?”

“Huh?”

“I'm just talking crazy, Mr. Burczyk.”

“Thank you for the vouchers, Mr. Raful.”

“Just Raful, is fine.”

“Raful.”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Raful.”

“You're so very welcome.”

...

 

Later, Raful returned with Champagne, the real deal, and a magnum of rare Falernian wine. Greco and Aglianico grapes—splendido!

He said, “This is a gift from Mr. Sharky.”

Gia asked, “Who, may I ask, is Mr. Sharky?”

“Mr. Sharky is a kind-hearted benefactor of the Nero. He is considered the patron saint of Emathios, a martyr, though he is still very much alive. And he wants to wish you the very best during your stay with us. He hopes you have the time of your lives.”

“Please tell Mr. Sharky that we are most thankful.”

“I most assuredly will, madam.”

...

 

“They just keep giving us free stuff!”

...

 

This was the busy season. The boardwalk was crammed full of tourists—so many fat, foreign shoppers—most of whom originated in the United States. Frank wondered if the Hispanics could tell the Caucasians apart, and the thought made him chuckle.

“Are you laughing at the heavy girls in thongs?” Gia asked.

“No, not that,” Frank said, “but that's funny, too.”

Walking together along the Malecon, beside the ocean, they encountered a crazed Puerto Vallartan who carried a sign that said, “!Muerto!” in large red letters.  Small guy, big idea.

Gia said, “These people are sick and obsessed with death, I find.”

The crazed man said, “It seems to come from beyond, from the stars, but it actually comes from inside. The death! It is coming from close places, from where we sit and where we breathe. Doom. It's coming from our own hearts!” He was speaking Mexican but Frank heard him in English. Such a phenomenon seemed perfectly logical, in the bleariness of the moment. “Frank, tell your wife. Tell her the news.”

Gia said, “I don't speak Spanish—thank you.”

The man said, “It's the fire of our own hearts. It's the essence of our own souls. We are losing grip on ourselves. We are coming all apart, as people. We have no core, no moral core, and we are going to pieces. The death comes from within! Frank, tell her the truth—”

Frank, finally astonished, said, “What did you say? How do you know my name?”

“Excuse me, Frank, please—tell Gia that she is marked, too. She has been marked, just like you. Just like the design that was cut in your skin.”

Frank grabbed the man by the collar of his white chemise and shouted, “Pardon me—how do you know my wife's name? Are you a thief!”

Gia grabbed Frank's arm and said, “Jezus, Frank! Let him go!”

Frank, suddenly aware of himself, obeyed.

Bad dog!

The man composed himself and said, spitting, “Gringo! Fucker!”

...

 

He was 40 now, poor Frank.

Two of the Grotto's kitchen staff were cleaning up the broken plate, scraping chunks of red, cheesy lasagna off the tiled floor. And Frank felt like a total cock-top, as depressed as ever. He could hear sirens outside, all kinds, cops and fire-trucks, many layers, screaming away.

Gia told him, “Good job. Nice show.”

“Sorry.”

“Your birthday is not a license to act like a fucking jerk.”

“Isn't it?”

“Absolutely not.”

“When do you suggest would be a better time for that?”

“I'm ready to go.”

...

 

On TV they were talking about mud-holes and protesters and asteroids.

Someone was spreading rumors about a doomsday rock.

Someone else talked about wadsy-six.

“Wadsy-six is an anti-asteroid defense system. No comet or meteor could get through our atmosphere and also bypass the wadsy-six. It's not possible.”

...

 

It was Trade Show weekend in Discord, early November, when they finally returned home from their extended stay, gratis, at Emathios.

They had a year of marriage under their belts. They were extremely tanned and things were going very well—Frank was going to be making bigger money, with an extended driving contract, and Gia was thinking about making a baby.

That changed when it was announced that the Little girl had been abducted. Right in front of the bookstore! Gia decided for the millionth and final time that she couldn't bear the thought of bringing a child into such a cold, ugly world.

The search for Alice Little would go on all the way until the next fall, right about the time Vinyl Gigi was razed. The extended Little family, including a few wealthy uncles, posted a million dollar reward, privately, for the person who brought sweet Alice home, alive. There was no fine print. One million dollars in exchange for one child.  The posters went up all over town—Alice Little's angel-face over the words, “Where am I?”

When authorities finally discovered a cache of bodies, ten months later, on September 23, the day Frank turned 40, they would call it Discord's Biggest Tragedy Since that Goddamn Train Hit the Ghost River Back in Ninety! And it would make the front page of every paper in the territory, from fucking Sawanoko all the way up to Rebowken. Four young females were wrapped in plastic and tucked into a squalid bathroom on the first floor of a vacant, condemned apartment building. The four-story slum—seven decades old—had been empty for six years and was scheduled for a tidy spring-time  demolition. Allegedly, it was a young dope addict, looking for a nice out-of-the-way spot to shoot up, who discovered the horror.

Frank told Gia, “It's disgusting! And it happened right down the street from us!”

She shuddered. She was glad they had no kids.

Between the bullshit of failed marriages and the rottenness of recession, depression, and apocalypse, plus all the rape and murder and cruelty along the way, she was thankful there was no offspring to worry about.

She said to Frank, “Remember Mexico?”

He said, “Of course I do.”

“The second time, I mean.”

“I know. I know you meant the second time.”

“It was something.”

“Yes, it definitely was. It's all I think about.”

“You remember how it was before we went there?”

“I do. It was kind of like now.”

“I thought I was going to snap.”

“I know. God, I know.”

...

 

On their first date, at Red Lobster, Gia asked him, “Do you ever think about the end of the world?” And he said that he did not. He said, “Not often. Rarely.” And, after pondering some more, he said, “I think people will eventually find a way to screw everything up. Not World War Three. Maybe something in the food will alter our molecules and we'll all just melt into soup.”

That was a fine night out.

From time to time, as their relation progressed, grew stronger, Gia would refer back to that conversation. She would say things like, “Someday we'll all turn into soup,” and Frank would laugh. It was all out of context. It was hilarious.

“Armageddon is Manhattan clam chowder!”

“The Rapture is happening! Get soda crackers!”

“The end is all tomato bisque.”

...

 

There must have been a biker rally in Discord. Frank was just piecing it together. There were more dirty, leather-clad yahoos than usual, roaring up and down the streets, causing trouble, vandalizing property, pissing ordinary people right the fuck off.

Most folks were scared of bikers. Cops especially—fucking cowards. They'd ticket an old lady for rolling through a yellow light sooner than a vagrant could spit, but if a trio of iron-horse outlaws were burning a Volkswagen in the middle of Main Street, the boys in blue'd drive right on by as if nothing in the world was the matter. That exact scenario had played out at the previous year's rally. More than twenty citizens went to the police with blackened eyes and bruised faces—all claiming to have been assaulted by two-wheel criminals—but not a single arrest was made.

Too typical.

Gia was back at work, the bland lasagna was digesting, uneasily, in Frank's belly, and now he was having a birthday drink with Bob Scieszka, at Jack's Juke, the bar for smelly old men. One birthday drink gave way to multiple birthday drinks, but things didn't get stupid or out of control.

The joint was a fog of eye-searing cigarette smoke. Smoking indoors wasn't even legal anymore. That practice went out with the 1990s.

Bob talked a lot, which was usual. He was restless. He talked about the relief courier gig, which he only had to do a couple times per month, bitched about dealing with old Karl Steckler in any capacity, and complained about the unending agony in his leg. He said he was going to try to write a novel, and had some choice ideas. He wanted Frank to know that he was hosting a candle party on Monday night, the Venusalia. He said, “If I'd kept track of your birthday, Frank, I would have combined all the events. Birthday-slash-candle party-slash-holy feast. The trifecta. That would be a real hoot.”

“What's a candle party?” Frank asked.

“It's dinner, a few drinks, some wine, some coffee, and people buy my aromatic candles. And there's a bit, over dinner, where we have this storytelling contest. It's very cool, very artsy, very Bohemian. I've been doing it for a few years now. You've never been interested. ”

“Candles. It seems kind of... womanly, doesn't it?”

“Dude, you can't say sexist shit like that in the modern world. Men enjoy candles, too.”

“Do they?”

“You live on Candle Avenue.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I'm just saying—I keep seven tea-lights along the edge of my bath tub. All the colors of the visible spectrum. Man, my parties are the real shit. Drama and dress-up. Spoken word. Wine and song. Maybe discard caution and come check it out, for once. My coolest fag friends will be there, too. And even your man, Giton, as always. He's become a regular fixture. Him and the Jezus-girl.”

“Piper.”

“Yeah, Piper.”

“Sounds pleasant.”

“Yeah, pleasant. My chick really digs pleasant.”

“You're dating again?”

“Man! She's really something else. Like a lemur in the bedroom.”

“Ouch. Wow. Lucky you. You do enjoy the primates, don't you?”

The TV set, mounted above the bar, was displaying a sequence of computer-generated images illustrating how the CER science vessel, Cronos-9, hastily retro-fitted for “the mission of a hundred lifetimes,” was going to bombard the mud-hole with atomic particles—colored green merely for effect. In the animated short that followed, the sub-space strata (as it was called) balloons up like a dermal cyst, dries up and plugs itself at the surface of the physical dimension, then settles again like a fallen souffle. (And then, it was implied, the fabric of the universe would be completely repaired and everything would be A-OK once again.) Apparently, this operation was scheduled for early December, which was the soonest the Cronos-9 could get to the disaster area, halfway-to-Mars.

Frank was about to say, “What a load of horse-shit—”

And then, without warning, the real news hit the fan like a spray of shit. The bartender, a busty young woman named Carmen, an artificial blonde, holding a cell phone to her ear, hollered, “They found Alice Little! They found Alice Little!”

Somebody, one of a dozen dimly lit patrons scattered around the premises—Frank didn't see which one—asked, “Is she alive?” and Carmen dropped her eyes. It was the million dollar question, the one that people had been asking since last November.

“Dead. Her and three others.”

There was a collective murmur of despair.

Bob and Frank had noticed that Union Avenue had been cordoned off, on their way in. Fairly suspicious, for sure, but they'd assumed a busted water main or gas line. The bodies were found at 300 block, in a mud pit on a condemned property, but that information wouldn't be officially released until the middle of the next day.

Frank said, “Jezus fucking Christ.”

Bob said, “It's quite a day, huh? You'll remember turning forty, now, won't you?”

“Four bodies? Four fucking kids? My God!”

“These are horrible days, my friend. Horrible days.”

Bartender Carmen held up three fingers, tears streaming down her face, and announced, “Three Jane Does. Three unidentified young females!”

Two Corsairs gangsters, clad in black biker leather adorned with the infamous red C logo , were leaning on the bar, sucking back beers, giggling away, as though the news was no news at all, but rather a joke. One of them laughed quite audibly. Frank entertained the notion of strolling on over and punching them both in the face, and Bob was able to read it in his eyes.

“Don't do it, cowboy. This isn't fifteen years ago. You and I can't do that dance, anymore.”

“It'd feel pretty good, Bob.”

“Nope—those fuckers don't fight one on one, and they don't fight fair. They'll come from Tromso and further afield, and you'll have the whole troupe breathing down your neck, but your neck will be broken. It's not worth that price. You'll get your own head caved in and you won't even have made a point. You know what they're like. Didn't you tussle with one, years back? You know that they're dirty and bad  and that's all there is to it.”

“I suppose you're correct.”

“I often am. Those pricks are your lowly street-level dealers. They only come in here to sell coke and crystal to the employees, and to the retirees that can afford it. But take comfort in the fact that they'll find their way to jail, someday, and that might be the end of their story.”

“One can hope.”

“One does hope.”

The bikers did some quick business with Carmen, still gossiping (and sobbing) into her phone, and then they moseyed along, out the fire door, like they owned the place. Frank and Bob stayed another hour and drank three more beers apiece, plus two shots of good Scotch. Frank bitched about having a teenage girl—especially a stupid one—living in the house, bitched about feeling old, feeling achy, bitched about his mother, and eventually got onto the topic of the missing record shop on rue Trousse-Puteyne, and Bob assumed he was over-medicated. Or they both were. (Wouldn't be the first time for that.)

“You're saying they bulldozed Vinyl Gigi? Really?”

“It's true, Bob. It's the end of an era.”

“But I was drove by on Wednesday. It looked perfectly fine and intact to me. Jezus! I should have loaded up on Dylan! I had a gut feeling I should go there. I had a sense of something and I ignored it. Fuck me.”

“Everything changes. People always told me it would.”

“Fucking change. Fuck change!”

“Makes a guy want to put a gun in his mouth, some days.”

“Huh?”

“I'm just saying.”

“A bit dark. Uhh, I think maybe all this Alice Little-talk has gotten to you, Frank.”

“More like, I think I should never have brought Gia back to Discord.”

“So it's something like guilt? You feel guilty? Sad? Depressed?”

“I'm not sure how I feel, these days.”

“Everything you say is like gibberish in my ears.”

“Thanks, friend.”

“Come to the candle party and you'll liven right the fuck up.”

“Maybe I'll do that.”

...

 

Bob was right: Frank would remember the day he turned 40 for a very long time.

When he came into the house, just the slightest bit woozy, a quarter past drunk, at half past six, Gia met him at the door and wrapped her arms around his neck. He said, “I already know. They found Alice Little's body. Her and three others. I heard. And they're sending a ship to Mars in December. Gonna plug the mud-hole with green shit.”

“No, not that,” said Gia. “Your mother.”

“She's here?”

“No. She's passed away, Frank.”

...

 

He had to think.

...

 

He woke up swearing.

...

 

He woke up swearing.

He was relieved to find himself in Mexico, next to his beloved wife, with the warmness of the  sun crawling across the linen.

It was 7:30 in the morning.

With nowhere else to go, nowhere better to be, Frank Burczyk allowed himself to drift off through  pleasant blue fields of recollection.

...

 

He woke up swearing.

It was his own bed, at home in Discord, beside beautiful Gia. It was Saturday morning, still dark outside, the day after his 40^th birthday. His brain ached. He had the vaguest memory that his mother, Huldora, was dead, and he didn't know quite how to feel about it.

Gia rolled over and straddled his body, carefully, and kissed him fully awake. It was early and she usually liked to sleep late. Five forty-five in the morning. She was feeling frisky. She said she had a sexy dream, and that made her want him in the worstest way. But, still, she worried that he still he had testicular issues.

“Are they better yet?” she asked.

“They're like battered limes,” Frank said. “If I thought I could grow another set, I'd cut these ones off and toss them into the trash. I think you've ruined me.” He was only kidding, of course, but Gia began to weep. She said she felt like a bitch. She said, “I'm a bad person.”

“No. You are a fine person. My balls are fine. I was kidding. I'm going to be okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“I hope I am.”

“I can make you some breakfast.”

“I don't usually eat in the morning. But, thank you.”

They had masturbatory sex instead of the real thing. Gia and his hand. Gia and his leg. His mouth on Gia's excellent breasts. Her hands on his face. But it was risky—he knew she was quite capable of losing her senses, utterly, the closer she got to orgasm.

“Careful, dear. Stay away from the red zone,” he said. “No grinding.”

“I wanted to do it for your birthday,” she said, panting, “but it was such a dark day.”

He said, “I think I was drunk, anyway,” sliding his thumb into her ass.

She went, “Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh huh.”

Things worked out very nicely.

Afterward, Gia told him, “I'm sorry. You have to bury your mother, remember?”

He did. He nodded.  His cum was like cake icing in her soft, black hair.

She said, “And I'm sorry for more. I want to try to be closer to you. To recapture things.”

He said, “I'd like that.”

“It's as if things have gotten in the way. But I don't love you any less than before.”

“I hope that's true.”

“Every day I love you more than the one that came before.”

“Lady, you are amazing.”

He held her, skin on skin, and she wept.

...

 

Frank said, “I don't want to live in a world where someone would murder children.”

Gia said, “It happens all the time.”

“It's disgusting! And it happened right down the street from us!”

“That's the sort of world we're in. I'm happy to be childless.”

“Absolutely.”

...

 

She was sprawled naked across the bed. No woman ever looked so good.

She said, “Still, despite the state of the world, the uncivilized world, I want you to believe that the Universe itself is inherently good.”

Gia believed in everything. Gia believed in God and Jezus and astrology and Darwin and Druids and science and the number eleven. She believed in Fate and Free Will and coincidence. She believed there was no such thing as coincidence. And she hoped that some of these things would eventually rub off on Frank.

She told him, “The universe has a plan for us. For every one of us.”

It was hard for him to see it, especially now. What benevolent power would allow such things to happen? He tried to imagine the answer that Gia would give, before she gave it—“We can't discern the reason, but we can be happy knowing that there definitely is a reason”—and it helped just a little bit.

He remembered Emathios. He remembered Red Lobster. He remembered grade ten.

Life on rewind.

...

 

Twenty-three years earlier, Frank Burczyk and Gia Marvello sat beside each other in Mrs. Sorenson's English class. This was where they met for the very first time. The seats had been assigned by Mrs. Sorenson, herself. Two kids to a desk, a boy and a girl, paired according to this woman's complex obsessive-compulsive sorting system. (There was something about Frank's icy green eyes that matched nicely with Gia's raven-black hair.)

This was grade ten. It was English 100, which meant it was a class for the smarter kids. Gia's boyfriend at the time, Marty Fachio, was enrolled in English 102, which indicated that he was either an imbecile or a moron. (No matter, because Marty Fachio never went to class, anyway.)

It wasn't until the semester was one-third over that Frank and Gia actually began speaking to one another. Frank made a joke about Mrs. Sorenson's lacy black panties being bunched up in the cleft of her giant ass—“You can see right through her goddamn slacks!”—and Gia laughed so hard that she had to cup a hand over her nose for fear that snot was spilling out. Before that, it had been nothing but stone silence between them—eyes ahead, pens out, lips tight—but the rest of the year was like a wine mixer. Like hanging out with Hope and Crosby.

“You see what the rich kids are wearing these days?”

“My god, it's like dying and waking up in pastel limbo.”

“Parachute pants!”

“And Mr. French wears them like they're going into style.”

Hah, hah, hah, hah.

“Kenny Spoke got caught fingering his cousin, they say.”

“That's how the Spokes procreate. Cousins and fingers.”

“And Kenny will finger anything that has a pulse.”

“The pulse is optional, trust me.”

“He must be from Tromso.”

“Only freaks come from Tromso. Freaks and cousin-fuckers.”

Har, har, har, har.

And then, as happens, Frank and Gia began bumping into each other everywhere. At the library, at the mall, at the coffee shop, at Johnny Kreuger's home-wrecking seventeenth-birthday bash. “Fancy meeting you here,” et cetera. It's not as though their paths hadn't crossed many times before, and often, but now they were in a position to notice.

Still, almost all of their socializing took place entirely inside of Mrs. Sorenson's classroom. There were codes of conduct to take into account. Gia was dating a hockey player and Frank belonged to the caste most often associated with marijuana. That is to say, she was a jock (by association), and most of his friends were burn-outs. Bob Scieszka was also in this group, as were the Poke kid (who attempted suicide nine times before getting it right) and Mark Land (who, astoundingly, became a general practitioner of medicine).

The burn-outs did not typically socialize with the jocks, nor the jocks with the nerds, the nerds with the fancies, or the fancies with the duds. The duds, however, often spilled over into the burn-out faction, and the waters between them remained murky.

When Johnny Kreuger's parents went to Florida and he invited the entire high school to come over and use the hot tub—the biggest bash that ever happened in Discord, and every clique as welcome as the next—the friendliest Frank and Gia could get was to say hello, in passing. Her people had the living room and his people had the kitchen (which contained the stove-top they needed in order to hot-knife their hash). The nerds and duds were relegated to the garage.

In English class, on Monday, Frank said, “What time did you leave the party?”

Gia said, “I didn't get home until three.”

“The police came at three-thirty.”

“Wasn't there a fire?”

“That was later. It was already morning.”

“I'm surprised no one was killed.”

“It's still to early to say for sure.”

“What happened to Johnny Kreuger?”

“Apparently, he's in jail.”

“Ouch.”

“What a friggin' idiot.”

Har, har, har, har.

Hah, hah, hah, hah.

Frank did the hah-ing and Gia did the har-ing.

Their laughter, together, was like honeyed medicine, and infectious like chlamydia. Their friendship might have become legendary, even, if the goddamn train hadn't gone off the goddamn Audet bridge and changed the entire course of Gia Marvello's life!

...

 

When Frank was 40 years plus one day old, Gia told him, “I would have been with you. If things hadn't gone that way, it would have been you and me. I would have worn your jacket. I would have fucked you.”

...

 

He couldn't keep his thoughts in order.

They kept running away with him.

He supposed pharmaceuticals could help with that.

...

 

Johnny Kreuger's legendary shaker was the big subject of Frank and Gia's first official grown-up date. They hadn't seen each other in two decades. It was Tromso, it was Red Lobster and Gia had the shrimp special. Frank tried the shark. Why not? But they weren't barely seated before Gia started with, “Do you remember when...?”

Frank was already nodding his head.

Poor Johnny Kreuger went to jail, then made a lifetime habit of it, of going back there.

Gia said, “Where do the years go?”

Frank pointed behind himself with his thumb. “With the breeze,” he said.

...

 

All those early dates went well. Red Lobster, Olive Garden, the movies, a walk around Bradford Park. And hearts were ablaze, red hot, but still they played it cool.

Cool as cukes.

...

 

Kool as kooks.

...

 

Gia said, “ Johnny Kreuger. Was that the best party of all time, or what?”

Frank recalled it like it was last week. All of his pals were present—Bob, Mark, Gary Bee, even Nigel Ford and the half-breed, Jamie Codeman, that crazy fucker—and they were shotgunning cans of beer for the first time in their lives.

Frank said, “I don't know about best, but it was certainly the biggest.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, holy shit.”

All those guys, except Bob Scieszka, went on to become something.

Except Bob Scieszka and Frank Burczyk, more correctly.

He didn't always hold himself in the highest esteem.

...

 

And Marty Fachio was fucking dead!

...

 

In the newer times, Frank loved to talk about the old times. He said, “Those were great days, back in Mrs. Sorenson's class. I still think about it. We had fun, you and me. I was surprised there was never trouble with your boyfriend. What was his name? Mike? Marty? Marty Fucko? Yeah, I was always surprised I never had trouble with Marty.”

“Marty Fachio,” Gia said, gently correcting him.

“Fachio? Really? Not Fucko?”

“Come on, Frank, you're just being funny.”

“I did have the image of a moustache, and the name Mike.”

“Yeah. You're thinking of Mike Kormier. Drove a Mustang.”

“Yeah—spoiled little fucker. Mikey Kay, or MK, they called him. Red Mustang. I remember.”

“Blue Mustang.”

“Are you sure?”

“Your memory is pretty beat-up, Frank.”

“I guess it is.”

“Anyway,” Gia went on, “as far as you not having had any physical altercations with Marty Fachio, don't think for a minute it wasn't on his mind.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, but he knew you could beat his ass. And he knew his hockey buddies weren't going to jump in and fight his battles for him. He was a a bit of a schmuck, to be honest.”

“Did the two of you continue to date?”

“Not after the—you know. Never saw him after that.”

“Whatever happened to him? Do you know?”

“I think he died, actually.”

“No shit. How?”

“I don't know. Drugs, I think. You know the drill.”

She twirled her finger, indicating the turning of gears or cogs—machinery.

The drill. You know it.

...

 

It was on that first date with Gia, at the Red Lobster in Tromso, that he was pressed for his opinion about the finality of things. She was just making conversation, on her best behavior, wanting to keep things interesting. Nothing more to it than that.

She said, “Do you ever think about the end of the world?”

Oh, she was a beauty—that famous black hair, those deep blue eyes, the way her skin seemed to glow like it was the perfect blend of light and water—the girl he'd pined and lusted after for two decades, the girl who disappeared right when things were getting good, the girl who left him by himself back in the dreadful year of 1990, that girl, the got-away girl, she was finally back and she was sitting across the table, so close that her knees were touching his.

She could have been talking about herpes and genital warts and he would have listened intently.

He replied, “No. Not often. Rarely. I think... I think people will eventually find a way to screw everything up. Not World War Three. Maybe something in the food will alter our molecules and we'll all just melt into soup. Something bio-chemical. At the atomic level, we will come all apart—”

Gia was already going har, har, har, har.

“Armageddon is like tomato bisque, you're saying?”

He said, “Why are we talking about the end of the world?”

“It's nothing,” she said. “Just something I saw on TV, on my way out, tonight.”

“The news, perhaps? Are the bombs already flying? Do we have time for salad...?”

“No, silly, nothing like that.”

“I don't want to die before we get bread service.”

“Oh, settle down, Frank...”

“In all seriousness, the world better not end until after we get a few more dates in.”

The mood was lightening up again. More hahs and hars. Good times, good feelings.

She smiled and held his hand.

These hands were the hands of the middle-aged; youth was going, going, gone.

“I didn't think I'd see you again, Gia.”

“Oh, I hoped I'd see you again, Frank. I prayed. And I cried when I did.”

...

 

Discord's newspaper, The Clarinet, was preparing a huge, double-sized edition for Monday release. The headline, “Vagrant Arrives at Hospital with Sex Organ Sewn to Face,” and the accompanying article had already been bumped to page five to make way for, “Death Farm on Union Ave.: 4 Girls Murdered—A Psychopath Walks Among Us.”

It was going to be their finest issue, ever.

There'd even be a quarter-page about an old lady falling down the stairs.