Eastern Standard Tribe (14 page)

In thirty-six hours, he was ready to tear the throat out of anyone who tried to communicate with him. He'd harangued Linda out of the flat and crawled to the kitchen floor, painstakingly assembling a nest of pillows and sofa cushions, close to the icemaker and the painkillers and toilet. His landlady, an unfriendly Chinese lady who had apparently been wealthy beyond words in Hong Kong and clearly resented her reduced station, agreed to sign for the supply drops he commed to various retailers around London.

He was giving himself a serious crick in his neck and shoulder from working supine, comm held over his head. The painkillers weighted his arms and churned his guts, and at least twice an hour, he'd grog his way into a better position, forgetting the tenderness in his back, and bark afresh as his nerves shrieked and sizzled.

Two days later and he was almost unrecognizable, a gamey, unshaven lump in the tiny kitchen, his nest gray with sweat and stiff with spilled take-away curry. He suspected that he was overmedicating, forgetting whether he'd taken his tablets and taking more. In one of his more lucid moments, he realized that there was a feedback cycle at play here -- the more pills he took, the less equipped he was to judge whether he'd taken his pills, so the more pills he took. His mind meandered through a solution to this, a timer-equipped pillcase that reset when you took the lid off and chimed if you took the lid off again before the set interval had elapsed. He reached for his comm to make some notes, found it wedged under one of his hocks, greasy with sweat, batteries dead. He hadn't let his comm run down in a decade, at least.

His landlady let Linda in on the fourth day, as he was sleeping fitfully with a pillow over his face to shut out the light from the window. He'd tried to draw the curtains a day -- two days? -- before, but had given up when he tried to pull himself upright on the sill only to collapse in a fresh gout of writhing. Linda crouched by his head and stroked his greasy hair softly until he flipped the pillow off his face with a movement of his neck. He squinted up at her, impossibly fresh and put together and incongruous in his world of reduced circumstances.

"Art. Art. Art. Art! You're a mess, Art! Jesus. Why aren't you in bed?"

"Too far," he mumbled.

"What would your grandmother say? Dear-oh-dearie. Come on, let's get you up and into bed, and then I'm going to have a doctor and a massage therapist sent in. You need a nice, hot bath, too. It'll be good for you and hygienic besides."

"No tub," he said petulantly.

"I know, I know. Don't worry about it. I'll sort it out."

And she did, easing him to his feet and helping him into bed. She took his house keys and disappeared for some unknowable time, then reappeared with fresh linen in store wrappers, which she lay on the bed carefully, making tight hospital corners and rolling him over, nurse-style, to do the other side. He heard her clattering in the kitchen, running the faucets, moving furniture. He reminded himself to ask her to drop his comm in its charger, then forgot.

"Come on, time to get up again," she said, gently peeling the sheets back.

"It's OK," he said, waving weakly at her.

"Yes, it is. Let's get up." She took his ankles and gradually turned him on the bed so that his feet were on the floor, then grabbed him by his stinking armpits and helped him to his feet. He stumbled with her into his crowded living room, dimly aware of the furniture stacked on itself around him. She left him hanging on the door lintel and then began removing his clothes. She actually used a scissors to cut away his stained tee shirt and boxer shorts. "All right," she said, "into the tub."

"No tub," he said.

"Look down, Art," she said.

He did. An inflatable wading pool sat in the middle of his living room, flanked by an upended coffee table and his sofa, standing on its ear. The pool was full of steaming, cloudy water. "There's a bunch of eucalyptus oil and Epsom salts in there. You're gonna love it."

That night, Art actually tottered into the kitchen and got himself a glass of water, one hand pressed on his lower back. The cool air of the apartment fanned the mentholated liniment on his back and puckered goose pimples all over his body. After days of leaden limbs, he felt light and clean, his senses singing as though he was emerging from a fever. He drank the water, and retrieved his comm from its cradle.

He propped several pillows up on his headboard and fired up his comm. Immediately, it began to buzz and hum and chatter and blink, throwing up alerts about urgent messages, pages and calls pending. The lightness he'd felt fled him, and he began the rotten business of triaging his in-box.

One strong impression emerged almost immediately: Fede wanted him in Boston.

The Jersey clients were interested in the teasers that Fede had forwarded to them. The Jersey clients were obsessed with the teasers that Fede had forwarded to them. The Jersey clients were howling for more after the teasers that Fede had forwarded to them. Fede had negotiated some big bucks on approval if only Art would go and talk to the Jersey clients. The Jersey clients had arranged a meeting with some of the MassPike decision-makers for the following week, and now they were panicking because they didn't have anything *except* the teasers Fede had forwarded to them.

You should really try to go to Boston, Art. We need you in Boston, Art. You have to go to Boston, Art. Art, go to Boston. Boston, Art. Boston.

Linda rolled over in bed and peered up at him. "You're *not* working again, are you?"

"Shhh," Art said. "It's less stressful if I get stuff done than if I let it pile up."

"Then why is your forehead all wrinkled up?"

"I have to go to Boston," he said. "Day after tomorrow, I think."

"Jesus, are you insane? Trying to cripple yourself?"

"I can recover in a hotel room just as well as I can recover here. It's just rest from here on in, anyway. And a hotel will probably have a tub."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this. You're not going to *recover* in Boston. You'll be at meetings and stuff. Christ!"

"I've got to do this," Art said. "I just need to figure out how. I'll go business class, take along a lumbar pillow, and spend every moment that I'm not in a meeting in a tub or getting a massage. I could use a change of scenery about now, anyway."

"You're a goddamned idiot, you know that?"

Art knew it. He also knew that here was an opportunity to get back to EST, to make a good impression on the Jersey clients, to make his name in the Tribe and to make a bundle of cash. His back be damned, he was sick of lying around anyway. "I've got to go, Linda."

"It's your life," she said, and tossed aside the covers. "But I don't have to sit around watching you ruin it." She disappeared into the hallway, then reemerged, dressed and with her coat on. "I'm out of here."

"Linda," Art said.

"No," she said. "Shut up. Why the fuck should I care if you don't, huh? I'm going. See you around."

"Come on, let's talk about this."

East-Coast pizza. Flat Boston twangs. The coeds rushing through Harvard Square and oh, maybe a side trip to New York, maybe another up to Toronto and a roti at one of the halal Guyanese places on Queen Street. He levered himself painfully out of bed and hobbled to the living room, where Linda was arguing with a taxi dispatcher over her comm, trying to get them to send out a cab at two in the morning.

"Come on," Art said. "Hang that up. Let's talk about this."

She shot him a dirty look and turned her back, kept on ranting down the comm at the dispatcher.

"Linda, don't do this. Come on."

"I am on the phone!" she said to him, covering the mouthpiece. "Shut the fuck up, will you?" She uncovered the mouthpiece. "Hello? Hello?" The dispatcher had hung up. She snapped the comm shut and slammed it into her purse. She whirled to face Art, snorting angry breaths through her nostrils. Her face was such a mask of rage that Art recoiled, and his back twinged. He clasped at it and carefully lowered himself onto the sofa.

"Don't do this, OK?" he said. "I need support, not haranguing."

"What's there to say? Your mind's already made up. You're going to go off and be a fucking idiot and cripple yourself. Go ahead, you don't need my permission."

"Sit down, please, Linda, and talk to me. Let me explain my plan and my reasons, OK? Then I'll listen to you. Maybe we can sort this out and actually, you know, come to understand each other's point of view."

"Fine," she said, and slammed herself into the sofa. Art bounced and he seized his back reflexively, waiting for the pain, but beyond a low-grade throbbing, he was OK.

"I have a very large opportunity in Boston right now. One that could really change my life. Money, sure, but prestige and profile, too. A dream of an opportunity. I need to attend one or two meetings, and then I can take a couple days off. I'll get Fede to OK a first-class flight -- we get chits we can use to upgrade to Virgin Upper; they've got hot tubs and massage therapists now. I'll check into a spa -- they've got a bunch on Route 128 -- and get a massage every morning and have a physiotherapist up to the room every night. I can't afford that stuff here, but Fede'll spring for it if I go to Boston, let me expense it. I'll be a good lad, I promise."

"I still think you're being an idiot. Why can't Fede go?"

"Because it's my deal."

"Why can't whoever you're meeting with come here?"

"That's complicated."

"Bullshit. I thought you wanted to talk about this?"

"I do. I just can't talk about that part."

"Why not? Are you afraid I'll blab? Christ, Art. Give me some credit. Who the hell would I blab *to*, anyway?"

"Look, Linda, the deal itself is confidential -- a secret. A secret's only a secret if you don't tell it to anyone, all right? So I'm not going to tell you. It's not relevant to the discussion, anyway."

"Art. Art. Art. Art, you make it all sound so reasonable, and you can dress it up with whatever words you want, but at the end of the day, we both know you're full of shit on this. There's no *way* that doing this is better for you than staying here in bed. If Fede's the problem, let me talk to him."

"Jesus, no!"

"Why not?"

"It's not appropriate, Linda. This is a work-related issue. It wouldn't be professional. OK, I'll concede that flying and going to meeting is more stressful than not flying and not going to meetings, but let's take it as a given that I *really* need to go to Boston. Can't we agree on that, and then discuss the ways that we can mitigate the risks associated with the trip?"

"Jesus, you're an idiot," she said, but she seemed to be on the verge of smiling.

"But I'm *your* idiot, right?" Art said, hopefully.

"Sure, sure you are." She *did* smile then, and cuddle up to him on the sofa. "They don't have fucking *hot tubs* in Virgin Upper, do they?"

"Yeah," Art said, kissing her earlobe. "They really do."

17.

Once the blood coursing from my shins slows and clots, I take an opportunity to inspect the damage more closely. The cuts are relatively shallow, certainly less serious than they were in my runamuck imagination, which had vivid slashes of white bone visible through the divided skin. I cautiously pick out the larger grit and gravel and turn my attention spinewards.

I have done a number on my back, that much is certain. My old friends, the sacroiliac joints, feel as tight as drumheads, and they creak ominously when I shift to a sitting position with my back propped up on the chimney's upended butt, the aluminum skirting cool as a kiss on my skin. They're only just starting to twinge, a hint of the agonies to come.

My jaw, though, is pretty bad. My whole face feels swollen, and if I open my mouth the blood starts anew.

You know, on sober reflection, I believe that coming up to the roof was a really bad idea.

I use the chimney to lever myself upright again, and circle it to see exactly what kind of damage I've done. There's a neat circular hole in the roof where the chimney used to be, gusting warm air into my face as I peer into its depths. The hole is the mouth of a piece of shiny metal conduit about the circumference of a basketball hoop. When I put my head into it, I hear the white noise of a fan, somewhere below in the building's attic. I toss some gravel down the conduit and listen to the report as it *ping*s off the fan blades down below. That's a good, loud sound, and one that is certain to echo through the building.

I rain gravel down the exhaust tube by the handful, getting into a mindless, shuffling rhythm, wearing the sides of my hands raw and red as I scrape the pebbles up into handy piles. Soon I am shuffling afield of the fallen chimney, one hand on my lumbar, crouched over like a chimp, knees splayed in an effort to shift stress away from my grooved calves.

I'm really beating the shit out of that poor fan, I can tell. The shooting-gallery rattle of the gravel ricocheting off the blades is dulling now, sometimes followed by secondary rattles as the pebbles bounce back into the blades. Not sure what I'll do if the fan gives out before someone notices me up here.

It's not an issue, as it turns out. The heavy fire door beyond the chimney swings open abruptly. A hospital maintenance gal in coveralls, roly-poly and draped with tool belts and bandoliers. She's red-faced from the trek up the stairs, and it gives her the aspect of a fairy tale baker or candy-seller. She reinforces this impression by putting her plump hands to her enormous bosom and gasping when she catches sight of me.

It comes to me that I am quite a fucking sight. Bloody, sunburnt, wild-eyed, with my simian hunch and my scabby jaw set at a crazy angle to my face and reality both. Not to mention my near nudity, which I'm semipositive is not her idea of light entertainment. "Hey," I say. "I, uh, I got stuck on the roof. The door shut." Talking reopens the wound on my jaw and I feel more blood trickling down my neck. "Unfortunately, I only get one chance to make a first impression, huh? I'm not, you know, really *crazy,* I was just a little bored and so I went exploring and got stuck and tried to get someone's attention, had a couple accidents... It's a long story. Hey! My name's Art. What's yours?"