We Live Inside You (4 page)

The seat in the theater can barely hold us, but we are here and we are ready. It is after the most recent sun-drop, half-way through the dark period. We are wearing leather gloves (they barely fit except for the thumbs, which drape and look sharp) and a trench-coat at the suggestion of the remnants of the I-brain.

We sit at the rear of the room. No one sits near us but most of the rows in front of us are full. A bright light appears at the front of the room, large, shimmering.

Our I-brain tells us this is a midnight movie, a Spanish film, one of the best. Hasn’t been shown in a while. We knew it would be packed. We see a couple of people have brought their children. There is a pained feeling from the old thoughts, but it fades.

There are thin clouds of sweet white smoke floating in this room. We breathe it in deeply, pulling it with a whistling noise into our one un-collapsed lung.

The show on the screen is strange, like the amusing dreams of our I-brain. The humans aren’t acting like humans. They are trapped inside a cave lit by a bonfire. They rub each other with burning metal staffs, men and women screaming, skin bubbling and bursting. They paint their eyes with black ashes. They pull a large creature from a cage at the back of the tunnel, many men struggling and falling as they drag the thing in on chains that run through its skin. Some of the fallen men collapse under it as it is dragged forward and it pulls them up into its fluid mass, absorbing them. The space where their bodies merged and melted in begins to ooze a thick white cream. Women ladle this cream from its skin, drinking it and dancing, circles around the fire, ever faster. The women fall to the ground and their chests open up, ribs turned to spongy soft nothing, hearts missing. Slugs ooze out between spread-wide breasts and crawl towards the creature, still just a shape, still cloaked in dark. The men sit before the fire and sweat black oil. Light glows at the top of their foreheads. The slugs turn their stalks to the lights on the men’s heads and shift away from the massive beast quivering in the dark. Then the slugs are on the men, long shining trails on shivering skin.

We are touching ourselves while these images glow before us. We have unbuckled and lowered our pants. The leather on our gloved hands is soaking through with seepage. We do not push aside our jacket, but know that the pulsing rose between our legs is emitting a light-red glow. A hissing noise slips from its center.

We are as quiet as we can be. As expected, the audience uproar in the room buries our birthing sounds. The people in this room are laughing, breathing, smoking, fascinated and excited by a world that is not theirs.

We can taste them on our tongues. Two of our heads have emerged, broken through the belly skin, hissing in the flavor of the room.

We slide down to the swollen meat-sprout at our groin and wrap our long bodies around it. Our fanged mouths find each other and lock up, teeth biting into each other’s lower jaws. We are a sheath now, squeezing tight, sliding up and down, pulsing, with the blooming rose at our top, its folds now filling with an oil-slick rainbow of wet color.

There is now a desert on the screen. The cave full of revelers has collapsed. A lone man in a cowboy hat has emerged. He walks on crutches made of elephant ivory. He leaves no print in the sand.

We are ready for the next cycle. Hissing at a higher pitch. Our human head lolls back, its now soft skull squelching against the rear wall of the theater, bits of gray garbage draining out.

Our mouths unlatch from each other and we stop stroking between our legs. We bite into the rose-bloom and taste our old warm blood and the oils of our gestation and we pull back and then split the meat-sprout from tip to shaft.

What is left of our I-brain thinks it has gone to a place called Heaven. It feels so good. So alive.

It thinks a word.
Enlightenment.

Our abdomen muscles contract and push down and a thick, bloody sausage-shaped sac pushes out of the hole we’ve torn in our crotch, the old flaps of our meat-sprout shaking and slipping against its emergence.

It is rare and lucky to reach this point in the cycle. We are blessed.

We quickly grasp the tube with our man-hands and bring it to our mouth, licking it clean, the taste stirring an old sense memory of the day we swallowed a bug in the park.

One of our new extensions crawls up through our man-throat and slides over the slick, swollen man-tongue. We bite into the sac, spreading it open.

We smile.

Their wings are already drying.

The film on the screen is so strange that when the man in the desert is suddenly eclipsed by the shadow of thousands of tiny flying gnats, the audience gasps in awe, breathing in deep, smiling with surprise, stunned by spectacle.

We ride in on the waves of their exhalation and find soft purchase.

And the people sleep, and dream, and awake to a subtle hissing sound. It is familiar to them. They hear it in their blood.

We are the waves of an ancient ocean crashing to shore, washing everything clean.

Don’t act surprised, or shake your bloody fists at the night sky.

You chased this down.

Help is coming—maybe a reality check can keep you seething until it gets here. Better than slipping into shock.

Face it—you’re lying there in the evening chill, broken and breathless on the dewy suburban grass because of a basic truth:

You’ve always been a sucker for love.

And being smart enough to know that isn’t the same as being able to do a goddamn thing about it.

You were a mark from the get-go.

Age seven: All Mary Ashford had to do was smile. You kicked over your licorice. She skipped away, shared it with that red-headed oaf Mikey Vinson.

Rube.

Age fourteen: Sarah Miller asked you to the last dance of the year.

Why wouldn’t you help her with her algebra homework? An easy down-payment on a guaranteed post-dance make-out session.

You even gave Sarah your final exam answers.

She passed algebra.

She passed on attending the dance.

Stomach flu—very sad. She cried on the phone.

Two weeks later she went to the final dance at the school across town. With Mikey Fucking Vinson. The rumor mill had them crossing fourth base. In a
hot tub
.

You cursed Mikey Vinson, prayed to God for wolves to snuff the bastard, to disembowel him in a hot tub, a steaming red bowl of Vinson soup.

Revenge fantasies waned. You knew the truth. This was on you. You cried yourself to sleep, thinking Sarah Miller would be the last girl you’d ever truly fall for.

Chump.

Age fifteen: Love got blown off the radar.

Was it world-weary resolve? No, you were a mess of hormones and zero savvy charging headlong into the bayonets of the beauties walking your school halls.

Love caught the boot because your parents burned to death on their eighteenth anniversary. Bad electrical blanket wiring and spilled champagne caused a flash-fire.

As with every anniversary weekend since you were born, you were staying at Uncle Joshua’s house—a bungalow off Powell on 58
^th
—in South East Portland. The crucial difference that weekend was that at the end of it you had no home to return to.

Uncle Joshua took you in. You didn’t speak for three months. You dreamed—your parents screaming with smoke-filled lungs.

Your Uncle did his best. Let you know you were loved. Gave you great pulp novels about druggy detectives and man-eating slugs. Taught you how to swear properly. Let you stay up till any hour, so long as you promised to run with him every morning at seven sharp.

“The morning run blows the morning prayer out of the water,” he told you. “Gets you thinking. Breathing deep. It clears out the worry, the garbage, everything.”

You ran the city with him—sidewalks, tracks, trails. Portland seemed huge and electric in a way your hometown Salem never did.

He showed you how to run through “the wall”—the utter vacuum of energy that forced you to walk. Soon the wall was pushed further and further out.

You ran to exhaustion—morning jogs with your Uncle and epic evening jaunts that allowed you to collapse far from the reality of your loneliness, from dreams of burning hands reaching for your face.

Five years after the fire, love finally tracked you down.

You were twenty-one. Still a virgin. You’d chased nobility, never exploiting your semi-orphan status for a cheap lay. Besides, that would have meant talking to someone, knowing someone.

You were confident chasing the cat was for suckers anyway. You’d transcended that status because you had a
new
kick, something you’d guessed was better than pussy:

THEFT.

It wasn’t for the cash—your parents’ trust kept you sound.

You stole because you’d recognized a loophole.

Portland was a runner’s city. During daylight it was impossible to hit the waterfront without seeing a jogger, but the nights had their own crews. Doctors or bartenders forced into the late shift. Other running zealots like you.

And Portland’s runner omni-presence rendered you a non-threat to the cops. Another fitness freak in fancy gear. You rocked sheer shirts, a Garmin GPS watch, a CamelBak water backpack, a flashy yellow vest, and shorts designed to hug your junk.

You liked to wave at the cops, give them a nod that said, “Here we are, upstanding citizens keeping things safe and healthy.”

Sometimes they waved back. Some of those times you ran right by them with a thousand dollars worth of pinched jewelry in your CamelBak.

They never turned around. What self-respecting thief would run by a cop car while rocking reflective gear meant to call attention?

You were just another night runner fading in the rearview.

In fairness to them, you started minor, like some jockey-boxing meth-head.

Your LifeHammer tool was designed for drivers trapped in a submerged vehicle. One side had a hammer specially designed to crack tempered auto glass.

Ostensibly designed for exits, it worked great for entrances.

You trolled the NW hills near the Leif Erickson trail, pulling smash-and-grabs on Suburbans, Jaguars, a smattering of Portland’s ubiquitous Subarus and Priuses. You copped cell phones, cameras, MP3 players. You copped hard-ons from the gigs, tracked record runs off the buzz.

You kept the swag in a box in your closet, obsessed over it, deciphering what you could about the people you’d jacked. You fell asleep to stolen play-lists. You studied the smiles of strangers in digital photos.

You soon realized that any tweaker could crack car windows.

The buzz dwindled.

You escalated—houses were the logical progression.

Your first pick was a sharp art-deco joint. You’d done your sidewalk surveying—they had a habit of leaving the sliding glass door on the side of their house open.

You almost bailed. Nerves. Visions of the owners polishing rifles inside.

You decided to hit their car instead—a desperation move.

You got lucky, opened the glove compartment, found a receipt. Franzetti Jewelers—$6,000. Dated that day. Scrambled the car, found zilch.

Was it in the home? A necklace, a ring—they’d fit into your backpack so easily. Something like that was much more intimate than an iPod—it represented history between two people.

The gravity of it pulled you to the side entrance of the house.

You knocked on the door frame. “Hello?”

If anyone answered, you’d feign injury: You’d crunched your ankle coming down from Forest Park. Needed a cab, a hospital.

After your third “Hello” echoed dead, you crossed the threshold.

It took five exhilarating minutes to find the jewelry box. Bedroom dresser, third drawer, under a pile of gold-toe socks. A serious square-cut rock mounted on a platinum setting. An engagement in the cards?

You thought about leaving the stone. But then you remembered Mary Ashford and Sarah Miller, decided to save the guy from becoming another sucker.

You hit the streets, the ring secure in your CamelBak.

Back home, the jewelry went into the swag box. You couldn’t sleep, reviewing your plunder, tiny pieces of other lives.

B & E’s became
everything
.

One a week at first. Monday through Thursday was casual jog recon. Weekends were break-ins.

Jewels reigned supreme. They spent time close to other people, had sentimental value.

You’d take cash when discovered, but never credit cards.

Once a week quickly became “whenever the coast looked clear.” Your record was three break-ins in one night.

You wore thin white runner’s gloves, hoping they’d prevent prints.

You carried steak-flavored dog treats but never had the guts to break into a house after you’d heard a dog bark. You petted cats when they’d allow it.

If a whole pack of cigarettes was left out you’d take one smoke, save it for the morning, puff on it at sunrise.

Sometimes you went to hip hop shows before your evening run. It was easy to stay chill, enjoy a show solo, hood up, feeling like an anonymous gangster amidst all the fronting. They could talk up the criminal life; you
lived
it.

You tried to maintain the morning runs with Uncle Joshua. He noticed your owl eyes and lagging pace.

He expressed concern.

You dropped the routine. The nights were just too long.

It was in this state—harried, junkie-hungry for break-ins—that you let love back into your life.