The Glacier (10 page)

CROWD

We love you too, Charlie.

CHARLIE

(robotic voice)

All right, you can bring her out now.

From the back of the barn, a white horse is led out and brought to stand in the light behind old Charlie. The horse is stunning, a smooth pearl, a real beauty. She nods and shivers her coat.

Charlie looks to Sam.

CHARLIE

(robotic voice)

Sam.

Sam steps forward again. He leans over Charlie and rolls up his shirtsleeve. He wraps his arm with rubber tubing. He produces a syringe of Quicksilver. He leans over Charlie again for a moment and then he backs away.

Charlie waits with his head down. He jerks a little. And then he looks up quickly, gazing out, above and beyond the men, his eyes filled with light. He raises the speaking device to his throat again.

CHARLIE

(robotic voice)

It's beautiful.

He nods his head in short quivers as if to say, “Okay, okay, okay.” Samson and three other men move to his side and whisper a count. They pick him up and move him to the horse. As gently as they can, they lift Charlie onto the mare while another man holds her by the harness and keeps her calm. They lay Charlie onto her back.

The mare shifts nervously and Charlie strokes her with his hand, his head lying over her shoulder, whispering.

CHARLIE

(to the horse, a whisper)

It's okay.

He cries a little. Then stops suddenly—

Blood pours from Charlie's nose, running profusely down the horse's shoulder, bright red across her ivory coat.

A tone cuts through the barn: The strings of a guitar begin humming and droning, drawn by some current in the air, a fingerless raga throbbing and whining painfully. Then a violin. A stand-up bass. The old boys are playing a country death dirge around the horse in a ring of light in the darkened barn.

Outside, the old white barn glimmers in the blue-black night.

Music swells from the barn. It begins to hammer and beat, dirge infusing with electronica… carrying over the field and the black trees.

***

Samson pilots his white medicine wagon down another country road. The alien beat is in full force now.

A large modern pole-barn sits in the middle of a black field. The building is constructed of translucent, corrugated fiberglass. Techno dance music pounds from inside and an interior light show lights up the building in the field like a strobing cocoon full of fireflies.

Masses of bodies coagulate and swarm around the building in fluid shifting hives and amoeba-like patterns, moshing pods of young teenagers: 12-, 13-, 14-year-olds.

Samson rolls his truck up the long drive leading to the hyper-urban barn. He parks, and kids rush the truck, lining up at the service window. They're all talking and shouting madly in the impossibly animate physical language of monstrous teens and pre-teens.

Sam deals cubes of colorful pills, papers, and plants out of the side of his truck like a taco stand.

A lanky kid, taller than the rest, approaches through the center of the pack. He is lithe and wide-eyed and innocently cocksure, looking out from the herd of beaming animal eyes. Jerry is a heartbreaking combination of boldness and naïveté.

JERRY

Hey! Over here! I want the best you got!

SAMSON

Everything I got is the best I got. Next.

JERRY

Not for me. I want the best. I wanna blow my mind!

SAMSON

A blown mind is a mind blown.

JERRY

Well that's what I want.

SAMSON

Put a helmet on it or there won't be anything to blow. Next.

More kids crowd in.

Jerry seems hurt and annoyed.

JERRY

Hey man, I'm talking to you. Don't ignore me. I want something real.

SAMSON

Then you've come to the wrong place.

JERRY

I know what you've got.

Sam tries to ignore this, but Jerry zeroes in.

JERRY

I said, I know what you've got.

Sam looks at Jerry, looks him in the eyes, and sees that even for a kid he is not kidding around.

SAMSON

All right, everybody, that's it! Shop's closed, everybody have a good evening!

Sam tries to close up shop but the crowd surges and erupts with discontent.

From overhead, the amassing crowd of kids is swarming and festering like a school of piranha, multiplying in mass, and ultimately covering the truck itself until there is only a shapeless throng of kids.

They flood the interior of the truck and emerge with Samson in their throes. He rides them like he's surfing an out-of-control wave at a punk show. They bring him to the ground and cover him like a posse of wild boars.

Another pod of the adolescent animals pours through the truck, looking for the sought after loot.

KID

I got it, Jerry! I got it!

JERRY

Give it to me. Come on.

The kid hands Jerry the vial of mercury. Jerry produces a syringe and takes off his coat. He pulls the cap off the needle.

The crowd calms down and is watching. Samson is standing now, surrounded by a platoon of boys.

SAMSON

You don't want to do that.

JERRY

Shut the fuck up.

SAMSON

You have to listen to me. This is too much.

Jerry marches over to Samson and right-hooks him hard with an open fist across the cheek bone.

JERRY

Now. Somebody help me out here. Come on.

A couple of boys move around and help him load it up and load it in. He gazes at Sam.

JERRY

You don't have any idea what we've seen.

Jerry and Samson look each other in the eyes while the boys inject Jerry with mercury. The boys back away and Jerry stands alone rubbing his arm. Then he suddenly jerks back like he got punched in the chest.

JERRY

Holy crap.

He spins his head back and forth like he's shaking something out of his ears and trying to clear his vision.

Then his fingers start going nuts like overturned insects, twitching and twittering with internal calculations.

JERRY

It's amazing. It's—everything.

But the calculations get more intense.

JERRY

Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

KID

Come on, Jerry, stay with it. You can do it.

SAMSON

It's too late. There's nothing he can do now.

Jerry bears down and concentrates. He slowly brings his rabid fingers close together so they can communicate. Now it looks like he's playing a high-speed, multi-digit video game, but there's no game there.

KID

That's it, Jerry! That's it! He's gonna beat it. Watch. He gonna beat it.

But the game is too much for him. It overtakes him. He loses all control over his nerves. He's shaking and kicking and swatting at an invisible swarm of bees. He panics and begins to cry, genuinely terrified, a child again now.

JERRY

Ahh! Fuck! Ahh! Get it out of me! Fuck!

Somebody help me! It hurts! Please—

KID

Do something!

SAMSON

I'm sorry.

Then Jerry sees something. He stops, and for a moment he is calm, looking out over the heads of the crowd. Samson looks down, as if to turn away.

JERRY

Oh no. It's coming.

Jerry gags, and then retches forward, puking all over the ground a copious amount of silvery liquid.

JERRY

What is that?

The ground is covered in little silver fish, dozens of shiny metallic bait fish flipping on the ground, drowning in air. Jerry has puked fish. And he's scared.

JERRY

What the fuck is that?!

KID

It's fish, Jerry.

Then he gags again, more violently, and a large fish head emerges from his mouth. Retching again, he evacuates a full-grown fish, a good-sized rainbow trout. The trout flops on the ground, glistening with a spectrum of iridescent colors, gills drawing on the cold night and the rave music in the background.

Jerry stares down at his catch in horror and disbelief, twitching with a feverish brokenness. A trickle of blood runs from his nose.

Then he turns and runs, straight out into the black field. He runs. And he falls. And he doesn't get up. Sprawled in the black winter cornfield, on the perimeter of light.

The long pink hallway rolls by. Someone is walking down that hall at a resolute pace. A corner is turned, heading into another lengthy section.

Mr. Stevens sits at his desk doing paperwork and smoking. There's a pounding at the office door and then Samson lets himself in.

MR. STEVENS

Come in.

Sam drops the two jugs of orange liquid onto Stevens' desk and flops into a chair.

MR. STEVENS

Sam, Sam, the medicine man.

SAMSON

No more kids, Jack.

MR. STEVENS

(arid, but sincere)

But I love kids.

SAMSON

No more kids. They're fucking crazy.

MR. STEVENS

Oh what's the difference?

SAMSON

There's a big difference.

MR. STEVENS

They're just kids.

SAMSON

They're fragile, and unpredictable, and bonkers. And you don't give a shit about kids.

MR. STEVENS

(assertively)

The world is over, Sam. But the nice thing about
children
is that there will always be more of them.

And if we don't keep them entertained they will tear us all to pieces.

SAMSON

That's heartwarming.

Stevens takes a drag and starts over.

MR. STEVENS

So what do we have here?

SAMSON

Dimethyltryptamine diluted with a monoamine oxidase inhibitor for oral consumption. Grows just like plain old lawn grass, but it's extremely potent, and not easy to come by in this quantity.

MR. STEVENS

Your services are greatly appreciated.

SAMSON

Save it. I'm a free agent. And I won't be held responsible for your theatrics.

MR. STEVENS

Oh will you relax. It's not actually going to kill them.

Stevens flicks his eyes at the camera.

SAMSON

You have no idea what it's going to do.

MR. STEVENS

It's
all
been highly scripted.

SAMSON

Once you go down this road the script is useless. You're off the map and you're drifting in very deep water.

MR. STEVENS

That's precisely the idea, Sam, and you know that as well as I do.

SAMSON

I do not pretend to be someone else's salvation.

Stevens loses his temper.

MR. STEVENS

Then
that's
where you're deluding yourself. And that's why you're still peddling formaldehyde and why you're working for me. So get off your high horse and enjoy the show. You made this deal. Don't forget that. Now if you'll excuse me.

SAMSON

I don't need your firewater, Jack.

Someday you're gonna choke on it.

Sam exits and slams the door. Mr. Stevens lights up another cigarette and returns to his paperwork.

***

Samson passes through a steel door and enters the loading dock sector on his way out of the building. He walks by garage doors and open trailers backed up to the docks.

Then he hears a quiet voice, and he stops. He looks toward the dark, open trailers. A woman's voice is mumbling softly out of the blackness.

Sam walks over to the dock utility light and turns it on. He pivots the mechanical arm and points it into the trailer. The inside of the trailer contains a few glass racks full of water glasses. He swings the spotlight on its arm.

Simone is huddled up on the floor in the back corner, smoking a cigarette. She holds up a hand to block the light.

SIMONE

Who's there?

SAMSON

You work here?

SIMONE

Yeah.

SAMSON

All right, sorry to bother you.

SIMONE

Wait. What time is it?

He hesitates.

SAMSON

It'll be over soon.

SIMONE

How do you know?

Sam looks down and thinks about that.

Then he turns and looks straight into the camera. A bright light shines in his mirrored sunglasses, reflecting the light back into the camera. He peers in closer.

Then he walks away. Simone squints into the light, trying to make sense, smoke from her cigarette curling sculpturally in the harsh beam.

***

In his self-storage unit, Jonah sits at the vinyl-upholstered card table he's using for a desk. His fingers clacking on the plastic keyboard of the bulky typing machine. His breath steaming in the cold, dry air. The bare light bulb. His boots. The metal walls. His brown winter coveralls. His watch tiny ticking. Orange light from the glowing screen illuminates his face as he types in the night.

Outside the storage unit, the horizontal lines of the closed garage door and the clacking sound of his fingers typing on the plastic keyboard.

JONAH

(typing)

If you take the smallest increment of time and split it like an atom, is there a singular moment wherein all things are revealed and all things come to pass? If so then this moment is injected into every moment for all of time's eternity.

Garage doors are lined up like blank faces.

JONAH

(typing)

At the edge of human, there is a strange white noise, the sucking, suckling sound of the universe falling into the emptiness of itself.

A floodlight, illuminating the black winter vapor.

JONAH

(typing)

In a perfectly sterile environment the most lethal of sicknesses is life itself, and we are haunted by the shadows of ourselves.

The typing stops.

Quiet outside.

The wash of faraway traffic.

The long rows of storage units, facing each other.

Inside, the word processor sits on the card table, the screen is glowing, but Jonah lies on his mattress wrapped up in a wool blanket and his sleeping bag. He's shaking and sweating, shivering violently, a fever sweat, a hallucinatory brain-boil.