“He didn’t even say I love you or goodbye.”
Q says, “do you hurt like I do? I hope so.”
“More than you’ll ever know,” I say.
Q says, “good,” in a greasy way I’m sure I’ll never forget. Then, “he killed himself in your living room as if to drive the knife in further.”
I say, “it wasn’t for revenge, dummy. It was because, as far as I’m concerned, my home was his best and only refuge from life. Even his best refuge from me at the time.”
To think there was ever a moment when I obsessed so deeply it would hurt the one I loved the most. Shortly thereafter that those feelings suddenly stopped. That woman I was disappeared like a possessing demon leaving in the name of Christ.
Cutting in, I say, “listen this has all been so cathartic, but I’m about to give birth and I don’t really give much of a shit about your petty need for revenge. So if you’re not going to hurt me, because I know you’re a weakling, then I’d just like to leave and get to a hospital.”
Though it seems I’m stoic, really I’m roiling. Not just the flush of hormones causing my uterus to contract over and over again, but the fact there’s a new reason to worry.
What if I treat baby Hal the way I treated Bradford?
Checking my phone there’s still no reception. No messages. Seems this tech nerd has taken over everything. You’d think Jeff or Brenny might have suspected something was wrong by now. Ergo, something must be wrong with them too. But that’s the burgeoning protector in me thinking the worst. Thinking Jeff’s left me, and the boys have driven the 350 off a cliff. Thinking my poor old butler has finally died of a heart attack. Thinking if I don’t get the fuck out of this stall I’m gonna push the baby out into the toilet.
Q’s bare feet shift under the stall like as if the feet were making whatever decision for him. Thing is it’s a lie, what I said before. Here in this little space, as his captive audience, I do feel a little bad for him. This manatee. This sasquatch. Other than the fact of him taking my Bradford away from me for a little while, being the center of his happiness, shitting all over my Walmart, and trying feebly to intimidate me he hasn’t really done anything wrong.
Just loved Bradford.
Which I could understand completely.
Q says, “I… I wasn’t actually expecting you to just admit the truth like that.”
I say, “get used to it,” then wipe and take up my pants and open the stall door. Behind it is a much thinner Quinten. Looking gaunt, used, and filthy. Like all that shitting left him deflated.
He says, “I had a plan… to… I don’t know.”
As a contraction grips me, I’m clutching my belly. Little Hal can’t wait. Q catches me as I almost fall over. Surprised he’s strong enough to even hold me up.
I say, “I need an ambulance.”
He fumbles, “I shut everything down within a five mile radius.”
I say, “then you’re gonna have do drive me.”
You ever seen carbage? This troll had it galore. On opening his rusty van door, nearly a million piss bottles along with Sonic wrappers, 72oz cups, Wendy’s bags, and empty prescription bottles fall out and tumble around our feet. Where they’ve gone there’s no seats in the back, just a table affixed to a wall with a laptop sitting on it. Under there is a ragged mattress that Q’s done god knows what on. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, I step inside, Q holding my hand like some Disney princess getting into a garbage truck for my first date with a bridge troll. Getting in, he starts the van after a few turns of the key and leaves the eerily empty parking lot.
I say, “do you know where Jeff and the boys are?”
He says, “I… I… I had this plan. You know to scare you because I thought you’d be indignant and not apologize.”
I say, “I still haven’t apologized.”
He says, “I found the Retreat.”
This even I couldn’t do. Though what it has to do with my boys, I’ve no idea. We were told it’s somewhere in Montana, but that could have been a lie. We were brought there under armed guard, masked, and unable to see the outside world but that of the sun and sky. Even with all my power, employees, reach, feelers, friends, acumen, and all that, I’d given up on the search for that place. Wasn’t just my inability, but the idea of going back for any reason just seemed like torture.
I ask, “what does that have to do with the boys?”
He says, “they’re there.”
He says, “I… I was going to threaten to put them in the chamber like Bradford and… force you to take back all of your wealth.”
There’s a sharp stab in my back and legs like I’m being dragged along concrete. It roils through my body from my toes to my head. This little Hal, he wants to come now, ripping out of me like I’ve just been here as a host. I scream.
Q says, “your idea about giving to the poor incrementally, it was working. But the thing is, wasn’t working the way you think it was. They just put it back into the economy. They just give it back to the rich because they’ve always wanted the good life and good things and vacations and stuff. Paradoxically, all it does is perpetuate the system that has control over them.”
Within this five mile radius he’s got control over, it seems he’s shut down all power and that includes street lights and traffic signals. Outside the swerving van there’s loud honking and yelling from every direction filling the empty space with shock and awe to accompany the smell of stale urine and feces.
Q says, “but there are some, a few who’ve managed to turn their lives around. Like little drops in a pond that make ripples of change in the system. Already there are people who would have otherwise languished in poverty nearing the top of the societal ladder. With their contributions they’re also making changes that raise people up and bring them out of poverty also. This disturbs our overlords.”
So, because I’m racked with pain, I still have to listen to this monologue. The use of the word overlords. Can’t say I ever 100% believed in the idea that we were living in a zoo curated by aliens. Seemed to outlandish and besides I never saw any evidence of it. Just the things humans were capable of. The genetic compliments and such. Giant facilities that house rich children and torture them for days on end.
I say, “that was the point dumbass.”
He says, “I know. I know. But you don’t understand. If we keep advancing, they’re going to obliterate all of us. They view any world capable of advancing beyond our own differences as a threat-.”
I cut him off, “if all the hospitals in the area have no power, where are you taking me?”
He says, “to the retreat.”
“What?”
He says, “it’s not far at all and they have a facility that can help you.”
“Don’t take me there goddamn it. Take me to another hospital in another town-.”
He says, “I can’t! Besides, Jeff and the boys are there at the Retreat.”
“If they’re hurt I swear I’ll peel your face off with my bare hands and wear it on Halloween.”
He shouts me down, “it’s not run by who you think it’s run by. It’s not run by billionaires or corporations anymore. It’s run by us. The Breatharians. We’ve chosen subordination to the overlords, and they’ve left us in control of it for centuries-.”
“Bootlickers!”
“Yes, if you want to put it that way.”
“That’s exactly how it is!” I scream, then, “why would you do all that if you could just be free from it. I mean even in death, you’d be free.”
At a sharp swerve I’m knocked against the van’s wall and because my blood pressure’s so high I’m swimming inside my pain amplified body. It’s truly amazing what this religion has done to them. They’d rather live in pain than accept death. Right about now, I’d give anything to be released.
“You don’t get it. I just want a simple life. I don’t care about freeing the world or excelling. Just give me my video games and books and toys. It’s all I need,” Q says, “and they get to live.”
Not having the strength to answer I just moan. Seems he’s willing to trade everyone’s happiness for his own.
He says, “I know what you’re thinking and it’s not like that at all. I’m willing to live a simple life without larger comforts so humanity will survive.”
Perhaps the sasquatch and I could’ve had this conversation some other time like not when I’m about to shoot a baby out my birth canal. Weaving in and out of unguided traffic, Q’s got a good handle on the pedo-van. It’s like he’s trained all his life with bumper cars for this race. Can’t beat the learned hand eye coordination learned in video games for a good driver. Not seeing where he’s heading or even if his direction makes sense I’m captive again to his whims.
I say, “you think you’re some sort of saint? You’re not!”
As if I hadn’t spoken he says, “also that thing about being free in death… well… it isn’t true.”
With the sudden change in subject, and another bolt of lightning up my spine, my mind is wiped clean like equations from a chalkboard. I don’t ask what he means because I’m sure he’ll explain whether I like it or not.
He says, “Bradford is there too.”
Now it’s my turn to ask, “what?”
If I ever had any doubts about my and Bradford’s past they’re gone now as the intermittent fluorescent lights flash past the windows of the strip-down ball-park restroom smelling van. Couldn’t be more positive in my affirmations that this is really happening than when I hear that hollow tube sound as we enter a tunnel that seems to go on forever. All of this compounded by the fact of eerie long dead voices emitting from the forgotten laptop on the shelf.
Out of the laptop speaker Bradford says, “hey Sissy! It’s been so long I’d say let’s catch up, but you’ll be here soon enough, and I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”
Q, gone silent to allow the gravity of the moment to pull me down, is coasting now along a stretch of tunnel that while smooth feels like the certain doom of the Titanic.
I ask, “is this a joke?”
Brad says, “no joke Sissy. We’re all here. Me, mom, dad, Jeff, Brenny, his little boyfriend Dickolos. Everybody! It’s a party just for you on the day you finally fulfill your purpose.”
Brad says, “hey, I know what we can do to pass the time. Let’s play a game. You guess where I am, and I won’t order a drone strike on some innocent civilians in the middle east.”
Q says, “just ignore it. You’ll see in a few moments.”
Whether it was the pain, or the fact of my stunned mind, I couldn’t tell you, but I listened to Q. That didn’t stop the computer from spewing more voices beckoning my contrition.
Mom said, “that’s right, it’ll be over soon, and you can get back to eating pop-tarts with butter on them and digging at warts.”
Dad said, “they didn’t have to harvest your eggs. I would’ve fucked you silly.”
The voice was so scary accurate, I could even see him like as if he was right in the van adjusting his monocle and wiping away grease from his yellowed skin.
Brad said, “guess!”
“How is that possible?”