Transplanter X

 Transplanter X
By Douglas Kolacki

I walk into the hospital and past the front desk without checking in. No need. The doctor's expecting me; I see her every day at three o'clock, give or take five minutes. She, however, hasn't seen me in a long time. Months, in fact. How many? I don't quite remember, but I know it ends on Christmas Eve. It's complicated.

Rounding the first corner, I see the elderly couple. The man holds the lady's arm while walking with quick little steps, the woman widening her strides; I'm not sure who's pushing or pulling who. In a moment they'll pass me, and I'll hear the lady remark that someone's appendectomy "went swimmingly, George." 

Say it differently this time, I think. Just to change something. It went "well," or "great," or--

"It went swimmingly, George." They continue up the hall. 

Beyond them walks the burly man who's always far ahead of me, going the same way I'm going. I only ever see his back, the word STAFF printed on his tee shirt. Two more folks approach and pass, the tall weathered man with the KOREA VETERAN ballcap, and the lady with silver hoop earrings--her teeth are visibly out of alignment, is she self-conscious about that? I always sort of hope to find them straightened out next time. 

I round the second corner and halt, for there's always a fellow in a wheelchair blocking the hallway, trying to make a three-point turn. I count the seconds as he nudges the wide wheels, backing up, swiveling. Three, four, five and he's clear, arms lunging the wheels like pistons. (Not seven this time, huh? Not one or two?) I wait till he's breezed out of sight, then close the distance to the doctor's office. 

The door's always open, and the first thing I see is the wall clock. Thank God for that clock. Each day it shows a different time: 3:00 today, 2:56 yesterday, 2:58 the day before that. The latest I've ever arrived was 3:04.

But the doctor's appearance, like ninety-nine percent of everything else, never changes. Wearing her standard white coat and stethoscope, yellow hair cut just beneath her ears, she sits at her desk scribbling something on a notepad. Her head is bent low, squinting at whatever she's writing. 

She puts down her pen and looks up with blue eyes bright and lively. "Well hi, Mr. Rothstein! Good to see you. How are you today?"

Today means Wednesday, July the 13th, the year of our Lord 2015. "Same as always."

"You're..." she straightens up and checks her watch. 

"You've never done that before."

She turns her head toward me, wrist still hovering. "Sorry?"

"Checked the time. I can't remember you ever doing that. Usually you just ask how I'm doing."

"Ahhhh." Slowly, she nods. She never makes any abrupt movements. "I'll have to remember that next time. Please..." She motions to the chair beside her desk. 

God only knows how it happened, but I'm confined in this Wednesday, 13th of July. And not even the whole twenty-four hours of it: 5:00 a.m. when the alarm clock beeps me awake, to 7:42 at night. That's it. So as if to compensate, it loops over and over. For how long now? I've lost track. 

The doctor, at least, has months. How many? I ask her to refresh my memory.

She shifts in her chair. "I can pretend I have a normal life until December the twenty-fourth. Christmas Eve." (Yes, now I remember.) "Then I wake up to May nineteenth. I get to live the whole holiday season, shop and everything, and then never find out what I would have gotten for Christmas. Or what my husband would have thought of the desk set I always buy him."

I lean back in my chair. "You never change it up?"

"What's the point? I like that set. It jumps out at me every time. 39.99 at Rolf's, at the Warwick Mall. And 'Walking in a Winter Wonderland' is always playing on the sound system when my eyes first fall on it."

This is my favorite part of the day, when I feel like I'm finally off the treadmill. You don't know the meaning of "routine" until you've lived this way. Every minute, every hour, the identical people saying the same words, the same cars going by and even glimpsing the same five robins and one blue jay in the trees, the same two squirrels scrambling up trees and one running across the street, and then my job, hearing the two grandmothers in the next cubicle recite the same word-for-word stories of their families and visits from relatives, the weather, politics. My supervisor assigning me the same tax returns to key into the system--about a quarter of my state's population still sends them in on paper--individual forms, non-resident forms, corporations, rentals, fuel taxes. After lunch scanning and uploading prior-year returns, the same names, the same Social Security numbers. I've made a game of it: the return on top of the stack will be for Smith, the next for Lesperance, the third a non-resident return for Cooper. I scan a total of forty-two returns into the system, but won't get to upload them as long as I'm caught in this loop. I have most of the names memorized--I can guess their names before looking--cherishing the difference when I recall more today than yesterday, for that's something unique about this day. Pretty soon I'll have them all down. 

So why go through all this? Why even go to my job? 

I didn't, at first. After the initial shock I realized: Hey! The rules have all changed now, haven't they? I slept in, didn't call out, ran to the credit union and closed out my savings. I made a down payment on a new Porsche, something I would do lots more times. Cadillacs, Mercedes, Hondas, pickups, sedans, motorcycles. I drove them up to Boston, to Salem, to Plymouth and took them on the Block Island ferry. I treated myself and everyone to ice cream. I went up to the top of the Biltmore and scattered my savings to the plaza below. I smashed one of my cars' windows with a baseball bat, just to do something new, and felt awful afterwards. I went to bed early. The next morning I returned to the lot, saw the car with its windows intact, and was glad. I feasted on steak and lobster, ate at every swanky restaurant in town once, twice, then sought them out in other areas. 

What did it all add up to? Well, I just got...bored. Whatever I did to mix things up, grew dull after a while. The feeling of routine always caught up with me. So I returned to my job. You think repeating the same day is weird? Wait till you've played hooky from work for months, and nobody even asks where you've been. 

But there's something about the doctor and me, two of us loopers together. We chat, we compare notes, we talk about whatever. Our words and mannerisms, spontaneous and unpredictable, a refreshing splash of normalcy that buoys me up for the rest of the day.

Now we get up. Another white smock like hers hangs on a wall hook. I take it down, shrug into it and follow her out the door. 

"He's still first on the list, right?" I ask. She nods.

Now we're navigating the inner hospital, the labyrinth of cut-ice rooms with open doors and charts zeroing in on the respiratory system, or circulatory system or nervous system, eyes or hands, until we arrive at a consultation room. 

A man sits in a chair by an exam table. Square-jawed face, hair like solid pitch. I see nothing out of the ordinary except maybe he was an Army drill sergeant. 

"Mr. Bendleton." The doctor makes an elegant sweep of her arm in my direction. "This is intern Rothstein."

She does this charade to humor me. I want to meet the patients whenever I can. This one, however, is a special case; we've met with him every day now for a week.

"It's a donor from this very city, and a match! You're very fortunate, sir."

That wasn't the doctor speaking--I blurted it out. I cringe as two pairs of eyes lock onto me. This has never happened before.

The doctor gives me a nod. All right, then. Mr. Bendleton is waiting, easy in his chair, leg crossed over a knee, hands folded in his lap. Clearing my throat, I begin.

"It's a young man, not yet thirty...on his own here, an orphan, no relatives..."

"He was screened for hepatitis and HIV," the doctor adds.

"Yes! It's a healthy heart indeed. Just a sad story. You see, sir, this young man, well...he..."

"Yes?"

"He ended it all." 

"Oh." A somber look crosses his face. "Today, this happened?"

"Yes."

He waits; the doctor waits. I go on. "Cut his wrists. The da--" I was about to say damn fool, but caught myself--"he cut his wrists. Over--ah--a girl."

"Oh." Mr. Bendleton's features have softened now, his eyes serious. 

"It was a dum--an unfortunate thing. Too many infatuations, crushes and whatnot that never got returned, on several girls over his life not just this one, in school, at jobs, but she turned him down for a date and then he saw her going all nuts over another guy, you know, they were giggling and--" 

The doctor shoots me a warning look. I clear my throat again, and continue more slowly. "So, he lost his head, he reached the height of upset-ness just long enough to get the idea, he would show them, show the whole world, and before he could think about it he grabbed his steak knife out of a kitchen drawer and went into the bathroom and--" 

Something in me constricts. It must show on my face, because the patient sits up, hands on the chair's armrests, looking alarmed. I raise a hand. 

"And so that was it." I let out a breath.

Mr. Bendleton is sitting with legs apart now, hands clasped between his knees. "I take it he explained all this in a note."

"Yes." "Yes." The doctor and I both blurt it out this time, with accompanying nods.

"Mr.--Rothstein, is it? I have to ask...you sound like you knew this man."

Ouch. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut. I nod, and hope he'll leave it at that. 

"The other man you mentioned, who the girl preferred. By any chance, that wasn't...?"

"What? Oh! No, not me!" I shake my head. "Not me." 

He's thinking. I can see it, he's gazing at the ceiling, working his mouth. Then his eyes return to us. 

"Doctor...it's been explained to me, yes...but I really don't believe my disease is so drastic as to require this."

"Sir?" She wears her concerned look, the same one as when I poured out my story out to her in the beginning. 

"You may be aware I had a bunionectomy done ten years ago. It didn't go well." (He went into this a great deal the other day--the podiatrist realigned his foot and inserted two screws, one of them caused pain and he had to get the whole operation done over again.) "And that was only my foot. Doctor, we're talking about my heart now. I'm getting up there in years, I won't live that much longer regardless. To go through all this--it's not like having my tonsils removed."

My own heart sinks. Sheesh. It's his life, but still--

"Mister Bendleton." 

Getting up, he turns that granite face on me. Inside I'm cringing again, but my mouth's gotten going and it won't stop. "This is the only life you're ever gonna have, sir!"

The doctor's giving me that warning look, but I keep going. "Lots of people get new hearts and come out fine. One guy lived thirty-three years...I know you've had a bad experience, but don't let that spook you. You've got a golden opportunity here, and you're gonna pass it up? You're a coward if you don't do this, a coward--"

Finally I clam up. My pulse is racing and I'm catching my breath. He gawks at me wide-eyed.

The doctor tilts her head ever so slightly toward the door. I retreat, avoiding her gaze. I bite my lip, head down, burning with the same humiliation I got from Rayanne, she and her guy giggling, the two managing to get in a smooch before I fled. I wanted to say All right, I get it, you don't have to rub it in. But "rubbing it in" seems to be what happy couples do, intentionally or not. 

(And truth be told, I've thought of going back to Rayanne and her guy and telling them to go to hell. Or doing something even worse--I mean, they'll be fine again tomorrow, right? But I've always resisted the temptation.)

* * *

I head up the hall, turn right at the corner and up the stairs to the seventh floor--the terminal ward. Cancer patients occupy the beds, no hope for them, waiting to die, only continuously infused with morphine since addiction won't matter now. Usually I take the elevator; this time I climb the stairs, wanting to be alone. 

The doctor arranged the room earlier, room 81, bed 2. Two beds separated by a curtain. Mine is closest to the door, the other thankfully vacant, the curtain drawn up to the wall. The first thing I do is seek out the wall clock--5:45. I've got a two-hour wait. Still wearing the white smock, I fall face-down on the bed. 

The doctor breezes in after a while, carrying a clipboard. She pulls up a chair and sinks into it. By this time I'm on my back, staring at the ceiling, not really hearing the footsteps back and forth out in the corridor, the distant voices. 

"Sorry," I say.

She waves me off. "Don't beat yourself up over it. His mind was made up, no one was going to change it."

"Is he really that resigned to just dying?"

"It's his decision. Now another person will benefit."

There's a thought. I prop myself up on my elbows. "Who is it today?"

It's a good thing the doctor's loop isn't a daily one like mine. Every time I see her, it's been twenty-four hours for me, but seven months for her, time enough to do whatever she does--I won't ask--to change the waiting list. Every night, different components of mine fly out to different patients. No shortage of patients, unfortunately; some three to four thousand people are always waiting for a heart.

She looks at the clipboard, and her face blossoms into an amazing smile that only appears at this time. It's the one detail I don't mind seeing repeated every twenty-four hours. "Her name is Sarah. She's thirty-one years old, and needs a kidney. She's waited for two years, and now she'll finally have one."

"Who gets my heart?"

"Her name is Jessica."

"How about my liver?"

"Kimberly. And a man named Jason gets an eye."

"Maybe you should give him my glasses, then."

I settle back. At these times, it doesn't seem so bad. I'll have a bond with these people from now on, the hundreds who've received my heart, the many who carry my liver, and Sarah now joining the myriads with one of my kidneys--how many? I wish I'd kept track. My lungs help others to breathe. A few carry around some of my intestines. And innumerable people sport my eyes, women and men, so that one is blue, the other green or hazel or brown. 

"Strange how you came to me," the doctor says, and my ears prick up at this, for it's still another first-time-ever statement, a final break from the routine before I start it all over again tomorrow.

"You were my primary care physician." I lace my fingers together behind my head. "And, well, you always see your doctor if something's wrong." Long story short, she noticed I had signed up as an organ donor, she got the idea, she presented it to me. I shrugged--why not try it once? Twice? Every day? 

7:35 p.m. 

Imagine ending it all, the pain and the blood, the shock and anguish and fading to black--and then you wake up. Like, in your bed, not the bathtub, and not a mark on your wrists. All a dream? No, you can't deceive yourself, it happened. And then another bombshell hits: you find it's not the next day, but the 13th again. The papers, your co-workers and everything insist it's the 13th, and keep on insisting. You encounter the same people, hear the same words, your deja vu goes crazy. 

But my body remembered. It died on this day at 7:42 p.m. And if I wasn't going to make it happen, it would simply stop by itself. How? I wish I knew. When this all started, I got the doctor to watch me. That's when she first checked me into this room. She said I simply went to sleep and stopped breathing. She kept on watching to see what would happen. I lay there, cold and stiffening, for over two hours. But then a curious thing happened. The next time she glanced elsewhere or got distracted--a noise from outside, a gust of wind rattling the window, anything at all--she looked again to find the bed empty. 

"It's the same with me, every Christmas Eve," she says. "I always fall asleep at the same time, 9:05. My husband wants me to stay up with him, but my strength ebbs and I have to lie down. Usually full of holiday sugar cookies and punch."

"Christmas." I let that word sink in. "What I wouldn't give to hear carols again, Christmas trees and the decorations at the mall. Even the dumb commercials. I want to see snow again."

She reaches out and gives my hand a squeeze. A peace settles over me and I'm okay with it, this prison of time, everything. I'll remember this tomorrow when I flash awake in my apartment, ready as I'll ever be to live this day over again for the one hundred thousandth jillionth time. 

Now the smile blooms on my face as well. I don't have to see it; I feel its warmth settling over me. It spreads through my whole body, that smile. And maybe a few tingles of it will remain in my organs when they're installed into Sarah, Jessica, Kimberly and Jason, and those people will sense it and take it into the future with them. I like to think so at least.

7:40. 

Now comes the part we both save for last. The doctor never initiates it; she waits for me. 

"How are Kerri, Leakanna and Adriana?" I ask.

Yesterday Kerri got my liver, Leakanna my heart, and Adriana one of my kidneys. 

"I checked twice for each one." She always begins by saying this, and keeps her eyes on me as she says it. "Their names are gone from the list."

Gone from the list. 

This is the Twilight Zone world I live in. Take Amanda, the first person to receive my heart. When everything reset back, she should have done so too, right? Transplant undone. Except it wasn't. The doctor looked her up. She's healthy, thriving, and not having to wait for anything. 

A man named Eric, who also lives here in Providence, got my liver. Like Mr. Bendleton, I got to meet him first. The next day I tracked him down. Was he waiting for an organ transplant? 

"What are you talking about?" he asked. And he gave me the look I've gotten from too many people for any reason or no reason. I excused myself and hurried away. 

My lucky recipients, they stay lucky and live on with my gifts inside them after this day restarts. Their new hearts keep beating, new kidneys distilling, the organs back in me and yet somehow within them, too. And more people join this club every day, the parts multiplying like Christ's loaves and fishes. How? I guess I'll never know.

7:41. I never feel it coming. My heart quietly thumps, my breathing normal, no sign that it's about to stop. I doze off like every other night of my life. They'll have two hours to remove what they need, then dump the rest of my mortal remains in a pauper's grave or wherever. Doesn't matter. I won't stay there. 

My last thought: One day I'll be released from this loop. People are sent to prison for a reason, I'm trapped in this day for a reason. Maybe after so many people receive their new gifts, I'll wake to find it's July the 14th. And I'll go find the doctor and we'll celebrate. Hopefully by then she'll have been released, too. I'll savor the luxury of living a new and unique day each day, all things spontaneous and unpredictable, not just when the doctor and I meet in the evenings. And every day with its own name--imagine! Wednesday the 14th, Thursday the 15th. Then my first TGIF in ages. With mad impatience I'll count the days to Halloween, to Thanksgiving, to the twelve days of snowy Christmas.

One day, it will happen. 

7:42.

"See you tomorrow," I say. 

The doctor pats my hand. "See you in seven months and five days."

All fades to black.

* * *

Douglas Kolacki began writing while stationed with the Navy in Naples, Italy. Since then he has placed fiction in such publications as Weird Tales, Liquid Imagination Online, Aurora Wolf and The Colored Lens.

What advice do you have for other writers?

I'd like to pass on a quote from Howard Thurman: "Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." If that's writing, go for it, keep at it, and never let it go!

The Hollywood Career of Dorian Gray

The Hollywood Career of Dorian GrayBy Douglas Kolacki
I've never gone to a film premiere in my life. Not too many of those back in Norfolk, Virginia, where I fashion sheet metal for the Navy. My little sister is buried there also. With the ocean nearby, she might have drowned herself like Ophelia, but instead she went for poison--prussic acid, or white lead. That was the first clue.

I hold my ground at the front of the crowd, leaning on the red velvet ropes that mark the corridor for the stars. The fans on the other side look bored. They haven't been here as long as me, I can guarantee that. The ever-present men with cameras chat and joke among themselves.

Actually the crowd's not that big. My Cecil DeMille imagination envisioned a place overflowing with fans, like Times Square on New Year's Eve. Silly. And I've been waiting here since this morning. But I have to be up front, because I need a good look at him as he walks by. I've studied his picture in all the magazines, and the tabloids, even purchasing a magnifying glass. Every one confirms "frank blue eyes," "finely-curved scarlet lips," "crisp gold hair." Every one of the six close-ups reveals "a face you want to trust at once."

All of them show a man too young and too perfect to play zombies. He is unspotted from the world--too unspotted.

Well that settles it right there! you might say. Why don't his photographs wither and waste away, like his portrait?

Lord Henry possessed sixteen or seventeen such photographs, remember. No mention is made of them decaying, and motion picture film is a whole different animal besides. Who can say how these deals with the devil work? And get this: three film critics, a newspaper journalist and two horror-film websites declared Mr. "Granger Faulk" the most horrifying, realistic film zombie they'd ever seen.

He has a hand in his own makeup process, so the rumor goes.


* * *
This whole thing's given me an idea about justice. Or karma if you like. In cases like this that get unreal, justice exerts an extra effort. Shows you clues. Sets up coincidences that aren't so coincidental.

Like my sister's very name--Sybil Vane. Like my own name--James. Matching the Oscar Wilde novel letter for letter. No, she wasn't an actress like in the book, and I'm not a sailor, but what are the odds, I ask you? I even have the short, thick-set build.

And I've seen every zombie movie under the sun. Night Of the Living Dead of course, along with all its sequels. I always sit up close to the screen, legs stretched out, feet stuck in the crevice between the two seats in front of me, head resting on the seat cushion. I watch the screen like a stargazer, the awful scenes of blood and people being torn apart. And more than once I've asked myself why I like this so much, the attacks of groping, wailing zombies, even after seeing them a hundred times. Especially after what happened to Sybil. But I understand now: this was a clue.

A swell of excitement rises up from the crowd. The paparazzi (someone dubbed them "stalkerazzi," and after seeing them in action I agree) snap to attention with their cameras. The first black, glossy limousine is pulling up. It keeps pulling up, and keeps pulling up until you wonder if it's as long as Sunset Boulevard itself, but finally it stops, positioning its doors in the corridor between the legions of anxious fans.

The crowd jostles me. Some guy shoves an arm over my shoulder, holding a pen and paper for when the first star comes by. I stiffen and clutch the rope with both hands.

* * *
Sybil's neighbor, an older widow, swore to the police that she saw a blond, young, well-dressed fellow leaving Sybil's apartment the night before her suicide.

My sister told me about him, too. She gushed of him on the phone. She lived on the other side of town, and I did not see her as often as I should. As God is my witness she described him as a man in "all the bloom of boyhood," those very words, same as author Wilde's.

Somehow she never mentioned his name to me. I didn't really realize this until she had died. Described him, rather, as "my glorious boy" or something like that, boy more often than man. And once she said "lad."

Like a lad of twenty summers.

That night I got home to find my message machine blinking like a whole fleet of police cars, and one long anguished cry from Sybil. He had rejected her. Dumped her. Wanted nothing more to do with her. The reasons were unclear. I tried to call her back, but she wasn't home, nor did any machine pick up. I drove to her apartment, and she didn't answer the door.

No such boy came forward at the funeral.

* * *
The men with cameras bump and elbow each other for position while simultaneously unleashing a volley of flashbulbs the moment the limo door opens. I lean forward with the other fans.

Someone's emerging. Is it...?

No. It's the leading lady. Won an Oscar for Best Actress five years ago. Inevitably she looks smaller and plainer in real life, despite the efforts of makeup and hair stylists. I keep my eyes fixed on the limo door, but steal a glance at her as she walks by, smiling and waving. I wonder if she was all that enthused about this film.

A foot in a dress shoe emerges from the open door, plants itself on the purple carpet; and then, after a pause, he makes his entrance.

The crowd goes wild, of course, jostling me all over again. I grip the rope like a lifeline. At first I think Sheesh, you'd think he was Lawrence Olivier, but then I remember these are fellow zombie fans. He walks with an easy stride, lacking the tension of the leading lady; he's in his element. He should have been a politician.

Everyone's dressed like royalty, of course, but he looks like he was born in fine clothes. He carries the air of a prince. He was made for premieres. Perhaps that's what drew him out to Tinseltown--the next asthetic experience, like music or art or poisonous yellow books. This is probably just one more sampling of the elixir of life to him.

He strides on, waving, through an explosion of popping flashbulbs. And I see it all plain, the gilded threads of his rebellious curls, the white purity of old Greek marbles, the purity unstained even by Hollywood.

I drop my eyes as he continues into the theater. No more doubt, no doubt now at all.

As sure as my name is James Vane, his is Dorian Gray.

* * *
His first zombie movie--the only one before this--was called Devourers of the Living. When he appeared, it was like they had spliced in a shot of an actual corpse, someone who expired at ninety and then rotted for a week. At that moment, all the zombies I'd ever seen paled into insignificance, the tricks of makeup, prosthetics and computers all too woefully apparent. This went beyond Hollywood illusion. Up in the front as I was, it hit me like a train.

At first I thought it was the next stage of movie realism, like IMAX and high-def. Nothing like that had been advertised.

The actor went by Granger Faulk. I looked him up online.

Mr. Faulk's entire acting career consisted of two films: Devourers, and a western called Buffalo Soldiers. This was based on a best-selling novel. No television appearances, no commercials.

Nor did he really appear in Soldiers. The listing included a notation in parentheses: "replaced by"--and another actor's name, whom I forget.

Paramount made this film. I called them and tried to connect with the producer, director or casting person. No luck; they weren't available, or they had moved on, or the receptionist just didn't want to bother.

But this same studio also made Devourers...and production started before Soldiers was even released. With the same actor they'd booted from the western. As the lead.

When Mr. Faulk, A.K.A. Gray, got his first film role, he also got a nasty surprise. His likeness, lurking wherever he keeps his portrait, now showed over a century of age, a century of sins that included at least one murder. When Soldiers began shooting, and the dailies came back...

(Wouldn't they have filmed him when he tried out for the role? Maybe not. His agent probably called them or something.)

Everyone knows movie execs are practical. Zombies are the thing! Just dress him up in tattered clothes and film him as is, no makeup needed, no nothing. Develop the film, and let magic do the rest. Tell everyone it's motion-capture.

One of these days, some flick of his might win Best Special Effects, and no one will ever guess. Ha, ha.

Except someone did guess.

* * *
The theater doors open, and we file in. Huge blown-up posters and decorations everywhere, like Las Vegas, but I hurry past them. Normally I buy the largest size popcorn with no butter, munching till I'm sick to the stomach, but not tonight. Down in front. I need to be in front.

Fortunately those are always the last seats taken. And the crowd, as I said, isn't all that big. I get the first two rows to myself, sitting right up center, the prime spot if this was a rock concert. No rail, even. Good.

I don't have to search the crowd for him. His seat is the same as mine, front row center, except it's up in the balcony. The gilded threads of his hair actually seem to glitter in the light. A white-haired man is pumping his hand, and three starlets fawn around him. His perfection stands out all the more. Beside him, anyone would look shabby.

I watch him and think, he must know the book himself. It's his damned book. He knows how it ends. It showed him what would happen if he ever got sick of his white-elephant portrait, too sickened by its ever-increasing desiccation and rot. Do not damage it!

And especially, do not cut it with a knife.

My thin, rigid contraband presses my lower right leg, secured by two strips of duct tape. I'm glad the theater doesn't have a metal detector.

Yes, he must have his portrait locked somewhere safe, out of harm's way where nothing sharp ever comes. And no worries about all his celluloid reflections playing in a thousand theaters--who would ever guess? But justice finds a way, Mr. "Faulk." Justice always finds a way.

The lights go down; the film starts. Almost immediately he graces the screen, and he even holds still for me, facing down two policemen and a farmer who's shaking a pitchfork.

I pull up my pants leg and rip the knife loose. The strips of tape make a loud tearing sound, and it hurts enough to wince. I reach the screen in two bounds. I go to work with the blade, plunging it into the taut fabric, pulling it out and stabbing again. This time I rip downward as well, the material giving way with difficulty. By now I'm blinded with tears and don't know if he's still there or left the screen, but I can't stop, I slash and tear and vent everything, Sybil! Sybil! I shout and weep it. Cries erupt behind me...and a shrill, terrified scream from the back, that goes from clear to gargly before it fades among the other cries.

Men in gray uniforms arrive. I drop the knife and raise my hands. The house lights go up; the movie plays on for a few seconds as they cuff me, The two-story images moving about on the torn screen, dialogue echoing from the wall speakers. I think to look up at it--is he there now? Has his image changed?--but by then the projector has stopped.

The theater rent-a-cops take an arm each. Everyone gapes as they lead me up the aisle. I don't notice crowd or guards; I'm searching the balcony. The star is nowhere in sight. But the three women are, and along with everyone else they're gathered around, looking down at something. A woman holds a white-gloved hand over her mouth; men are turning green. Everyone's eyes are wide, and they're pointed not at me, but down.

Down at Granger Faulk...and how I wish at this moment that I could see him.

* * *

Douglas Kolacki began writing while stationed with the Navy in Naples, Italy. Since then he has placed stories in Weird Tales, Dreams & Visions, SciFan and the Lorelei Signal. He now haunts Providence, Rhode Island.

What inspires you to write and keep writing?

The sheer love of it. Writing keeps me healthy and sane in a crazy world.

The Root

The Root

by Douglas Kolacki

Steven Evans found the veteran's home late in the morning. It was a pair of gray paneled buildings in one of Providence's satellite areas, neighborhoods that deteriorated the farther they got from historical, steepled downtown; empty beer cans, patched sidewalks, graffiti scrawled on walls. But a river gurgled through this area, banks lined with green trees, and that was nice.

One of the buildings stood four stories high. The other was half as high, with men sitting around its front porch. Steven swung into its small fenced-in parking lot with a screech of brakes, got out, slammed the door and swept past the bearded and ballcap-wearing residents.

"Where's Rick Evans?"

He stood between a desk and an open office door. Before him rose wooden stairs, and someone--some thing--came staggering down. He smelled it and drew back.

Rick?

--No, hardly even like a man at all, shriveled down and drained of all color. The man grimaced under a mess of white hair, struggling beneath the weight of a green duffel, and blew past Steven, wheezing for breath.

"Poor devil," said a familiar voice at Steven's shoulder.

He turned to get an eyeful of his younger brother by two years. "Rick."

"Hello, Steven."

Steven stepped back for an inspection. It had been a while, but now his brother's presence was bringing the old modes back, starting with this appraisal. He scanned Rick from his shoes to the top of his head while his brother waited.

Rick wore a black tee shirt with a white skull and crossed Flying V guitars underneath. His brown hair--he was touching fifty, and must have dyed away the gray--was still buzzed to Navy regulations; his face showed a hint of stubble on his chin and above the upper lip. His eyes had never appeared so blue and clear.

"Well." Steven's arms folded themselves. "You look...fit."

"The V.A. medical center has a gym on its first floor. And I walk downtown and back most days. Takes thirty minutes."

The carrion smell from a minute ago still tickled Steven's nostrils. "Who was...? Never mind." He held out a plane ticket. "Here."

His younger brother's eyes dropped to it, then met Steven's again. "Cash it in."

Steven withdrew the ticket. Something was wrong here. Cash it in. He waited for the rest, but it did not come. No hemming and hawing, no "well--ah--look, Steven, I just kind of--well--I just wanna stay here, that's all!" but "cash it in." And that was it.

"Rick--" Steven stepped aside to allow a black man in a leather Marine Corps jacket to pass--"you told me yourself, residents only get two years here. Your time is up in a month. Where will you go after this? You told me you've had one temp job in all this time. Got much savings? What'll happen when it runs out?"

A nervous grin teased the corner of Rick's mouth. Ah--there it was. Steven relaxed a bit. Now would come the blank stare, the stammering. "Well?"

"My savings did run out, when I was staying at the motel. I spent one night in a clean, comfortable, well-run shelter, and they brought me here the next day."

"So what will you do now?"

Rick paused. He shifted on his feet, looked away for a few seconds. "While you're here...you should see the sights."

"Don't change the subject."

"I'm not. There's something I should show you. We'll have a nice walk around College Hill, and you can keep pitching your plan."

Steven thought about it. The flight didn't leave until that evening, so...

"All right. I'll take you to lunch. And--" Steven scrambled out of another resident's path. "Rick?"

His brother was already heading for the door, merging effortlessly with the flow of men.

Steven hissed a curse and jumped after him, knocking heads with a man and quickly apologizing. Two others behind him fairly pushed him out onto the porch, where he found Rick leaning on the railing.

"And no arguments." Steven puffed for breath.

"Sounds good." Rick beamed. Not smiled, beamed. "Let's go."

* * *

They climbed into Steven's rented black Jeep Cherokee. Rick guided his brother downtown (right on Valley, then straight down Broadway) where they stopped at a corner shop selling clam cakes and chowder.

Rick said something.

"Eh?" Steven shook his head. "Excuse me?"

"Want to see the John Brown house? Circa 1786. George Washington visited once."

Circa? Steven bristled, a knee-jerk reaction of years. He'd forgotten about it; he used to always react that way when Rick said one of his words. "Circa." Really?

Same old Rick, then. He had changed, yes, as people would after two years, but there was something about this that Steven could not wrap his mind around--and then Rick brought himself back down to earth with one of his words, things no one else ever said but that he for some reason couldn't do without.

"Is that like a museum?"

"It's a state historical spot. There's a parking lot up the street where you can leave the Cherokee."

They went. Steven found a spot, parked, and walked to the booth with cash in hand. An attendant sat there with his head down, a Kansas City Royals ballcap covering his face.

"Say--"

Steven jolted. The man turned up his face and showed him Tutankhamen a year after his death, or if the Pharaoh had simply gone on aging from then till now, withering away, hair thinning down to white wisps, eyes filming over and face bones creasing yellow, waxy skin, lacking the cover of bandages.

Was he--dead--?

But the thing opened its mouth and blew a stench in Steven's face, something he'd smelled in his boyhood when he discovered a dead groundhog by his grandparent's house. The carcass had been crawling with maggots by that time. Steven drew back, cursing.

Rick grabbed Steven's billfold off the pavement--Steven must have dropped it--and held out a five-dollar bill of his own. The attendant raised a trembling hand and took it.

"Sorry." Rick all but physically hustled his brother across the lot, to the street. "I didn't know there'd be another one there."

Another one. Like that guy at the Vet's home... Steven snorted the smell out of his nose. He wanted to take a shower. "How did he get that job?"

"Oh, crap..." Rick looked back across the lot to the booth. "He probably doesn't work there at all. He's just hoping to pick up money from customers. The real booth guy is going to come back from lunch and run him off."

Steven had recovered by this time. "Go get your money back."

"No, no, it's all right."

"It's not all right. Get your money back from him, Rick. He robbed you."

"Steven."

"I'll come too if you want."

"Seriously, it's all right. Come on..." Rick headed up the street. Steven looked after him, debating whether to press the point or not. Finally he took off after his brother.

"Truth be told," said Rick, "I feel sorry for those."

"Rick, will you slow down? There, thanks." Steven fell into step beside him. "All right then. You're out five bucks, that's up to you. Is there some kind of epidemic going around?"

"No. Not really."

"What was wrong with that guy? And the guy at the home?"

Rick picked a red apple up off the grass, examined it, wiped it on his tee shirt. "Shane, you mean? Let me tell you about him. Last month I said that if the managers needed anything typed up, I'd be glad to do it for them." The Navy taught Rick how to type, back in the days of clattering teletypes, and now he was up to eighty words a minute. "Well the next thing you know he comes knocking on my door, informing me that I'm part of his committee, and that I have to drop whatever I'm doing and go meet with them.

"I'd never heard a word about any committee, and told him so. Personally I think that was a pretense. He was the type who's always butting in, trying to tell you how to do everything. He would talk on and on, giving you advice you never asked for. He did that with everyone."

"He sure left in a hurry."

"Guy's probably halfway back to North Dakota by now. Another one lived in my apartment--we're up on the fourth floor, the penthouse suite, we call it--an OCD type who tried to appoint himself our cleaning dictator. Typed up a hundred-page schedule with detailed orders about everything we were supposed to break our backs scrubbing and polishing, and even a checkoff sheet he expected us to use, without mentioning any of this to us first. We ignored it. By the time he fled the state to move back in with his parents, he looked (and smelled) only a little better than that man back at the parking lot. Guys like that," Rick cleaned his glasses on his shirt, "never seem to last long."

"Is that so."

They headed over a bridge, crossing a river graced with white swans, and uphill past the First Baptist Church in America ("founded by Roger Williams himself, in 1638," Rick said). A hike down Benefit Street brought them to the John Brown house.

* * *

"This," Steven said, "is what you wanted to show me?"

Rick had led Steven around to the side, allowed his brother to pay admission for both, and ushered him into a small room with a long, narrow display case like an open coffin covered over with glass.

"It's the famous root."

It was five to six feet long. Twisting, gnarled, it split into two branches on the way down, curling up at the ends in a way that curiously resembled feet. Steven appraised it up and down as he had done his brother. "Well."

"It's from an apple tree, centuries old. This grew over Roger Williams' grave. You know who he was, right?"

"He founded this city."

"He was part of the Massachusetts Bay colony until he ran afoul of the Puritans. Went against their grain. Among other things, he believed land should be purchased, not just taken, from the natives. The Puritans were going to ship him back to England to stand trial, so he fled into the wilderness like Moses. Williams started a new colony, an independent colony, and named it Providence.'"

"All right."

"After two hundred years, they decided to move his remains to a proper memorial. But when they dug down, they only found greasy dirt and this root. It was as if the tree absorbed him up into itself, and in turn diffused him into the air--trees generate oxygen, you know--as well as sprouting fruit and scattering seeds. And those grew up into more apple trees over the years, and still more as the years became decades and the decades centuries, spreading out over this state."

"Spreading what out, Rick?"

"His spirit."

Silence.

"Not his ghost or anything! But you can see it in history. People breathed it in, drank it in the water. Did you know this was the first colony to dump King George? Rhode Island declared her independence two months before John Hancock signed that document. And when it was time for the Constitutional Convention, this was the only state that refused to participate. Also the last to ratify the Constitution, and only after a Bill of Rights was added."

"Really."

"And did you see the State House, out past the mall? That statue on top, holding the staff? That's called Independent Man.

"So have you gotten the idea yet, Steven? Different kinds of people react...differently."

Something about Rick unsettled Steven again. When he saw it he realized he'd been hoping not to see it, not even knowing what "it" was. He watched his brother take a last bite of the apple, go to the window and throw the core out instead of dropping it in the room's wastebasket. And then Steven realized. No tension--that was it. Rick was entirely too relaxed. This man was nothing if not high-strung, and it had always been that way.

"Rick, come back with me. Rae spent all last week getting your room ready. It's the same room you used to stay in every Christmas. You won't have to pay any rent until you find a job."

"If you were spending more time here, I'd have worried. But you should be okay heading out tonight."

"Stop dodging the subject."

"How do you feel right now?"

"I feel fine."

But Steven shivered. He shivered, and it was July. And the longer the day went on, the more drained he felt, as if he'd run a marathon. His feet seemed to weigh more with each step.

"I see three white hairs on your head, Steven." The older brother's hair had grayed early due to smoking, before he quit the habit. But never any white. "They weren't there this morning."

"Rick. You and I both know you'll never get anything right on your own. You're gonna end up on the street. You're absent-minded, spacey! You're the deer in the headlights! You couldn't walk across the street without getting hit, unless I was leading you by the hand!"

Steven choked. He went numb as he heard these words from his own mouth.

Somewhere Rick had gotten another apple, and he bit into it now. He chewed, swallowed. "Spacey, yes. Can't help that. But I'm not an idiot. You never gave me a chance." He spoke with great patience. "The whole time we were growing up, you were hulking over me, breathing down my neck. Whenever I tried to do something, you snatched it out of my hands. I couldn't grow, because you wouldn't allow it. That's one reason I think my choosing this place wasn't a coincidence."

Steven tried to grab the apple, but his arm shocked him with its sluggishness. Rick raised it clear, brought it down for another bite.

Steven gathered his strength, made sure he had his words under control before speaking again. "I never realized..."

"Does it matter now?"

The two stood in silence. Rick took another bite, chewed, swallowed.

"I can walk from here," he said. "It's beautiful out today. You can get back out to the airport--T.F. Green's out in the boonies, so to speak, not so close to the...center of it all. Once you're up in the air, you'll be okay again."

One last try. "I'm not going anywhere, not without you--"

Steven found himself outside. He wasn't sure how that happened, but at some point he'd slipped out the door. And now he was hurrying away, holding his breath, avoiding the grass, keeping to the pavement. Old Shane magnified in his mind, the white hair, the parched skin and the carrion reek, and the near-corpse back at the parking lot.

Steven found the jeep and fumbled for the ignition and roared off, not caring if he got a speeding ticket, just get to the airport, now, now...

* * *

One week later.

Steven, white hairs gone and strength renewed, received an email from Rick. Rick had accepted a job offer from the State of Rhode Island, typing for their tax division. He expected to attain soon the golden dream of all the home's residents, moving out of the crowded building and into a place of his own. No more food stamps, no more government programs.

"And I'm feeling stronger every day," Rick added.

* * *

Douglas Kolacki began writing while stationed with the Navy in Naples, Italy. Since then he has placed stories in publications including Weird Tales and Dreams & Visions. He now haunts Providence, Rhode Island.

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