THE TUBES

—JEREMY C. SHIPP—

We all have moments like this, don’t we. When you’re at a condo-warming party, sipping a soft Saint-Émilion red, while the host waxes poetic about the future of financial regulation in the European Union. And suddenly, out of the corner of your eye, you see your Uncle Hugo speeding headfirst through the glass reaper tube. He’s almost indistinguishable from every other body you see carried in the endless green current. But for a moment at least, you’re sure that this shriveled, naked corpse belongs to a man you thought you loved.

My thoughts shatter when Martin places a hand on my shoulder.

“What do you think, Tony?” he says.

“I think you’re right,” I say.

The host grins and turns away from me, off to find his next victim. He’ll talk anyone’s ear off and then stomp it into the ground.

I head in the opposite direction of Martin and I find Glen on the other side of the room. 

“You shouldn’t let him trap you like that,” Glen says, and hands me an empty wine glass. 

“I was being polite,” I say.

“Next time, tell him you need to call the hospital and walk away. It’s as easy as that.”

I place our wine glasses on the table beside us. “Are you ready to go?”

“I was ready half an hour ago.”

While Glen visits the restroom before we leave, I wait in the foyer. A couple of children sit on the marble medallion, looking at a vertical reaper that travels through floor and ceiling. The current and the bodies flow upward.

“Weiner or boobs,” the boy says. “Come on. Weiner or boobs.”

“Weiner,” the girl says.

The children stare at the tube in silence, and I stare with them. I imagine my uncle alive in the tube, holding his breath, scratching at the glass with grey fingers. Of course, no living person is ever dumped into the tubes, so I don’t know why I would imagine such a thing. 

I reach into my pocket and find the pill that I always keep on my person. I roll the pill between my thumb and my index finger.

After a long while, a body speeds by through the tube.

“Ha, it was boobs,” the boy says, pointing at the girl’s face. “You lose.”

“Nuh-uh.” She pushes the boy’s hand away. “I saw a wiener!”

“It was boobs!”

The girl stands up and heads toward the living room. When she notices me, she stops. She gives me a pleading look.

“It was boobs,” I say.

“Told you,” the boy says.

I feel sorry for the little girl, but what can I do. 

Rules are rules.

*    *    *

Glen and I relax in the sunroom, sitting together on a hand-carved chaise longue. I lean back against Glen and he reaches his arms around me. With an index finger, he draws spirals on my open palm. Our Bichon Frisé, Marshmallow, snores on his walnut doggy bed nearby.

“I want to learn to paint,” Glen says. “Still life or old barns.”

“Really?” I say.

And this might be the last word I’ll ever speak to Glen, because in the next moment, there are men in white surrounding us with their weapons drawn. The fortress insignias on their chests glimmer in the sunlight.

I fully expect them to speak my name.

“Glen Caverly,” one of them says. “You have relinquished yourself of all privileges, rights and protections under the law. Your vessel is now the property of the state.”

“This is bullshit!” Glen says.

The men in white pull me off of the chaise onto the floor. They handcuff Glen.

“Stop,” I say.

They drag Glen toward the door. He gives me a pleading look.

I can feel my blood steaming, boiling, erupting. I want to kick and punch and bite and scream. But all I can manage is to stand up, and by the time I’m upright, the men are gone. 

Glen is gone.

I stand there and watch as Marshmallow skitters out the now wide-open sunroom door. The dog could die out there all alone.

“Wait,” I say, but I can’t hear my own voice.

*    *    *

Minutes later, I call my mother, because I don’t know who else to turn to.

“They took him,” I say. “They took Glen.”

“Who?” she says.

“They took him to the fortress.”

“Oh my god, Tony. I’m so sorry. Glen always seemed like such a nice man.”

“He is.”

My mother sighs a burst of static. I already know what she’s going to say, so I hang up.

For a while, I walk outside, calling for Marshmallow. He doesn’t return.

Then, in the living room, I sit on a splat back side chair, looking at the vertical reaper tube that almost touches the floor. I reach into my pocket. As the bodies speed by, I roll the pill between my thumb and my index finger.

I know what I should be feeling. I should feel betrayed by Glen. Behind my back, he engaged in subversive acts and defied the state. I’ll never know exactly what he did. 

And as I gaze into the reaper tube, I should feel happy that I’m a living, breathing citizen who exists outside the glass. I may have traitorous blood. I may have lost an uncle and a cousin to the fortress, but at least I’m not a shrived-up thing drifting aimlessly through the city.

This is what I’m supposed to feel, but all I want is to hold Glen again. I can picture him in the fortress. He’s crying. He’s rubbing his face, the way he always does when he’s anxious or afraid. He’s cut and burned and bruised.

They’ll mutilate him until he sheds his humanity and reveals the treasonous demon within.

But I know Glen. I know him better than any torturer ever could.

*    *    *

We all have moments like this, don’t we. When you’re driving your Aston Martin on the 215, snacking on organic almonds while the radio host waxes philosophical about the need for welfare conditionality. And suddenly, out of nowhere, you make a sharp turn toward the median and smash headfirst into a reaper tube. Glass shatters. Tires screech. A maw of jagged glass spews out a river of formaldehyde. And the naked, gray corpses spill onto the freeway, tumbling through the stalled traffic. 

All the while, I’m sitting with my hand in my pocket.

The bodies swim over my windshield, and sometimes in their faces I see Uncle Herman or my cousin Eva or Glen. Sometimes I see myself.

I hear sirens. They shriek louder with every passing second.

The problem isn’t that I smashed my car into a reaper. The problem is that I did this on purpose. And they’ll know.

I reach into my pocket. I roll the pill between my fingers. I tried to fight it, but I always knew I’d end up a traitor. It’s in my blood. It’s in my heart.

I pop the pill and think of Glen and that silly smirk of his.

If I’m lucky, they won’t reach me in time to bring me back.