I, Super-Wade, concoct a computer program proving not only that Prometheus is dangerous but showing how to fix it. With loyal hunchback assistant Ant by my side, I present it to Powerful Particle Dude. He’s like, “Thanks, Super-Wade and Hunchback-Ant for saving our undeserving world! You shall be bestowed with fame, fortune, and fresh strawberries!”
Sometimes the comic-book colors of my dream bleed into reality. For instance, right now there’s a hellish pit to my left and Death itself to my right. I balance on crumbling brick. I stand on one bare foot. I hop, I turn. Flecks of red rock tumble as I sip from Po-provided Styrofoam. I do not spill a drop. It’s like tai chi, only unstructured and undisciplined, which means it’s not like tai chi at all. It’s my chi.
“Will you get down from there?” Denby says, annoyed. She’s being a bummer again, thinking. Worse, thinking about me.
“No,” I say back.
She clenches her teeth and slams her school books against her hip.
We’re in the Alley-Oops, on the opposite side of The Rat from where I met Alek. It’s too small to be a real alley. It looks more like a mistake. So, Alley-Oops. Usually no one comes here except me, but today Denby rushed over during the school lunch break just to bring me down.
“You could fall!”
“No, I can’t.”
I’m in my favorite duds—a worn bathrobe and boxers. Denby’s in tight jeans and a light blue shirt that are hard to keep my eyes off. Fortunately, the robe’s grand, a multicolored thing she got me at the Salvation Army. The loose threads are like little decaying rainbows. I love the way it flops around as I move. Makes it easier to ignore her.
“Are you trying to kill yourself because I’m pissed you stole money from Anthony?”
“Nope. Do it every day. It’s my morning thing. Though, technically, since I’ve slept in, it’s an afternoon thing. And I didn’t steal it, I won it!”
She’s right about one thing, I could kill myself. To my left there’s a ten-foot drop onto concrete. If I fell that way, I could crack my skull or break my leg. The other side’s the real charm, though. There, the hillcrest that The Rat sits on ends in a sheer drop.
After ten feet of brick wall, there’s another fifteen of fieldstone and sloppy cement. It looks like a mountainside and ends in a huge pile of rusty car parts, microwaves, baby carriages, broken glass, and black plastic bags full of God-knows-what. It’s the edge of a huge junkyard.
“You should have seen him this morning. He was so crushed he looked sick! He’s practically being thrown out of school because he’s failing everything already, and that stupid game was the only thing he lived for. You took it from him! And all he ever did was idolize you!”
“His problems are not my responsibility.”
Things live down there, among the garbage. Sundry vermin slither and crawl in the many in-between places. Some believe the junkyard is where the Basement Rat was born and that the rest of the rodents are kept in check only by Death, the junkyard dog. He’s kind of like Klot, the way people talk about him. Not the wannabe artist stuff, just the psycho-killer part.
I named him Death myself, called him that in a song I did about the birth of The Rat. He’s a thick-muscled mongrel with a big floppy face, always lying in front of the huge tire pile that forms the hollow cave where he lives.
I point him out to Denby. “They say that dog killed a man, tore out his throat. That’s why Death is now forever held by that chain driven deep into the earth by a single spike. It’s the very same chain the Greek gods used to pin Prometheus, the jerk who gave fire to man. So, Ant could have it worse. He could be the dead guy, or the dog, or the chain.”
Denby does not groove on my story. “Fix this, Wade. Play him again and lose!”
Sounds like fun, actually, but (i) I only try to fix things in my dreams and (ii)…
“Can’t. Already used the money to pay back Alek.”
“Look… can you… I don’t know… can you stop hopping around like a jerk for just one second?”
So I stop. I stand straight. I look at her in all seriousness. Then I go back to my dance. “Done, now.”
She shakes her head, looks at her watch, and walks away.
“Hey, if you like Ant so much why don’t you marry him?” I call after her.
“He’d be more reliable!” she shouts back, picking up her pace.
These Denby encounters have been happening more often lately. It takes me a good five minutes to dance her bad vibes out of my head. Even when I do, things don’t stay calm.
Out of nowhere, Death tenses and snaps his head to the side. I look where he looks—along the uneven wall below, across fields of sleeping consumer bones. Nothing. It’s so still, when a dollop of Death-drool hits the ground, I hear the plp. What’s he on about? Must be something. Denby back?
I raise my gaze to the Alley-Oops and I listen. From the narrow strip of visible street, I catch a slight rush. It could just be the early-afternoon air stirred by a passing car, but it gets louder, regular. Footsteps. Someone’s running into Alley-Oops, kicking things out of the way as he goes.
He’s not alone. Two men chase him. Not kids—men, with rough facial hair and a Slavic pallor that matches their long gray coats. If I’m in Technicolor with my rainbow robe, they’re black and white. They’re big, too, the size of doors. Door-men. Looks like Ant was worried about more than losing to me when Denby saw him this morning.
Ant’s strides are long and steady. The Door-men? Not so much. The lengthy coats hamper their legs. Even so, by virtue of brute strength, they gain on him.
“Anthony!” a voice calls. It’s Alek, up near the street, all out of breath. This is his show? What’s he doing with Door-men? Daddy buy him some for his birthday? Oh, this is starting to make sense. I hate it when reality does that. Means it’s up to something.
Seeing me, Ant cries, “Wade! Help!” Like I’m super-powered or something.
“Don’t you ‘Wade’ me!” I say, wagging a finger at him from my perch on the wall. “You borrowed money from Alek, didn’t you? What’d you do that for?”
Stopping in front of me, he manages a quick antennae-shaking shrug of remorse. “I was trying to be like you!”
“So this is my fault?”
He reaches out and grabs my ankle. Some of the coffee leaps over the Styrofoam, splashing my knuckles with heat and sticky cream. The pain sends me lurching and I…
… fall.
I go over, bathrobe flapping like the wings of a flightless bird. Not toward Ant and the concrete, either. Toward Death.
Falling’s something you really want to be there for. The slightest thing can be used to great advantage, a flash of an outcropping, a soft spot you can try to land on… or… not.
Whunk! The back of my head whacks the ground. So do my back, arms, and legs. What’s left of the cup-guts spill, pouring steamy liquid onto me. Vapor rises as my exposed chest produces a lobster-red map of the coffee puddle. Ow.
There’s a heated argument going on above me, but I can’t make out the words. My head’s ringing so loud I wish I could put it on vibrate. I figure they caught Ant, though. As for me, only my butt seems to have survived intact. I almost wish it hadn’t. It landed on a overstuffed trash bag, bursting it. Whatever was inside, wet, cold, and rank, has already soaked through my robe, into my boxers, and up against my butt skin.
Then, throat-ripper Death starts calling, and his barks, I understand.
My neck muscles screech “No, don’t turn me!” as I angle for an eyeful of the mongrel. He’s gone dog-loco, spittle flying as he runs toward me, looking at me like I’m manna from dog-heaven. He’s probably been waiting for years for me to fall.
I always try to laugh at my own pain, because I feel it gives me permission to laugh at the pain of others, but this, this is a toughie.
Thankfully, Death reaches the end of that chain pretty quick. His feet keep going as his head is pulled back. You’d think he’d quit but, no, he keeps pulling. The stupid dog keeps tugging and tugging, like he’s going to drag the whole Earth forward to get to me. I’m about to turn away and check out the rest of my wounds, when I see the spike shimmy, ready to slide on out.
Duh. It’s just in dirt, right? Another tug and it comes free.
This would be a really great time for me to stand and run, but my body disagrees. While I struggle, wide-eyed with pain, Death chugs, drool trailing in the air behind him in long sticky strings. His jowls dangle, flapping so high they slap his dull eyes. Three feet from me he just can’t wait anymore, so he leaps, chain and all.
I see big teeth, smell dog breath. I bring my arm up, to offer it to his fangs instead of my face, but I’m not fast enough for Death. He’s on me. I brace for the feel of canines shredding my nose or twisting out chunks of cheek. I stiffen, I shiver, I wait.
There’s no biting. No blood. Instead, something that feels like wet sandpaper rubs all over my face, real sloppy, and I hear the unmistakable high-pitched whimper of doggy concern. Death is licking my face. Aw. He was worried about me.
Trickster’s got my back.
I put my hand on Death’s head and pet him. “Good Death, yes, you are. Good Death! How come everyone’s afraid of such a big silly puppy?”
Speaking of silly puppies, above the fieldstone, I hear the sound of one Ant whining. Death looks at me like I should do something.
“Hey,” I tell the dog, “I’ve got nothing against the guy, but he’s like this… this puppy always following me around. If I feed him, he’ll keep coming back!”
Death stares at me. He’s worse than Denby.
“Oh, fine! I’ll check it out.”
Moving has been easier. Getting my manhood accidentally stuck in my zipper as a kid was easier. My right arm works, so I use it to prop myself up. The rest of me seems more bruised than broken. I stand, balancing on wobbly trash bags as the cold and slimy thing on my butt drips down the backs of my legs.
I don’t want to look at what I landed in, but Death does. He stares at it like it’s the solution to a mystery he’s been trying to solve all his life. I follow his gaze to a rank and rotting pile of spaghetti. It’s bursting through the shredded black plastic of an old garbage bag like fake intestines in a bad horror movie.
Still, it’s not as gross as it could be, not until Death saunters forward, shoves his snout in the bag, and starts eating. Now it’s totally gross. And the smell. I feel like I’m going to toss my cookies. I reach over and unhook his Prometheus-chain.
“Go on,” I tell him. “Get out of here! Go catch a particle accelerator!”
He picks up his head, moldy spaghetti strands dangling from his lips. It takes a second before he seems to finally realize how easy lifting his head was without the chain. Then he barks and runs off toward the patch of flat land in front of his tire cave, kicking up clouds of dirt. And what does he do next? Make a beeline for the exit and freedom? No. Death runs in circles so precise, so regular, he may as well still be chained. That’s commitment for you. Hey, I should tell Denby that one.
“I lost the money in a bet, okay? I need more time!” I hear Ant say, an octave higher than usual.
“No. More. Time. Got. Job. For. You.”
I scramble down the bag pile and hobble to the gate. I’m not exactly running, more like tripping forward. The steep sidewalk back up to The Rat is tougher, but I make it in time to see things aren’t as bad as I thought. They’re worse.
The Door-men are trying to shove a struggling Ant into the spacious storage area of Alek’s SUV. As he fights for his life, Ant sees me, glowing in my rainbow bathrobe and dripping spaghetti gunk. His face lights up with hope. This, of course, distracts him, so they get the better of him. One second later, a single antenna dangles outside the door. A Door-man folds it in. The door slams and the SUV rattles on its suspension from whatever it is Door-people do to captives.
“Keep. Out. Of. It.”
Alek’s at the head of Alley-Oops, fishing for his keys.
“Hey, Alek, take the money I gave you last night for Ant’s debt. I’ll get you more today. You know I’m good for it, right?”
“No,” he says. “I. Need. Him.”
What? Did he say no? “Need him? For what? Something I can do?”
“No. Not. You. Him.”
“I’m insulted. Is it the bathrobe? I can change into my tattered jeans, y’know.”
He hops into the driver’s seat. I walk up and rap on the window. “Can I at least bum a cigarette?”
He puts the car in gear and pulls out, tires squealing. Spaghetti drips from my butt as I watch the SUV vanish on the long, straight, trafficless road.
Damn. Never could do the same trick twice.