Kings of Infinite Space

THIRTY-EIGHT

THE PASSAGE WAS LOW AND NARROW AND S-SHAPED, and Paul could not see what was ahead, only the glow of electric lights. Having decided that all this — the caverns, the pale men, the torment of Bob Wier — were features of a dream, still Paul was surprised and a little alarmed to follow Bob Wier around the final curve of the passage into an aisle running between the gray upholstered walls of cubicles on either side, under bright, fluorescent fixtures. At first he assumed that, following the peculiar logic of a dream, he was now wandering the aisles of the General Services Division of TxDoGS. But the lights were much brighter, and as he squinted against the glare he noted that the fabric of the cubes was mottled and streaked with damp; that the thin carpet under foot was lumpy and uneven, a thin padding over hard rock; and that the faces of the men rising from their desks all around him were not the faces of his coworkers in the world above but those of pale, homeless men, their glasses glaring in the light, their milky skin gleaming through their buzz cuts. The cube walls came up to Paul’s cheekbones, as they did at TxDoGS, and he saw the bulbous heads rising from the centers of cubes all around him, some taller than others, some broader in the forehead, but all with the same blank gaze. Because of the glare of the lights, Paul could not tell how far the cubes receded into the distance. Straight ahead, past the cringing shoulders of Bob Wier, he saw that the aisle ended in a T, and that at the intersection of the two aisles an iron pole crusted with reddish rust rose straight up into the air. Next to the pole waited Boy G, his arms hanging straight at his sides, his glasses pushed all the way up his nose, his pens lined up, his name tag neatly centered over his breast pocket.

The faces peering over the cube horizon on either side all turned to follow Paul’s progress up the aisle, and he glanced back to see the men who had followed him down the amphitheater crowding up the aisle behind him. The murmuring grew louder as the men in the cubes joined in.

“What is the law?” they muttered. “What is the law?”

As he got closer to the intersection, Paul noticed that the iron pole was a sort of ladder, with L-shaped iron rungs protruding at right angles, at alternate heights on either side; unlike the rusty central pole, the rungs were worn smooth to a dull gray sheen. Paul glanced up, but the top of the pole was lost in the glare of the lights. The tang he’d detected in the air in the amphitheater was sharper here, like the smell of burning oak.

As they reached the junction of the aisles, Bob Wier stepped to one side, and Boy G’s gaze fell on Paul, who felt a tremor of cold up his spine.

“Who are you?” whispered Boy G in his toneless voice.

Paul sweated under the lights, in the clammy humidity of the cavern. He felt the pale men crowding behind him.

“Myself?” he said, uncertain what else to say.

Boy G turned his magnified eyes to Bob Wier, who licked his lips and glanced from Boy G to Paul. “He’s a man,” Bob Wier said.

“A man! A man! Like us!” murmured the pale men behind him. Out of the corner of his eye, Paul saw the pale faces above the cube horizon nodding in agreement.

“He’s a man,” Bob Wier said again. “He must learn the law.”

“Say the words,” murmured the men all around. “Say the words.”

Paul felt the chill tightening his skin. I wonder if it’s too late, he thought, to get that key from Bob.

Boy G turned and walked up the perpendicular aisle to the right, and Bob Wier followed, gesturing curtly for Paul to follow. Paul turned to see if he could go back, but the pale men in the aisle were pressing forward, murmuring, “Say the words, say the words,” while the other pale men began to filter out of their cubes into the aisle, murmuring, “A man like us, a man like us.”

“Um, Bob?” said Paul, edging up the aisle. “Could I talk to you for a second?”

But Bob Wier ignored him, and Paul had no choice but to follow. Suddenly the cubicles ended on either side, and Paul found himself walking on the cave floor again. Beyond the glare of the fluorescent lights he saw ahead of him a vast, oval cavern of creamy yellow rock, like custard, its ceiling dripping with stalactites and soda straws and other, more delicate formations like hanging draperies. Water dripped in an irregular rhythm from above; Paul felt the tap of droplets on his scalp and his wrist. Along the left side of the cavern, across a wide, shallow pool of clear water, were three huge formations in a row. The one closest to Paul was a creamy hillock like a huge lump of melting vanilla ice cream. As from a leaky tap, water dripped from a cluster of thin, bladelike projections above, then pulsed in shallow waves down the broad, soapy slopes of the hillock into the pool. The formation farthest from Paul, at the end of the cave, was like an eroding sand castle, a clotted cluster of blunted stalagmites that rose nearly to the dripping roof. And, in the middle, was the tallest and most striking formation, a long, curved, blunt-ended column that stuck out of a wide, conical base of flowstone and rose in layers of long, saber-fanged stalactites nearly to the ceiling. It looked, depending on your point of view, like an enormous stack of decaying wedding cake, or a giant, sagging candle, or — as Paul, the ex-husband of a gender theorist, couldn’t help noting — a giant, erect, rotting phallus. The column’s reflection in the clear water of the pool trembled with each drop of water from above.

“Professor!” cried a voice, and Paul turned to see Colonel approaching him from the right side of the cave. “You’ve joined us at last!” Colonel was wearing his office kit — dress shirt with sleeves rolled down and cuffs buttoned, tie knotted firmly up under his dewlaps — and he joined the procession and pumped Paul’s hand firmly and warmly.

“A big night, son!” His face was flushed, whether with whisky or excitement, Paul couldn’t tell. “We’ve been preparing for your feast.”

He threw his arm around Paul’s shoulders, squeezing him tight and gesturing towards several rows of long, folding tables along the right side of the cavern. Each table was covered with a long, checkered tablecloth and lined with mismatched chairs. At regular intervals along each table stood a little skyline of salt-and-pepper shakers; rolls of brown paper towels upright on spindles; and bottles of hot sauce, jalapeños, and barbecue sauce. At the far end another table was set crosswise, where Paul recognized the landscape of classic Texas barbecue: stacks of paper plates and plastic utensils; potato salad and coleslaw in big plastic bowls; a metal bowl heaped with pickles; wedges of cheese, tomato, onion, and avocado on wide platters; loaves of white bread still in their plastic wrappers; a pair of sweating aluminum urns of iced tea; and a big Crock-Pot of beans, plugged into a fat, orange extension cord that snaked away into the recesses of the cave. At one end of the table stood a squat plastic barrel full of Dr. Pepper, Big Red, and Shiner Bock on ice.

“Yo!” cried J.J., who stood behind the farthest table in jeans and t-shirt and a baseball cap, tending to two large barbecue smokers, each an enormous black metal drum on four legs with a firebox like a low, square snout at one end. The floor of the cave was on a slight incline, tilted to the left, and the front wheels of each smoker were chocked with wedges of wood to keep them from rolling across the cave into the pool. J.J. wore an apron, not like some suburban backyard chef, but like a pro, the string wrapped around his waist and tied at the front. Black smoke puffed from the little chimney at the end of each smoker, staining the stalactites above with soot, and as Paul watched, J.J. lifted a short length of oak from a neat stack of logs.

“Hope you brought your appetite, dude!” J.J. said, and he opened the front door of the firebox of one of the smokers with a rag and fed the oak into the hot, hellish glare of the fire, shoving the log deeper with a long, iron poker. This isn’t so bad for a dream, Paul thought. As a Yankee, he wasn’t as enthusiastic about barbecue as some, but he didn’t mind a plate of smoked brisket and hot sausage now and then. The only odd thing was, all Paul detected from the smokers was the burning wood, not the warm, fatty aroma of slow-roasting meat. J.J. kicked the firebox shut and set the poker to one side with a bright clang. Whatever they were having, J.J. hadn’t even started cooking it yet.

“Now it’s time to do your bit,” said Colonel, bracing Paul around the shoulders and walking him slowly up the cave at the head of the procession. “There’s a little bit of, well, ritual involved, but nothing you can’t handle.” Bob Wier and Boy G fell in a step or two back. “It’s kind of an initiation rite.” Colonel’s avuncular tone had an edge of mischief in it, like a winking frat boy leading a pledge into a darkened room. “And, of course, it’s also our way of thanking these boys for everything they do for us.”

Colonel guided Paul towards the central, phallic formation, while from behind came the shuffle and scrape of many feet, and the steady susurrus of murmuring, all of it punctuated with the plink of water in the pool and reinforced by the swelling echo of the cave.

“It’s the price we pay, Paul,” murmured Colonel. “Mind you, it’s not their steady diet, but let’s just say they’ve developed a taste for what we can provide them.” At the edge of the pool Colonel stopped and gently but firmly propelled Paul forward. Reluctantly, Paul stepped onto the first of a series of stepping stones in the water, each a big, thick, fried egg slice of stalagmite. The water trembled with each step, and at last Paul stepped gingerly onto the slick, creamy surface at the conical base of the giant column.

“My boy!” cried a voice, and he looked up to see Stanley Tulendij stepping out from behind the column. He was wearing a frayed, faded, powder blue tuxedo with wide lapels and bell-bottom trousers. It was the sort of thing a teenaged boy might have worn to the prom twenty-five years ago, which made it simultaneously antique looking and much too young for Stanley Tulendij. Even in the garish tux he kept his spidery aspect — the trousers were too short for his long, peculiarly jointed legs, while the jacket was too big. His head wobbled on top of his long, thin neck, which didn’t even come close to filling the voluminous collar of his frilly shirt. He came to the middle of a wide ledge at the base of the column, and his flat jaw split in a wide smile. He spread his arms, his bony hands sticking out of the wide, empty cuffs of his jacket.

“We’ve been waiting for you!” he said. “You’ve been the apple of our eye.”

The murmuring of the pale men rose to a rumble, and Stanley Tulendij lifted his voice. “And now, gentlemen! Colleagues! Fellow Texans! Our lovely new queen!”

The murmuring diminished almost to silence, and just as Paul was thinking nothing else could surprise him, Olivia Haddock stepped out from behind the phallic column, wearing a faded, red velvet prom gown, with red satin gloves that ran over her elbows and a little, clear plastic tiara. The velvet was worn away in long creases down the folds of the skirt, while the bodice was a little tight on Olivia, squeezing her bosom bloodless. She wore a fraying, yellowed sash across her shoulder that read VIKING QUEEN CWNHS HOMECOMING 197—” The rest of the date was lost around the curve of her hip. She stood next to Stanley Tulendij on the ledge, one foot placed before the other, her red satin palms pressed together before her sash. In the breathless silence she scowled down the slope at Paul.

“You’re late,” she said.

With one foot on the slope of the cone, Paul goggled at the sight before him. This dream was turning uncomfortably strange. Indeed, with the unexpected appearance of Olivia, the dream seemed to be turning into a nightmare. She had disappeared only a week ago, and now she was not only alive and well, but somehow, in the foreshortened time of Paul’s dream, she had become queen of the underworld. Paul glanced back, chilled to his spine, and immediately behind him he saw bright-eyed Colonel urging him forward with a nod, while a stricken Bob Wier wrung his hands. Behind them clustered a frighteningly large crowd of pale, homeless men in white shirts, ties, and glasses, their pale scalps gleaming through their stubbled hair, their lips pulled back from their sharpened teeth as they began to murmur again, “A man like us. Say the words.”

“Come,” said Stanley Tulendij, and the old man beckoned him up the slope, slowly curling his hand. Paul could almost hear the bones clattering in those long, pale fingers. Olivia glowered at him, and Paul nearly said something inappropriate, like, “I thought you were dead.” But he didn’t, and despite the chill he felt, he started climbing the slick slope, up a series of narrow steps cut into the living rock. Near the top he looked back once more, and beyond the crowd of homeless men he saw the two smokers radiating trembling waves of heat and breathing black smoke like a pair of idling locomotives, the door of each firebox outlined by a seam of red flame. To the right he saw the cubescape under the fluorescent lights, which were suspended by a tangled web of wires from the ceiling of the cave. Under the lights Paul saw one pale man walking through the labyrinth of cubicles, and while he couldn’t be sure from this distance, Paul thought it was Boy G. Nearly lost in the glare, the figure came to a cube at the center of the labyrinth and stooped out of sight.

At the top of the slope Stanley Tulendij hooked his fingers through Paul’s elbow and settled the younger man on the ledge between himself and Olivia Haddock. Olivia gave him a cold, sidelong glance, looking him up and down.

“You’re alright then?” Paul murmured.

“No thanks to you,” said Olivia.

“I tried,” protested Paul, struggling to keep his voice down. “Didn’t you feel me grab your ankles?”

Olivia shushed him with a red satin finger to her lips. Stanley Tulendij was stepping to the front of the ledge. He threw his arms wide. “What is the law?” he cried, his hollow voice reverberating the length and breadth of the cavern.

Next to Paul, Olivia clasped her hands before her and blew out a sigh, but below them, the crowd of homeless men swelled forward to the edge of the water, Colonel and Bob Wier at the front. The mouths of the pale men opened wide like hymn singers, their pointed teeth gleaming.

“When the going gets tough,” they chanted, “the tough get going. That is the law. Are we not men?”

“A quitter never wins, and a winner never quits. That is the law. Are we not men?”

“Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. That is the law. Are we not men?”

“Don’t mess with Texas. That is the law. Are we not men?”

The men below swayed from side to side, clapping once when they came to “That is the law,” and the resounding slap of their hands rang around the cavern like feedback. Colonel and Bob Wier swayed right along with the others, though Bob Wier was now openly crying. Beyond the fringes of the crowd, J.J. swayed and dipped his shoulders in place, while to Paul’s right, Stanley Tulendij waved his bony hands in the air like a conductor. To Paul’s left, Olivia blew out another sigh and rolled her eyes. Paul wasn’t sure what to do, so he just swayed feebly, pretending to clap, but not bringing his palms together.

“It ain’t over till it’s over,” chanted the men. “That is the law. Are we not men?”

“Never let the bastards grind you down. That is the law. Are we not men?”

“Remember the Alamo! That is the law. Are we not men?”

“Let a smile be your umbrella. That is the law. Are we not men?”

“And this above all!” cried Stanley Tulendij, lifting his arms higher. Under the momentum of their chant, the men continued to sway for a moment longer, but then steadied themselves at the cry of Stanley Tulendij. As the reverberation of their clapping and chanting died away in the recesses of the cavern, Paul saw Boy G returning from the cubicles bearing a large, blue sack over his shoulder.

“In the daylight world,” Stanley Tulendij called out, his voice ringing round the rocks of the cave, “the rule is, ‘To thine own self be true.’ But here,” he cried, the men below moaning in expectation, “the rule is, ‘To thine own self be. .’ ”

There was a long, breathless pause, during which Paul heard only the plink! ploink! of dripping water. Boy G advanced on the crowd with a noiseless tread, bearing his burden closer. Olivia Haddock rolled her tongue around in her cheek.

“Enough!” roared the crowd of pale men. “To thine own self, be enough! That is the law. Are we not men?”

Stanley Tulendij threw his arms in the air, and the men cheered and whistled. They stamped their feet and shook their fists in the air.

“Finally,” breathed Olivia Haddock, restlessly tapping her foot.

As Boy G reached the back of the crowd with his burden, they parted to let him through. The closer ones reached out to stroke or caress the bundle over his shoulder as he passed. The ones at the rear of the crowd lifted themselves on tiptoe and ran their tongues over their jagged teeth. Only now, as Boy G came closer, did Paul realize that his burden wasn’t a sack, but the backside of someone’s pair of jeans. Boy G was carrying a person, doubled over at the waist, with her head and shoulders dangling behind him and Boy G clutching her legs in front. Stanley Tulendij caught Paul’s eye and winked.

“Enough, my boy! It’s a word of shattering power!” He clapped Paul on the shoulder. “Make it your battle cry!” He glanced past Paul, his eyes brightening at Olivia. “Isn’t that right, my lovely queen?”

“Whatever,” said Olivia.

Now Boy G was stepping across the pool on the flattened stalagmites, his tread making a moire of intersecting waves on the surface of the water. He bent slightly under the weight of the woman as he started up the steps carved into the rock. Suddenly Paul realized that he knew that backside, and all the breath was sucked out of him. At the same moment he heard the brisk, rhythmic scrape of metal against metal, and he looked over the heads of the crowd to see J.J. stroking a long-bladed knife against a sharpening steel. The murmur of the men below grew louder, saying a single word, and it wasn’t until Boy G had reached the ledge at the base of the column that Paul realized what they were saying.

“Meat!” they murmured. “Meat! Meat! Meat!”

Boy G stooped to one knee and tipped the woman off his shoulder onto the rock, where she stood unsteadily for a moment before sagging to her knees, her hands bound before her and her chin drooping to her breastbone. Her mouth was gagged by a handkerchief tied behind her head. Boy G backed away from her, swiveling his wide, cannibal smile past Stanley Tulendij and Paul and Olivia, and then he turned to descend the rock. Olivia glanced sidelong at the bound woman, then at Paul. Her lips were pursed, and Paul realized that she was trying hard not to smile.

“Think you’re better than us,” Olivia said, sotto voce. “We’ll just see about that.”

“Behold!” cried Stanley Tulendij, startling Paul, who turned to see the old man grasp the top of the kneeling woman’s head and tilt her face up for all to see. “See what Paul has brought us!”

At the base of the formation, the men were chanting louder, “Meat! Meat! Meat!” Colonel was chanting along with them, his eyes shining with an unholy light. Next to him Bob Wier didn’t chant but only stared into the clear cave water at his feet, lifting his hand to wipe the tears from his eyes with thumb and forefinger. Across the cave J.J. stropped his knife with a brisk, professional rhythm, faster even than the beating of Paul’s heart. Only when he had no place else to look did Paul lower his eyes to the face of the woman at his feet. Her eyes were wide and frantic, her skin very pale. Her freckles were like flecks of ash across her cheeks; the gag cut into the corners of her mouth. Paul’s heart stuttered and he nearly fell to his knees himself, for he was looking at the face of his Oklahoma lover, Callie.