Twenty-One Toilet, Cat


I'd almost keyed into my apartment when a familiar, annoying voice started talking to me.

While you were playing around with the ladies, I discovered some grim news, said The Ghost of Fieldman. I could see his image in the brass door knocker plate on my apartment door. He loved to project himself into the oddest of the places.

“I'm in no mood."

Instantly, his image appeared in the hallway with me. Well get in the mood, Collective, because my former employers are on to you. They've got your picture, they're got your alias. It's only a matter of time. And time is something you don't have.

I unlocked the door and kicked it open. Fieldman followed me inside. I closed the door, and threw my jacket over a chair. “How do you know all of this?"

I have my sources. As we speak, the FBI is running your picture through a series of tape files they have. In addition, your photo is being sent to every branch office from here to Seattle.

“And where did the Feds find this picture?"

I do not know. The search request issued from the Philadelphia branch, which in turn, came from a request from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office.

Richard. Had to be. Calling in a favor from a lawyer buddy. But why would he suspect anything? Why would he check up on him now? Because you're a thug from Las Vegas who is babysitting his 24-year-old mistress, that's why.

You'd better come into the Brain Hotel. I'll show you.

Grudgingly, I sat down on the couch and closed my eyes. Oh, what a goose I am.

Bad move.


* * * *

I stepped through the front doors to find Brad, who had somehow freed himself from his houndstooth prison. Up on the screen was the Ghost of Fieldman, looking down at me. He hadn't followed me down into the Brain Hotel.

“All right,” I said. “What's the deal?"

“I was merely wondering what you plan to do next,” Brad said.

“Go upstairs and sleep for a couple of days,” I said truthfully.

“About my case, I mean."

“I see,” I said. “Well, before you started screwing around with me and the Hotel, I was planning to find your killers, kill them, and absorb their souls for further questioning. Then you're going to give me the information you promised, and we're all going to head back to Las Vegas to finish this thing, once and for all."

“I don't think so,” Brad said.

I didn't understand. Wasn't this what he'd wanted for the past eight months? Justice, revenge, heads on sticks, et cetera?

“In fact,” Brad continued, “I no longer wish to retain your services. You might step into something you shouldn't and make a mess for the rest of us."

This is true, said Fieldman, up on the screen. You've lost the touch, Collective. You are dead in the water. You are a shell of your former self.

Suddenly, my vision blurred to the right. Everything in front of me-my chair, desk, a box, the wood frame around the closet-suddenly brightened and dissolved into a burning trail of light. Soon, I wasn't able to see any shapes at all. Just bright spinning globs of pulsating matter. My eardrums popped, as if I were underwater. My God-had the jerk managed to lace my Brain scotch with a tablet of LSD when I wasn't looking?

Voices: Here he comes.

Yes. I can see his shape…

Then, in a flash, the world reformed around me. Only I wasn't in the lobby anymore. I was standing in my Brain office with Brad and the Ghost of Fieldman, who was holding what looked to be a television remote control box.

Fieldman smirked. “I bet you're wondering how we managed to drag you up here against your will."

“No,” I said. “I'm standing here trying to imagine what it's going to feel like."

“What what's going to feel like?” Brad asked.

“What it's going to feel like when I eject both your sorry souls into the bathroom toilet."

This cracked them up. Knee-slapping and everything. I made a note to myself to work on my threatening, tough-guy voice.

“Funny you should say that,” said Brad, chuckling one last time before wiping his eyes. “Because it's where you're going. Tell him, Agent Fieldman."

Fieldman started pacing around me, his clunky gizmo trained on me. “You forget that I know your secrets, Collective. Using the processing power given to each Brain Hotel resident, I invented this-a device that can take your soul and drag it around. Eject it into whatever we want."

“I'll mention it to the Nobel committee.” What was this confrontation about, anyway? An extra closet or two in their apartments? “Why are the two of you so eager to drag me around? Because I don't have Brad's murderers hung by their thumbs yet?"

Brad sighed and waved his arms around. “God, you can't see anything, can you? For such a supreme being, you're painfully, stupefyingly, pitifully ignorant."

That was nice. I'd never been called a supreme being before.

Brad continued. “We've been planning this for months now-almost as long as you've been conducting your so-called ‘murder investigation.’ And all the time you thought you were in control. Ordering us around. Barking questions at us. You have no idea how weak you are."

“Don't bother explaining to the Collective,” interrupted the Ghost of Fieldman. “His mind is far too closed to comprehend."

“I suppose you're right,” Brad said. “Go ahead and zap him."

“Destination?” Fieldman asked.

“Oh, why don't we use the man's suggestion?"

A smile lit up Fieldman's face. “You are serious, aren't you?"

This talk was getting loopy-not to mention, personally destructive. I had to flex my muscles now or forever hold my peace. “Paul?” I shouted. The more muscles the better. “Hey, PAUL!"

“He's not going to answer,” said Brad.

“Oh,” I said, with as much braggadocio as I could muster. “He will."

“No… he won't. Because I'm Paul After."

I gave him the same kind of look you'd give someone who's declared himself the Prince of Mars.

“You don't believe me,” said Brad. “And to tell you the truth, I wish it weren't true. But Paul After is undeniably me. Or me, that is, until approximately eight months ago."

“It is not worth explaining,” said Fieldman.

“Sure it is.” Brad said. “It'll give him something to think about when he's hanging out with the Tidy Bowl man for the next 50 years. You see Del, I used to be an extremely disreputable man. Started out doing small-time jobs for the New York Mafia, then headed out West to make my fortune. Which I did, through a number of businesses. A few of them you even wrote about, back when you were a reporter."

“I don't remember writing about any Brad Larsen."

“Not by name, you didn't."

“What are you talking about?"

“Let's put it this way: If you hadn't come along and collected my soul from the muddy waters of the Woody Creek, there would be no ‘Association’ left for you to chase."

I stared at him, slack-jawed. “That's not poss…” I started to say, but then couldn't think of anything.

“Starting to get it? I am your fucking ‘Association'! Just me…"

Possible? Certainly. What kind of evidence did I ever have? Only bits and pieces. I had put the picture together. I had assumed a massive criminal organization pulled the strings. I had never dreamed one man could do so much.

“But I'm drifting from my original point,” said Brad. “You see, the key was having two separate lives, so utterly distinct that one could never, ever, lead to the other. In one life, I was Brad Larsen, college professor in training, with a Masters in 17th Century English Literature, and working towards my doctorate at the University of California, Bakersfield. I was married to the beautiful Alison Larsen, nee Langtree, and we lived in a gorgeous two-bedroom bungalow three blocks away from campus. She was a hairdresser. And she never asked where all the ‘grant money’ came from."

I interrupted-merely to inject myself back into the flow of things. “And in your other life, you were this J.P. Bafoures, bloodthirsty crime boss, willing to kill anyone-man, woman, child-as long as it put dollars in your pocket."

“I only killed two women. And no children,” Brad said.

“So I'm to believe you've been working the Susannah Winston case? In effect, babysitting your own murderer?"

“Not exactly,” Brad said. “This ‘Paul After’ is not technically me. He's a fragment of my own psyche, sheared off the moment you absorbed my soul."

“Not possible,” I said. “I absorbed him months after I absorbed your soul."

“No, you only thought you absorbed him then. It was a fabricated memory we put in place months ago."

“I can explain this, Collective,” said Fieldman. “Your programming-that is, the processor that is your mind-is only equipped to handle one identity per chip. Once it encountered Brad, who had a brain disorder known as a ‘split personality,’ it did the only thing it could: it assigned each disparate identity its own chip, with a new, fabricated personal history."

“Paul even gave himself a new last name,” said Brad. “Bafoures became After."

“Understand, Collective?” Fieldman asked.

“Thank you, Mr. Wizard,” I said. The ghost never gave up. “If he's a separate “psyche,” why can't he leap to my defense right now?"

“Simple,” Brad said. “I erased him."

“You erased him?” I didn't know whether to believe him or not, but at that point, it didn't seem to matter. The Ghost of Fieldman walked up to me, and softly applied his hand to my cheek. “You've had enough suffering for one lifetime. It is time to rest."

“How can you ‘erase’ a soul?"

Fieldman held his gizmo up to my face and tapped it with his index finger. “Interesting you should ask, Collective."

And then it was over.


* * * *

I spent an agonizing length of time between planes of reality. (Only later did I realize I'd traveled in a fraction of a second, and had spent 20 hours trying to piece my mind back together.) I didn't appreciate what I'd had until it was rudely snatched away from me. For years, I had the companionship of other souls, whenever I wanted it. I had a building full of unique individuals, each with stories to tell, emotions to vent. And, during those same years, I had souls to reach out to.

Now, all that was gone. The only physical sensation left was tumbling: endless, nauseating tumbling. No sense of up, down, left or right; no depth. It was like being jettisoned into outer space, only without the blessed quick death of decompression and body implosion. This tumbling went on forever. Every time I tried to figure out how they did it, how they wrenched my soul from its home inside my brain, I'd start to spin more violently, unable to think on an intellectual level any longer. I would have vomited, but I feared I'd spend eternity spinning in an ocean of my own bile and whatever my last meal happened to have been-probably fast food of some kind and a gallon of tequila. No… must stop riffing on food and drink, I thought to myself. Me? Who was me, anyway?

And then, as quickly as my spinning hell began, it ground to a halt.

A sturdy, white porcelain halt.

My God, I realized after a few moments. My name is Del Farmer, and my soul is trapped in a toilet.


* * * *

I knew I was a toilet just as you, sitting there, know you are a human being. There is an undeniable, irrefutable awareness of self.

Frankly, I was amazed how fast my soul adapted to its new prison. And what is flesh-and-blood body but a prison? I was aware of my functional parts just as a human being is aware of his arms and legs. The core of my being was a wide, deep bowl, but I could feel extensions reaching deep into the floor, down into the great and ancient sewer system of Philadelphia itself. Somewhere along the way, my Self faded. What used to be my left arm was now the flushing mechanism. It made perfect sense; I'd always been left-handed. I didn't seem to have a right arm or hand equivalent, but my sense of “face” sure had found a new home. It was the seat and lid. Those diabolical bastards.

Sure, I'd always joked about sending uppity souls to a city trash can, or a public toilet. But that had been tough-guy hyperbole. I'd never considered doing something as downright evil as ejecting a unique, feeling life-force into something so dead and repellent. However, it seemed Brad Larsen had no such reservations. Because here I was. A toilet.

As much as I hated to admit it, my current situation lent a great deal of credence to the Ghost of Fieldman's spaced-out dialogues. Here I was, a living entity, contained in an artificial environment. At least it explained the “poltergeist” phenomena folks have been reporting for years. The most I could hope for was that this apartment would go un-rented for a few months, during which time I could possibly find a way to kill myself. Maybe, eventually, some compassionate soul would clog me full of toilet paper, and let me choke in peace.


* * * *

Don't misunderstand. I wasn't feeling suicidal. But this was the first time in my entire life-from womb to death to soul absorption to current status-I'd felt completely and irrevocably lost. And then a thought occurred to me.

Was I completely powerless? Or did the abilities I'd been given transfer to my mind, and not the architecture of my physical reality? Could I still absorb-and transfer-a soul?

If the Ghost of Fieldman were to be believed, the powers lay within my physical Brain. Which he called a computer of sorts. I refused to accept that model of my brain, of course. Anybody would. It reduced my core being to a machine.

But if I were to be believed, my powers still remained within me. Which would mean I could still shuttle souls-including my own-back and forth between objects as easily as a four-year-old arranges alphabet blocks. My mind possessed those powers-not my physical brain.

The only problem: I only knew one way to transfer a soul, and that way required direct eye contact. Nothing in my bathroom had eyes: not my toothbrush, razor, washrag, bar of Ivory soap… not a damn thing. Come to think of it, if you had to be any object in a modern bathroom, the toilet's pretty much King Daddy. The bathtub is important, of course, but with public baths and YMCA pools, you could technically live without one. Let's face it: the toilet was essential to 20th century life.

God-what was I doing? Already rationalizing my new state of existence?

At any rate, I realized I had to transfer into something alive. And having bumped into some of the sad-sack residents of this apartment complex in the past couple of weeks, finding a living being was not going to be easy.

Then I remembered: Buddy.

Sweet, lovable, adorable, fur-ridden Buddy. Gift from Amy, Eater of Shoelaces, Ripper of Couches, Fearful of Own Shadow, Savior from Heaven. But how could I call him? I couldn't very well do that pss-wss-wss-wss thing as a toilet. No lips. No access to Cat Chow to temp him, either. I had to use a distracting noise, something to stir the bugger's innate curiosity. Then, lure him close enough to look into the bowl itself, the core of my being, where I could summon the powers of vision and lock eyes with him.

I realized what I could do. I started to shake my arm-now, the toilet handle. C'mon Buddy. Come out and be a cat.

I jiggled the handle again. C'mon.

Jiggled it again. And again.

Finally, I could sense tiny pawsteps skittering across the bathroom tile. Right on! I felt padded, furry feet against my bowl. I saw the feline head peek over the water, up at the handle. Good boy, good boy! I wanted to shout.

Then I heard a key fumble in the apartment door. Buddy turned his head, interested in the new sound. I was curious, too, but no matter now. I jiggled the handle more furiously. Buddy looked at it, then spun his head around again.

I jiggled the handle that was my hand with all of my porcelain might. Look at it, you stupid fur-brained… The apartment door opened, full of ear-splitting, rusty squeaks and wood groans… Look! Look!

And then the handle came loose, dropped on to the rim, and flipped over into the bowl. Buddy followed it with his green feline eyes. Through rings of concentric, watery circles, I looked into them.


* * * *

“Del? You home?"

Well, sort of. It was a terribly strange adjustment. And I thought the toilet was bad. At least it had been a porcelain constant; the brain of a cat was something wholly different. I locked onto its primitive brain structure easily, and established myself as the commander-in-chief, but I still had to surrender myself to cat logic.

Cat logic: Whatever seemed to be the most reasonable course of action at any given moment, do the opposite.

Whenever you absolutely, positively have to accomplish a task, run off and find something else to occupy your attention.

I wanted to see Amy, but Buddy yanked the reins out of my hands and leapt into the bathtub. No, Buddy, I commanded. But he regarded the master's voice inside his tiny cat brain as he did the master's voice in real life: He completely ignored it. Buddy started scratching at the drain, apparently trying to kill tiny droplets of condensation.

“Del?” Amy called from the room.

Come on, Buddy. Go see Amy. Go see Amy.

Did he know who Amy was? Did my thoughts translate into the cat language inside his skull? Didn't really matter, it seemed. Buddy was still fascinated with the drain. I swore I'd keep the bugger out of the bathroom from now on, as punishment.

Fortunately, Amy popped her head into the bathroom. “Hey, Buddy!” she squealed, and then started going pss-wss-wss-wsss.

You should have heard the sirens go off in the cat's Lilliputian brain. Suddenly, there was nothing more important in the entire world than to seek out and identify that alluring sound. I felt our furry, muscular body tense, spin around and hurtle out of the bathtub. It made my stomach-or at least, my own internal concept of “stomach"-flip. We bounded ahead until we encountered our target: the Woman's Shins. Then he thrust our body forward, rubbing our entire length against the Woman.

If I ever say I want to absorb the soul of a cat, talk me out of it. Fast. The only thing more uncontrollable than a cat is the weather.

Amy picked us up, and started stroking our head absentmindedly. “Where's your Daddy?” she cooed, but not looking at us. She still scanned the apartment, as if I would be hidden under my desk, or something.

I'm here! I tried to yell, but it came out as a purr.

She put us down, and Buddy tried to skitter away. But this time I was ready for him. I flexed every last bit of mental energy and clamped down on the scruff of his neck. Buddy jolted forward, then froze. He started to growl, but I cut it off. Then, slowly, I forced his head up to look at Amy.

She was reading something on a piece of notepaper, twiddling an apartment key in her free hand. Then I realized: Hey. That's probably my apartment key. What was going on? What day is this, anyway? Amy sighed, folded the note, put it in her jeans pocket and started for the door.

If I was going to get any answers, I needed to jump into Amy's body. Quick.

Okay, fur lips. Let's move it.

I jerked one front leg forward, then the next. One back leg, the next. Buddy was fighting me the entire way. You know cats can make themselves heavier when they don't want you to pick them up? Well, believe me, they can do the same thing mentally. I'm sure if Amy was paying any attention to Buddy, she would have immediately called a combination vet/exorcist.

Amy was at the door.

Leg, leg, leg, leg…

Amy was unlocking and opening the door.

We were a foot away. Time to go for broke. I summoned every ounce of mental control I thought I had over this cat and sent it to his back legs. It sprung up in the air like a jackrabbit who's had a carrot rammed up his ass.

We crashed into Amy's moving legs and did an ungraceful flop to the floor. Apparently, my presence negated Buddy's ability to land on all four feet.

Amy let out a startled, “Oh!” then looked down at us. Pathetic. Which, apparently, worked wonders. Amy squealed with pity and snatched us up into her arms, stroked our head and ran her knuckles beneath our mouth. Tremors shot throughout our body; our tail flicked wildly, joyously. Oh, don't stop, don't stop. Then I remembered what I had been going for. I lifted our head so it bumped Amy's jaw. “Buddy, slow down,” she said.

I bumped her again, rubbed our head across her cheek, and bumped her again.

“Buddy!"

Amy nudged our head up with a finger. “What's wrong with you, kit…"

We looked into her eyes.

Загрузка...