Daryl Gregory - The Devil's Alphabet

Rhonda shook her head. “I’m sorry about that, Paxton. Nobody ever thought it would have that kind of effect on you. Even so, I would have warned you if I thought your father was producing even a little bit.” The guard, Barron, glanced in their direction, then looked away. The old charlie man on the couch snored heavily. “But in a way it’s a good thing it happened.” She gestured toward a door marked OFFICE. “Sit down, let me tell you a story.”

Rhonda situated herself behind a big desk piled with paper, a PC on the oak return behind her. Her seat was raised; she was as tall sitting as standing. Pax took one of the leather guest chairs.

“Willie Flint was the first,” Rhonda said. “He started producing a couple years after you left. His son, Donald-he was a bit older than you?-he turned charlie too.” Pax remembered Donny Flint. Dumb as a box of rocks. “Well, Donald found out what it could do. It didn’t take long for the vintage parties to start. He started selling the stuff to other charlies. Boys were using too much, girls were going crazy, boys and girls alike were starting fights. A couple kids ended up in the hospital. Donald had it too strong, and it was going to kill someone.”

Pax nodded, even though he didn’t understand most of what she was talking about. Going crazy how?

“Well,” Rhonda said. “Nobody knew at first what this stuff was, or how he was getting it. They thought he was cooking it up at home, like that crystal meth? But Donald, he couldn’t stop himself from talking about it. Word got around. The next thing we knew, Donald’s disappeared, probably killed, and his so-called friends have decided to set up business for themselves.”

“What do you mean-they started selling it?”

“Not just selling it. They were doing their own extractions. I wasn’t mayor then, but I was with the group that found old Willie.” Her voice had grown hard. “They’d made him a prisoner in his own house. They’d barely been feeding him, poking at him with the same needle over and over. His skin was all infected…” She took a breath. “He was already dead when we found him, Paxton. They’d killed him. You wouldn’t of treated a dog like that.”

Rhonda opened a file drawer in the desk, drew out a manila folder. “A couple weeks later one of our other men started blistering, then another. I knew if we didn’t do something, it was going to happen all over again. Some stupid charlie boy with more muscles than sense would grab the next one, and the next one.

“You’re involved now, Paxton. Your father’s producing, so you should know what we’re doing with the vintage. First and foremost, we’re keeping it away from people who would abuse it. If we have it locked up here, then it’s not on the streets.”

“Then why not just destroy it?”

“Paxton, you don’t understand how much the young charlies want the vintage. If we cut off the supply completely, they’d just get desperate, and desperate people do stupid, dangerous things. Better to let it out in dribs and drabs, to the people I trust. Then they’re invested in keeping the system going.”

“You’re making a deal with the devil,” Pax said. “You can’t wave this in front of them and not expect them to come take it.”

“Don’t you worry about that. No place is safer than the Home.” She opened the folder and slid it across the desk to him. There looked to be more than fifty pages of forms tagged with yellow SIGN HERE stickies. “This is everything we need to enroll your father in the program and start treating him. HIPAA forms, requests for records-”

“Wait,” he said. “You said, ‘First and Foremost.’ What else-”

She waved a hand. “This packet here, these are the Medicaid forms and paperwork you’d have to sign for any extended care facility.”

“What else are you doing with the vintage, Rhonda?”

Rhonda sat back in her chair. She sighed. “I’d like to tell you. I would. But at this point it’s too early to get people’s hopes up.”

Pax let go of the pages and put his hands on his lap. “Forget it, then. I’m not signing.”

“Now, Paxton, don’t be difficult.”

He stood. “I’m sorry, Aunt Rhonda. Now if you could tell Everett to drive me home…”

He stood holding the doorknob. She pinned him with a steady look, then seemed to come to a decision. “Okay, then.” She nodded at the chair, then waited until he’d resumed his seat. “This has to remain strictly confidential, you understand? It cannot leave this room.”

“It depends on what you tell me. If it’s illegal-”

“No, it’s not illegal! Paxton Martin…” She shook her head in exasperation. “This is about the men of my clade. I am not content to condemn every charlie boy to what’s happened to your father, or God help me die locked up in some shack like Willie Flint. I am determined to end this.”

“End this? How? You’re not talking about euthanizing them, or-”

“Paxton, if you keep saying stupid things I will reach across the desk and slap you.”

“I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about research, Paxton. Scientific research. Getting the medical community to pay a little attention to the problems of this clade before another generation of men have to suffer. Every two weeks I send another shipment to Stanford University in California. There’s a man there with a team of eight graduate students working on figuring out what the vintage is, what it does, and how we can turn it off.”

“Why in the world would you keep that secret?”

“You’re not from here anymore, Paxton. And you’re not a charlie or you wouldn’t ask that question. Do you think Clete or Travis or any of the young charlies want to give up the vintage? Do you think they want this to be cut off forever? Before you open your mouth, the answer is no, they would not.”

She patted the stack of papers. “Now. I know this looks like a lot of papers, but they’re already filled out except for the dates and signatures, and I can walk you through them so you understand everything that you’re signing. After you do that, we can start taking care of your father. Today.”

“I don’t know,” Pax said.

She looked at him. “Talk to me, hon.”

“It’s just…” The top page in the stack was some kind of confidentiality form, with his own name typed at the bottom. He was almost embarrassed at how relieved he felt. Each of the forms-fifty, sixty of them, it didn’t matter-was like a rung on a ladder that would let him climb out of this pit. What else could he do, quit his job and move down here? Siphon the old man every day himself? He couldn’t do that. He wasn’t strong enough for that kind of work.

“I need to talk to my father,” he said. It didn’t sound convincing, even to himself. He’d already decided he would sign. All he needed was some time to explain to himself how this wasn’t a betrayal.

“I know you feel that way. But remember, Paxton, your daddy’s not in his right mind just now. The reverend’s been my friend for thirty years, but charlie men can’t function like they used to, not when the vintage is running in them. Whether you like it or not, you’re his guardian now.”

“I understand that,” he said. “I do.” He closed the folder and pulled it onto his lap. “Let me just take this home, look it over, and I’ll sign it tonight.”

“Tonight,” Rhonda said. She got up from her chair and came around the desk, opened her arms. “Don’t look so worried, honey. You’re doing the right thing. Now give Aunt Rhonda a hug.”

His father was still sleeping when Rhonda and Everett dropped him off at the house. Pax stood beside the couch for a long time, watching Harlan’s huge chest rise and fall, jowls shuddering with each snore.