Jonathan Kellerman - Time Bomb

I counted about six or seven children crying by now, four of them kids I recognized easily because they were in the high-risk group. Linda saw them too. She went over to each of them, bending low, patting heads, talking in their ears. Taking their hands and offering them the choice of leaving.

Four headshakes, three nods. She removed the nodders from the group, herded them past the press clutch, back into the school building.

I followed her. It took me a while to get into the building. Linda was halfway down the main corridor, sitting on the floor in a circle with the three children. Smiling, talking, holding a hand puppet and making it talk in a high-pitched voice. The children were smiling. No distress that I could see.

I took a few steps forward. She looked up.

“Look, kids, it’s Dr. Delaware.”

“Hi,” I said.

Shy waves.

“Anything you guys want to ask Dr. Delaware”

Silence.

“Looks like everything’s under control, Dr. Delaware?”

I said, “Great, Dr. Overstreet,” and went back outside.

Though the music was louder, the stage was uninhabited. Not a musician in sight, not even a synthesizer wizard. I realized this was going to be a lip-sync exhibition. Prefab passion.

Nothing happened for several seconds. Then what appeared to be a huge orange flame burned its way through the black backdrop. Gasps from the audience. As the flame got closer, it turned into an oversized sheet of heavy satin, trailing along the stage. Beneath the satin was movement- a swelling and pulsating as the sheet shimmered forward. Like a gag horse, minus head or tail. Cheap trick, but eerie.

The sheet bumped and grinded its way center stage. Organ crescendo, cymbal crash, and the sheet dropped, revealing six more huge men, bare-chested and wearing orange tights and silver jackboots. Three blacks, on the left, scowling under broom-bristles of straightened yellow hair. On the right, a trio of Nordic types in royal-blue Afros.

The six of them spread their legs and assumed wrist-gripping iron-pumper poses. Between them appeared a very tall, very skinny man in his mid-twenties, with skin the color of India ink, Asian eyes, and orange Jheri-curled past-the-shoulders hair that looked as if it had been braised with axle grease. Wide shoulders, the hips of a prepubescent boy, rubbery limbs, a Modigliani neck, and the terminal-illness cheekbones of a Vogue model.

He wore electric-blue goggles in tiger-hide plastic frames that were wider than his face, a tight silver silk jumpsuit embroidered with orange thread and festooned with costume sapphires in baroque patterns. His hands were encased in fingerless blue satin weight-lifter’s gloves; his feet shod in silver high-tops with orange laces.

He snapped his fingers. The musclemen retreated, satin sheet in hand.

The music picked up pace. Jonson pranced, knees high like a drum majorette, did a Nijinsky leap, shot off a flurry of tap-dance pyrotechnics, and ended with a split that transformed him into an inverted silver T and made my groin hurt vicariously.

Then, sudden quiet topped by a high-pitched hum from the speakers. A few of the older kids were out of their seats, bouncing and clapping and calling out, “DeJon! DeJon! Do ‘Chiller’! ‘Chiller’! DeJon! DeJon!”

The orange-haired man scissored himself upright and smiled feverishly. Went pigeon-toed and knock-kneed, shimmied, squatted, did a backwards double somersault followed by a headstand and some rapid hand-walking, then jumped back to his feet, flexed each bicep, and bared his teeth.

The music resumed: a modified reggae beat supercharged by a string-popping funk riff.

His teeth parted and his mouth opened wide enough for a tonsil display. A very whispery tenor oozed out of the speakers.

When the night moves in,

And creepies crawl,

And thingies creep,

Over castle walls,

Gasp. Hand to mouth. Look of exaggerated fear.

That’s when I’m real.

That’s when I live.

I’m your party man,

Got so much to give.

Cause I’m a chiller. Love your chiller.

Baby I’m your chiller. Got to love your chiller.

Sweet kind of chiller. Got to kiss your chiller.

Seductive leer. Change of tempo to a manic two-four almost drowned out by shouts and applause. Jonson belly-danced, jumped back, raced forward, skidded to a stop at the edge of the stage, rolled his eyes. When he lip-synced again, his whisper had turned into a raspy baritone:

And when the snakes of wrath

Meet the toads of fire,

And scorpions waltz

Across the pyre,

That’s when I breathe.

That makes me whole.

I’m here to love

Your mortal soul.

Cause I’m a chiller. Love your chiller…

Charming.

I searched for signs of anxiety among the children. Many of them were rocking and bopping, singing along, shouting out Jonson’s name. Taking it the way it was meant to be taken- as a sound-wave gestalt, the lyrics irrelevant. It went on for another minute. Then a rain of orange and silver flowers appeared out of nowhere, butterfly-delicate. The musclemen reappeared with the orange sheet and Jonson was whisked offstage. The whole thing had taken less than two minutes.

Latch got back onstage and mouthed inaudible thank-yous over the cheers. The press surged past him, taking off in the direction of the sheet. Latch stood there, abandoned, and I saw something- a spoiled, peevish look- creep onto his face. Just for a second. Then it was gone and he was grinning again and waving, his wife and Ahlward by his side.

Things had gotten wild out in the cheap seats. The kids were pelting each other with flowers; teachers struggled to line them up. I looked back at the front row and saw my mothers standing alone, confused. The Latches and Ahlward stood nearby, surrounded by young-scrubbeds like the ones I’d seen the day of the sniping. Lots of congratulations from the troops. Latch getting what he needed, soaking it up while maintaining a TV face. No one made any attempt to talk to the mothers.

I started making my way over, waiting for whole classes to pass, getting my insteps trampled by tiny feet. Camera crews were pulling up cable, creating tripwires, and I had to watch where I stepped. When I was a few feet away, Latch saw me, grinned, and waved. His wife waved too; Pavlov would have given her an A. Ahlward remained stolid, one hand in his jacket.

Latch said something to him. The redheaded man walked over to me and said, “Dr. Delaware, the councilman would like to speak with you.”

“Gee whiz,” I said.

If he heard me he didn’t let on.

I followed him, but at the last moment I veered away and went to the mothers. Latch’s face took on that same deprived-brat look. I wondered how long it had been since he had been told no.

The women looked deprived too. Of their bearings. A few held paper flowers, seemed afraid to throw them away.

I walked up to them and introduced myself. Before they could reply, a voice behind me said, “Dr. Delaware. Alex.”

No choice but to turn. The councilman had regained his camera happy-face. But his wife had gotten tired of wearing hers. She’d put on sunglasses- copper-and-gold designer originals with a lavender-blue tint. The two of them were standing together but seemed far apart. Ahlward and the dress-for-success bunch hung back several yards.

Latch held out his hand. “Good to see you again, Alex.”

“Councilman.”

“Please. Gordon.”

The inevitable pressing of flesh. He pumped hard enough to draw water.