Jeremy Bushnell - The Weirdness

And the light assembles itself into an image, like a melting film in reverse. Only it’s not the image of the cell in the basement of the Right-Hand Path headquarters. It’s the image of the kitchen at the sandwich shop. Anil is there, working, his hands dipping deftly into steel bins of cut onions and shredded lettuce. And Billy is there. He can kind of see himself from the outside for a second before he realizes that, no, really: he’s actually, physically there. Not in the light. In his body. In this kitchen.

“Son of a bitch!” Billy says, presented with one more piece of conclusive evidence about his inability to focus on a goddamn thing for more than one goddamn second. He pounds his fists against his temples, once, solidly, as though attempting to physically drive some sense into his skull.

Anil jumps.

“Billy?” he says, blinking. “What the fuck? Where have you been ? Everyone has been freaking out worried about you.”

“Really?” Billy says, a little flattered at this unexpected piece of news.

“Yes!” Anil says. “Well, everyone except Giorgos, he’s pissed at you and he says you’re fired. But everyone else! You seemed so out of it at the reading, and then you fucking wandered off — we thought you might have gone into some kind of fugue state. I expected to hear from you in six months, saying I live in Wisconsin now. I run a dairy farm with my wife, who is kind, and simple . You can imagine our dismay.”

Billy tries it. “Dismay?” he asks, seeking confirmation.

“Sure,” Anil says.

“Even Denver? Would you characterize her reaction as — dismayed?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Anil says. “ Denver thought we should call the cops and get them looking for you. I’m happy to say that saner heads prevailed, but, yes, dismay; I would say that that describes it.”

Billy takes a moment to enjoy this, but only a moment, and then panic pulls the rug out from under it.

“I fucked up, Anil,” he says. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

“News flash, Billy,” Anil says, “you are supposed to be here. You were supposed to be here five and a half hours ago . I’ve been doing this fucking shift by myself. In conclusion: I’m glad you’re alive, but you remain a major-league asshole. Put some fucking gloves on and help me with these tickets.”

Not certain exactly what else to do, Billy puts on a pair of gloves, and takes his station. He’s sliced exactly one baguette in half before he pauses.

“I can’t stay here, Anil. He can find me here. He found me in the fucking middle-of-nowhere Ohio ; he can find me here.”

“Oh, Billy,” Anil says, arranging roasted red peppers on top of a slice of Gorgonzola, “I have missed you. You make no fucking sense whatsoever. Bread. Slice it. While you’re doing that, you can explain what it is you’re on about.”

The extra adrenaline pinging around in his bloodstream makes him a little spasmodic, but Billy picks up his knife again and does his best, mangling a ciabatta roll. “I’m talking about the Devil,” he tries.

“Still?” Anil says. “Didn’t we decide that was a joke?”

“It’s no joke ,” says Billy, plaintively.

Anil claps the top on the sandwich he’s making, plates it, puts it on the counter, slaps the bell.

“This may be one of those begin-at-the-beginning type of situations,” he says, finally.

“I’ll explain it,” Billy says. “But quickly. And then I have to get out of here. I’m supposed to meet some people and they’re going to be pissed that I’m here instead of there .”

“Well,” Anil says, “yes, that sounds like a situation you might find yourself in.”

“Ugh,” says Billy, trying to review what Anil knows and what he doesn’t. “I guess one important thing for you to know is that — that reading last night? It didn’t just end with me wandering off. It ended up in like — a riot.”

“A riot?”

“A scrum. A stampede. You don’t remember because some asshole fucked with your memory.”

“I did wake up this morning with a wicked bruise that I couldn’t explain,” Anil says, although he seems unconvinced.

“But at least you didn’t get Tased,” Billy says, and then he just launches in, explaining about the Tasing, about the Right-Hand Path, about Ollard’s tower, about the Neko, about the wards, about being a wolf, about his dad. It takes him fifteen minutes and the whole time he is assembling and plating sandwiches at ferocious speed, even though he probably isn’t getting paid. Somehow he also manages to gobble down half a pound of roast beef.

“Well, congratulations,” Anil says, finally, when he’s through. “You and I have been friends for a long time, but that is, without exception, the most batshit insane line of batshit insanity that I’ve ever heard fall out of your mouth.”

“It sounds bad, I know.”

“Well, the good news is that it makes a good story. I think you found your second act.”

“Yeah, but — what happens in the third act? I think it might be that we all burn and die.”

“Burning and dying is bad,” says Anil, blithely.

“Yeah, I know,” Billy says.

“So what’s your plan?”

“I don’t know,” Billy says. “I’m totally confused. I mean — I look at my dad, and I’m like, You’re my dad, I love you , right? I trust you, you seem to know what’s going on, I should just throw in with you and maybe it’ll all be okay . But then I think about it and I’m like Well wait a second, you’re not really my dad at all. Plus you lied to me for a long time — remind me why I should be trusting you now? But I sure as shit don’t trust the Devil either — I mean, he’s the Devil . He’s evil . Right?”

“Um,” Anil says. “Not my particular mythic system, remember?”

“Come on, Anil. Tell me what you think.”

“What do I think? I think you’ve had a psychotic break,” Anil says, and then there’s a fire in the kitchen.

It’s Lucifer, manifesting himself. For all the times he’s popped up, this is the first time Billy’s actually seen him appear out of nowhere. Turns out that when it happens, it’s accompanied by a huge burst of hellfire. Towering blue plumes fwump into existence like someone’s fired up a gas burner the size of Venus’s half shell. That has ramifications in the space of a tiny New York City kitchen. Fist-sized whorls of flame peel off from the edge of the efflorescent bloom and spin toward Anil. They land on his black work shirt, send tendrils out into the blend of fibers, seeking whatever can be consumed.

“Ahh, fuck—” Anil says. He swats at his sleeves but the flames course away, greedily surge across the back of his shirt, transforming it, in the span of a second, into a curtain of fire.

“Extinguisher!” Billy shouts. The mandated one is right there, mounted on the wall, behind Anil. Billy can’t get to it. Both Anil and Lucifer are in the goddamn way.

“Anil! Extinguisher!”

The flames cling to Anil’s back, lick at the locks of slightly greasy hair that peek out from under Anil’s work-mandated hairnet. Oh, Anil , Billy thinks, fuck the extinguisher; just stop, drop, and roll; every goddamn kid in America knows that that’s what you do , but Anil either doesn’t know that or he’s forgotten in a moment of panic, and Billy estimates that Anil has maybe two more seconds before the fire eats into his undershirt and then begins to do something bad to the skin underneath.

And that’s when something funny happens with time.