Pavel Kravchenko: Project Antichrist

“So, how’ve you been these last what, six years?”

“Don’t get stupid with me.”

“I need help, but I don’t know what kind of help. Can you help me?”

“I don’t know. I can try.”

“Just like that? After the way I treated you—”

“Did you kill the guy?”

“God, no.”

“Are you the same jackass who sent me packing June 9, 2027?”

“I don’t know. I might be.”

“I don’t think you are. That jackass wouldn’t have called me for help. Let’s meet so you can tell me what the hell is going on. Somewhere the cops won’t bother us. Wanna come to my place?”

“I’m on foot. So… no.”

“Where are you now?”

“In the old theater.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a gay bar somewhere on the North Side. Couldn’t tell you more.”

“I know that bar. Not that I… Nice move for you. How did you figure it out?”

“I’ll explain when you get here.”

“Be there in thirty minutes.”

“Thanks, Paul.” I hung up. And felt better. I discovered I had a friend.

When I returned to the bar, the booth was empty. My drink was on the table. I sat and waited for maybe five minutes, throwing periodic looks at the bartender, who wasn’t looking in my direction. Just as I was about to go and ask him if he’d seen where Iris went, it occurred to me that she must have simply left. Who the hell was Iris, anyway? Who was I to her? Some guy in some kind of trouble, who needed to make a call. She had facilitated that, and now went home to her eight siblings.

Raising the moist glass, I shrugged. Thanks, weird Iris. Cute nose. Have a nice life.

I was back at square one. No, actually square one was in my kitchen, of which I tried not to think and failed. An empty booth in the corner of a gay bar must have been somewhere between squares three and four.

Turning sideways, I slid all the way inside my seat, leaned on the padded wall and sipped on the brew, searching the surroundings for Twiddledee and Twiddledum. Out there in the twilight, amidst smoke and music from the last century, citizens in couples and groups bent over tables, screaming conversations I could not hear. Small projectors painted the swirling clouds red, yellow, green and blue. It might have been the drink, or the knowledge that an old friend was coming to rescue me, but sitting there, alone, with a ghost of a dead marshal hovering always nearby, I gradually acquired calmness like I could not recall to have ever encountered before. For the first time that day I consciously believed that I would make it without my pills.

A big-nosed man in a suit at the table nearby turned his face and smiled. I smiled back, certain suddenly that he had felt before what I was feeling now.

Why did the corpse of a U.S. Marshal occupy my kitchen? Who shot him? And since it was pretty obvious that whoever shot him did so to set me up, why? Competitors? Even if one was to allow that show business was tough, killing a federal employee to set up a rival seemed excessive. I mean, the guy was dead.

My smile was gone, but I had not deteriorated into a shuddering, sobbing pile of meat. Maybe the withdrawal was beginning to let go.

Some tall, skinny, blond kid in a dark t-shirt with “Beware! The Paranoids Are Watching You!” in glowing green runes across the chest paused by my booth, bent his neatly combed head towards me, grinned, and shouted that universe was a carp. Then he asked me for a smoke. I screamed I had none and he, still grinning, gave me the thumbs up and moved on.

I was also thinking about something Iris had said to me in the park. She had reminded me that I didn’t do it. Yes, I had run and that would make me seem guilty, but not to myself. I knew I was innocent. Whatever happened, that was the main thing I needed to remember. That, and the fact that until the cops figured out it wasn’t me, I better not let them catch me. I had told Jimbo I wasn’t cut out for military — that went double for jail.

I looked over and Iris was back. I blinked. She winked at me through the smoke of her cigarette.

“What the hell?” I shouted.

“What?”

“I thought you left.”

“No, we’ve only just come. I was in the girls’ room. Did you make your call?”

“Yes. Yes I did. Why the hell do they even have that thing back there?”

“Some people don’t want their conversations broadcasted.”

“There are easier ways to get some privacy.”

“Easier? For someone with tons of money, maybe.”

“Well, thanks for bringing me over, anyway.”

“So what now?”

“Now I’m waiting for a friend. He should be here any minute.”

“So you do have friends.”

“Just one, I think.”

“Better than none.”

“Yeah, I’m in good shape.”

“Is that how you feel?”

“What do you mean?”

“How long has it been?”

“What?”

“How long since you’ve downed a pill?”

“A pill?”

“A pill.”

“What makes you think—?”

“I can tell.”

“How?”

“The same way you can tell.”

“I wasn’t aware I could.”

“The guy with the nose over there.” She nodded without looking at the man who had smiled at me. I followed her nod to make sure. Raising my hand, I looked at her with a patronizing smile.

“The idea of him taking pills has not even crossed my mind,” I told her solemnly. “And that’s the truth.”

“He doesn’t take pills,” she said. A feeling of slight disorientation came over me.. She grinned. “Not any more, I mean. Just like you.”

“The more I talk to you, the more I want to start again.”

She laughed.

“You’re becoming funny. But it’s not that kind of an addiction. Not like heroin, or meth. No one starts over after going without them for five days.”

I was going to mention that it hadn’t been five days yet, but refrained.

“Whatever,” I said instead. “The fact is I never had a clue he came near the stuff.”

“You exchanged smiles.”

“He smiled at me. I thought he was gay and decided to be polite.”

“Wrong. He smiled at you because he saw the same thing in you that you saw in him.”

“I didn’t see shit.”

“It’s the look in the eyes. Your eyes are beginning to look like kid’s eyes again. When you were on the pill you had robot’s analyzers of reflected sunlight instead of eyes. It takes five days on average to get rid of the glaze.”

This conversation was crazy, but by then I was getting used to her. Not only that, I enjoyed talking to her.

“What are you, an optometrist?”

She giggled and took a sip from her drink.

“What if I never took the stuff in the first place?” I asked. “I would have the same look then, right? ‘A kid’s eye.’ Sounds like a police drama episode.”

“You’re over thirty,” she replied. It wasn’t a question, but she paused until I fidgeted in my seat, shrugging. She continued then, as though making me feel uncomfortable had been some kind of a prerequisite for revealing the knowledge that was to follow. “If we’re talking about ‘industrialized’ areas of the planet, the odds of finding a clear-eyed homo sapiens are quite small. But to encounter a clear-eyed human being between the ages of thirty and sixty who never took antidepressants manufactured by Freedom Corp., the leader in pharmaceuticals, would be nearly impossible statistically.”

We stared at each other across the table. Plainly, the small talk was over. Iris had just sincerely shared something that was very important to her. She had just initiated me, a total stranger, into her inner circle. She had revealed the Ultimate Truth. Considering we’d only met an hour earlier, it must have been a sign of tremendous trust. Trouble was, I felt awkward rather than properly honored, because I was Luke Fredegar Whales. And Luke Fredegar Whales happened to have firsthand knowledge of the fact that Iris’s Ultimate Truth was a pile of crap.