Tony Burgess - The n-Body Problem

“Mr. Cauldwell?”

That’s either Petra or Paula. Am I even remembering those names? I flip open the pill box. Takes me three mouthfuls to get all my meds down. I could tell you what they are, what they are for, but that could all change by later today. You have to keep mind/body/pharma pretty dynamic these days. I can hear the girls’ voices. Little bird noises. This flophouse is a damn birdhouse.

“I’ll be down in sec.”

My belt is twisted at my back. I’m too lazy to fix it. It will pinch the skin all day. I’ve gained some weight. That’s fine. Needing to lose weight is far better than needing to find it again. I’m bigger than the disease. At least for today.

I can smell toast. Going downstairs I straighten a pencil sketch of a hummingbird. The blurry wings are a cheap effect done with an eraser. Looks stupid. At the bottom of the stairs I get a shock. Paula and Petra are Asian. I had to have known that. My chest starts to tighten. It is dangerous to go off-road right this second. It’s a lapse. Just thinking it was one thing and it turns out to be another. I push my back muscles into the leather kink there. I am larger than memory problems. Liver disease can do this. Infections. Autoimmune flare ups. Spinal compression. Are their names even Petra and Paula? I can’t give a fuck.

The ladies step back from me and pause. I sit observed. Toast, no butter, and hardboiled eggs.

“Are you working here today or out?”

It’s a nervy question and I don’t think I’ll say. The other Paula and Petra steps forward to correct.

“We are going out today, so if you need lunch we’ll put it in the fridge.”

There’s a piece of eggshell stabbing below my gum line. Shell and tooth. There are infections of the gums that are fatal. The shell of a bird’s egg is separating the gum from tooth. I smell copper. There’s enough blood in my mouth that I can smell it. I have to excuse myself. I have to find a boy to be my son tonight.

I cut through some backyards. Not many sidewalks in these small towns. Birdhouses for people line the streets. White doilies and an orange film on windows from days when poison was legal.

The fountain’s dry. I do that. I look for neglected things. Not uncommon to see a flat tire on a new car. And the car just sits there. Dipped like a bad smile. I don’t give a shit about it. The ground is rising and the sky is falling. It’s okay to leave a few things lying around.

The grass is brown. I step onto the main street. Ontario towns look like a plate Lillian Gish keeps on the shelf. When the sun cuts through the drapes, it’s the drapes that light us. She’s probably watching right now. The boy I need to find. The son I should have. I have to borrow a child from the real world tonight. I’ll put him back. Don’t worry.

A young woman passes me. I cover my mouth instead of smile. She can’t tell I didn’t. There’s tall buckets of pine ends. Carpenter. I stop to see. There’s a lot of small cupboards. Unstained. More Gish. A metal fisherman with pinched seams. The cotton line to a silver trout. I do like looking. It keeps picturing at bay. The light must be constantly moving on this little guy. It is all suddenly happening in ways it can’t happen. I turn to the barrel of pine ends. The smell cauterizes. No memory. No taste. No life. Just perfect tan caps on all the punched-out receptors. It’s heaven to inhale this. Pine is clean. Pine is made of clean.

I don’t know if that’s anything. It’s just a theory I have. Your brain can’t be making shit up if you’re carefully observing the things around you. This is a very aggressive hypochondria. Nobody escapes it in the end. You picture a tumour pressing up in your chest wall and soon, hours sometimes, your shoulder starts to prickle… the ulnar nerve lights up all the way down and spatulates your fingers. Then pica spots show up in the apex of a lung. Then you cough blood. Can’t see a doctor. Doctor knocks symptoms off you like a dog shaking off wet.

Anyhow, trick is, I need a boy. Not hard to do, really. You just gotta have the nerve. And find the right mom.

I move across the street. Light mist in the air. Spring shower. I don’t look up. More of these losers window shopping. Antique stores. Pet store. Pizza. These are peep shows for the dead. Take a look, folks. We used to have dazzling teeth. I always check the parked cars. Moms and boys sitting in cars. There. Bet they’ve been sitting there for days. I tap the window. The boy looks up. The mom just stares ahead. Perfect. I tap again and the window comes down. The smell of shit. That’s common. Some folks, late in the game, start shitting themselves for protection. Doesn’t make any sense to us, of course. She doesn’t need a son. She needs a cocoon of feces.

Turns out I don’t even have to ask. The kid jumps out of the car and his mother doesn’t. That’s the best way. I step back and walk down an alley. The kid follows. He’s twelve or so. Means he can manoeuvre out of a jam but still can’t overpower me. He smells like his mom, but I think he’s generally clean. I turn a corner to the back of the pizza joint. There’s a hose.

“Strip.”

I unravel the first couple metres of hose. The boy’s face is dull. He removes his shirt. This is gonna be a bit wild at first. I twist the handle. He stands straight and naked. I move him over to a grate and hit him with the water, making sure I got a firm hand on his wrist. He pops pretty good, like a hare. He lets out a screech so I hold the cold water on his face. He goes still. Bring the hose across the front of him, dislodging grey and black mould. Quick spin and rout his backside. Good enough. I squeeze the hose off. He’s awake now. I cuff him to a bike rack.

“Don’t make any noise.”

Kid’s perfect. No stupidity. I march up the alley. Need a second-hand clothes store. Stedmans. Something. Maybe get another kid just for his clothes. Jesus, the things you can manage to do if you want to. I glance over at the mom sitting in the car. That’s ridiculous. Turn into a toy store. Maybe they got swim trunks. Towel. Boy scout uniform.

“G’day!”

Cheerful old bugger. Big thick glasses. Could be a mole. Hanging in there pretty fair though, I’d say.

“You got any kids clothes?”

I hear a little sigh. That’s all. That’s his disapproval.

Promise Keepers. They’re every-where. Iron Men Male power. Better than the rapists, anyway. That was a dark couple of months. Everyone was a rapist. Just exploded. Not sure why. But it ended. I guess if you can picture what you want then eventually you’ll picture what you don’t want. Not only is rape off the menu, so is sex. All sex. Not one person has sex on the entire planet for about a full year. That’s my take on it anyway. Sure there’s probably a village somewhere in a valley where they fuck all day, but the species is terminal. Viagra has a cascading effect on symptoms, usually, skin cancers or inner ear things—Raynaud’s. Sit there waiting for your dick to rise and watch the lesions split open on your thighs. Oh, yes. We are terminal. That’s what happens when you fuck with light.

Men-only dinner at the Evangelical Hall. You need a son to get in. And a meatloaf. I picked that up at a Dairy Queen. Technically it’s burger meat pounded into a pan. Same as meat loaf. The boy seems content enough to walk with me. Crisp little boy scout uniform on him. Clean body. Not a bad day for a child. We congregate in the basement. More of a gym. This is where I’m looking for my guy. A rare person he is. He steals. He kills. Not many of them left. He organizes suicide cults. For some reason fathers and sons are easy marks. Teenagers a close second. Who knows why we’re like this now? The studies aren’t getting done any more. Nobody knows me here, but really they all do.