Adam Sternbergh - Shovel Ready

So you lie there, half-mummified and lightly drooling. And unfortunately for you, someone back here in the nuts-and-bolts world has decided they can’t let that grudge slide after all. And they found my number. And I found you.

Quick slit with the box-cutter and it’s all over.

Except maybe not. Not in the dream.

There is a theory, unprovable I guess, that when you die, there’s a last little burst of neural activity. The brain’s last helpless, hopeless little sigh. Normally, this would be your blown kiss to a cruel world as you exit, stage left.

Yes, I did a play in high school. Mitch in Streetcar , if you must know. Would have made a better Stanley.

But if you’re in the limnosphere, in the dream, at that last moment, this little burst of brain activity loops. Your final seconds skip forever like a record. Even after they unplug the mummy and cart it to the furnaces. You remain as a data burp, hiccupping, some tiny line of code still in the dream.

And you don’t know this. That’s the theory. You’re just stuck in that last moment, an eternal right fucking now , endlessly repeating for however long the batteries of this planet hold their juice.

No one knows if it’s true, of course, because how would you test it? They say they have programmers combing the code for these little hiccups, but most of their resources are on other things. Like developing newer, better, more tactilely realistic horse cocks.

But it’s true enough that some people try to game it. After awhile they’re not happy enough with just the dream. They pick a program, their ultimate fantasy. Movie star. Fuck your neighbor. Crowd roar when you take the podium on Inauguration Day. Or sight the podium in your rifle-scope. I don’t know. That one fantasy you can never say out loud to anyone. The one moment you would happily live in forever.

They time it out to the second. Hire someone to stand by. Lean in. Make sure the lids are fluttering. Clock hits zero. Put you down.

Sounds weird, I know. But then again, people used to hang themselves while jerking off.

Funny thing is, most people choose real-life memories. Your husband turns around in the airport, back from the war, and it’s really him. Your miracle mother comes out of her coma. You cut class and the bedroom door swings open and your high-school crush finally drops her dress. What people want is to live in that heart-swell of I can’t believe this is happening , over and over again.

Black-market agencies sell this service. Split-second timing. Our watchers are the industry’s best. Results guaranteed.

If they fail, who’s going to tattle? You’re lost in a loop somewhere, your needle bobbing on the inner edge of the record, at the far shore of a vast ocean of black.

So you better hope they loop the right moment.

Because if they miss, that person standing over you, watching you fall into the dream, if they miss, even by a moment, half a moment, or just a breath, then you’re stuck, and your husband never turns around and you never know if he made it, or your mother stays sunk in her coma with you anchored bedside worrying, or you stare at that bedroom door forever, knob trembling, wondering what’s about to come in.

I choose not to believe it. Seems too convenient, and besides, if I buy that, then I might believe I’m not ending someone. I’m just pausing them, maybe in the happiest moment they’ve ever had.

That seems cheap. It’s a cop-out. So I think of it the other way.

Most of them have already given up on this world, the nuts-and-bolts world. This party’s over and they’ve moved on to the after-party. They’ve left their bodies behind.

I’m just sweeping up.

In any case, that is what I am used to. All jobs don’t go like that, obviously. But you’d be surprised how much overlap there is between people with the money and desire to disappear into pretend extravagance forever, and people who want those people dead.

What I am not used to is eighteen-year-old runaways carrying bowie knives and babies.

But that’s fine.

Because she’s pregnant.

So our business here is done.

I kill men. I kill women because I don’t discriminate. I don’t kill children because that’s a different kind of psycho.

And while I’ll admit I’ve never tested this particular scenario in practice, I think it’s safe to say that pregnant teenagers fall under the category of a different kind of psycho.

Harrow I can handle. Sometimes circumstances change. My policy in this regard is actually pretty simple. I give back the money. What you do then is your business. As for me and the girl?

Our paths uncross.

In the meantime, though, what I can do is offer her that hot shower after all. And a bed. And bus fare. And maybe waffles for breakfast.

Back here in the nuts-and-bolts world, we can’t all be holy Roman emperors. But we do enjoy a waffle now and then.

Like I said, I live in Hoboken. Jersey boy. Like Sinatra. I wasn’t making that up.

And I did play Mitch. Would have made a better Stanley. Hated learning lines though. Hated crowds. Hated acting, basically. Enjoyed kissing the girl who played Stella though. One day as a stand-in.

And my dad was a garbageman. An actual garbageman, I mean. So after high school I followed him into that line of work.

And I married the girl who played Stella.

My Stella.

Better than any encore.

PATH trains to Jersey shut down years ago, half the underground tunnels collapsed. No one commutes from Jersey to Manhattan anymore.

So I own a boat.

Just a rowboat with an outboard. Lock it up with a heavy chain at a west-side pier. I give Persephone a handkerchief to tie over her mouth like an outlaw. I do likewise. This time of year, you don’t want to be drinking the Hudson. Not even spray.

Any time of year, for that matter.

Then I yank the cord and we cross state lines.

Behind us:

American Century, with a CLOSED sign. Which is weird, because it’s 24 hours.

Counterman sighs, expecting a hold-up, knows the protocols, starts scooping out bills from the tray.

Southern gentleman asks in a Southern accent about a young pregnant girl, possibly with a man.

Counterman shrugs.

Waitress is more helpful.

I seen them.

That’s what a big tip gets you these days.

Heard something about Hoboken. Sinatra. Girl didn’t even know who he was.

Says it in a tone of what’s this world coming to, am I right?

Southern gentleman nods.

Much obliged.

She smiles back.

Smile distended in the convex of the aviators. Clownish.

Also distended: Her blood, her brains, on the back wall, like a thrown pie.

Turns the long revolver on the counterman. Like a diviner’s rod, seeking water.

Finds blood.

The apartment is palatial, just because everyone cleared out. After Times Square, finance types were the first to evacuate. Packed up their pinstripes and skedaddled. For them, Times Square was like a roach bomb, sent them scurrying, either to full-time bed-rest or safer cities or both. Most even left the furniture behind.

Their hasty exit, my real-estate opportunity. For a few months there, after Times Square, when no one thought anyone would stay, you change the locks on a place, it’s basically yours. Mayor declared a tenant amnesty, a homesteader’s free-for-all. Disputes got settled with fistfights, not leases, and the cops were otherwise occupied. It settled down eventually. Turned out there was plenty to go around.

Come reelection time, the mayor clamped down. Ran on a platform of rebuilding and rebirth. Stood on a dais and declared the city shovel ready. I think he was right, but not in the way he meant.