James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

Oh boy, thought Paul.

Colonel lifted a finger. “Don’t say anything. Just listen.” He lowered his voice. “I know you’re not where you want to be. You didn’t set out all those years ago in graduate school to be writing technical documents for the Texas Department of General Services. But what if I told you, Paul,” he continued, inching his chair closer, “what if I told you I could guarantee you lifetime employment? And not just lifetime employment, Paul, but a job that left you free to pursue almost anything you wanted to do?”

The room was very quiet, though Paul heard laughter and music from the other side of the door. He lifted his drink, but the glass was dry.

Colonel waved his hand over the three heaps of epic poem. “When do you think I wrote this, Paul? In my free time?” He grunted with laughter, his eyes bright. “Not bloody likely.”

Paul could scarcely breathe. Colonel had literally backed him into a corner of his cramped little office. Paul couldn’t stand without pushing Colonel out of the way, and he couldn’t even lean back any farther in the chair.

“You gonna let life, that bitch, grind you down, Paul? You gonna stay whipped for the rest of your days?” Colonel’s eyes burned. “Are we not men?”

Someone rapped loudly on the door of the office, and Paul hiccupped in surprise. Colonel rolled back in his chair. He closed his eyes, drew a breath, and mastered himself. Then he laid his arm casually along the desk, lifted his chin, and raised his voice. “Come in.”

The door swung open, letting in a puff of air-conditioning from the rec room. Bob Wier stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light from the far end of the room. He glanced from Paul to Colonel.

“He’s here,” Bob Wier said.

WITH HIS ARM AROUND PAUL, Colonel guided him back through the rec room and through the sliding-glass door, into the sticky Texas night. Without releasing Paul, Colonel paused and sent Bob Wier back inside.

“Wake him up.” Colonel nodded in the direction of J.J., comatose in the La-Z-Boy. As Bob Wier slid the door shut, Paul saw, as if through the bright gate of suburban Valhalla, Yasumi and Callie behind the karaoke console on the platform selecting songs from the computer monitor; they had put their arms around each other’s shoulders and were giggling like sorority sisters. A bored Olivia inched along the wall, surveying the movie posters. Bob Wier tugged at J.J.’s wrist, trying to pull him up out of the recliner. Then Paul was wheeled away in Colonel’s iron grasp.

“This way, Professor,” said Colonel. “Come meet our special guest.”

Paul, still clutching his empty glass, stumbled down the slope, ducking at the last instant the glowing ball of a paper lantern. For a moment he couldn’t see in the dark beyond the lantern, and he was dizzied by the screech of the crickets and the doppler whine of mosquitoes. Colonel released him, and Paul wobbled on his heels.

“Mighty good to see you again, Professor,” said a hollow voice out of the humid, high-pitched gloom. Colonel nudged Paul farther down the lawn, where it descended into a dry creek bed thickly bordered by juniper and bristling mesquite. Stanley Tulendij glided out of the dark, his pale face appearing at the farthest reach of the lantern light. He was wearing the same slacks and sport coat Paul had seen him in last week in Rick’s office, and he spidered up the slope on his long legs. “I hear you’re ready to join our merry crew.” He offered his bony hand to Paul. His eyes sparkled in the dark.

“What merry crew?” asked Paul warily.

Stanley Tulendij took Paul’s hand in his loose, cool grip. “I think we have some friends in common.” He tugged Paul by the hand down the slope. Paul staggered, and Colonel took the glass out of his hand and hauled him upright by the elbow.

“This is an important moment in your life, Paul,” he growled. “Pay attention.”

With Colonel on his left and Stanley Tulendij on his right, Paul peered into the gloom at the foot of the slope. At first he saw only the spiky silhouette of the mesquite against the pale limestone of the creek bed, but after a moment he became aware of a pair of pale eyes peering at him over the top of a bush. Then he saw another pair, peering through the thorny branches, and another, then four, five, as many as six pale faces with buzz cuts peering over or through the bushes from the dry creek bed. They shifted as Paul watched, moving around and behind each other, floating like balloons or dropping out of sight to reappear a few feet farther along or out of the shadow under a bush down near the ground.

Oh brother, thought Paul. I’m so fucking drunk.

Each pale face watched Paul with eyes that did not catch the light of the lanterns but seemed to glow from within like an animal’s eyes. The figures weren’t speaking in unison, but each murmured to himself, like the pale men in his dream that very morning. Paul could not quite make out the words, but he didn’t need to. He knew what they were saying.

Please tell me I’m drunk, he thought. Please tell me I’m not really seeing this. He staggered back from the faces, digging at the grass with his heels, trying to push himself up the slope. But Stanley Tulendij and Colonel each tightened his grip on Paul, holding him in place.

“No no no no no,” breathed Stanley Tulendij. “There’s no need to be afraid. These benighted souls are my brothers, Paul.”

“Your brothers,” said Colonel in Paul’s ear.

“Our brothers,” said the two men together.

There’s no one there, Paul told himself. I’m not really here.

“Sacked by the state of Texas, forgotten by their families.” Stanley Tulendij’s breath on Paul’s cheek smelled faintly of rot. “And cursed, Paul, yea, cursed , even unto darkness by the Almighty God himself.” His long, bony fingers seemed to curl all the way around Paul’s arm. “Who tried to drown them all at once, like a sack of puppies, washing them away into the long, cold darkness under Lonesome Knob, where they tumbled and rolled, and they rolled and tumbled—”

“Is he here?” said J.J. loudly, thumping down the slope from the house.

“Shh!” hissed Colonel.

“He’s getting the story,” whispered Bob Wier, padding silently behind J.J.

“—until they washed up deep, deep in the caves under the streets of Lamar,” continued Stanley Tulendij, “where I found them at last, after long tribulation, huddled together, in their final extremity, living off the very vermin of the caves.”

“Eating rats,” said Colonel.

“Spiders,” said Bob Wier.

“Centipedes,” said J.J.

Why can’t I see pink elephants, thought Paul, like everybody else?

“Lost men,” continued Stanley Tulendij in Paul’s ear, “broken men, shattered men, hopeless men. Drooling, gibbering, bloodless wraiths, reduced to the state of animals. They were beyond reason when I found them, Paul, driven mad by their humiliation and their nearly deadly ordeal. I offered to lead them back up into the light again, but they wouldn’t come. They wouldn’t come.”

The pale, shifting faces in the creek bed seemed to have multiplied by mitosis, doubling every few seconds, jostling each other behind the mesquite. “Are we not men?” they muttered, though Paul told himself he wasn’t hearing them; it was the whisky talking, chanting inside his head, “Are we not men? Are we not men?”

“I could not lead them home,” said Stanley Tulendij, trembling with emotion, “but I could not abandon them.”

“Why not?” chorused Colonel, J.J., and Bob Wier.

“Because they were men!” exclaimed Stanley Tulendij.