Grey (14 page)

I wanted to smash his face. "You had me shot!" I fired back.

"Did not!" said Father, sounding exactly like a five-year-old.

"I know for sure."

"You do not!" He laughed. "That would be massive stupid—even for me!"

"You had the freeboot shoot me because you hate me. It was someone close."

Father glared at me as though I were crazy. When Joelene came to my side, he asked her, "What lies are you telling him?"

"I have not told him any lies, sir." She tried to smile, but I could see she was annoyed at me. "Understandably, given your histories, he assumes that you were somehow behind his misfortune."

"I would never do that. It doesn't make any business sense!"

"Sir," continued Joelene, "I'll take Michael home now. He needs rest. We're very excited about the ratings, but we—"

"Ass missile!" he growled at her. "We have to keep moving!" Lowering his voice he said, "They're all against us! mkg is trying to take us down. Now, this date saved our holes tonight, but we've got to use this momentum for the product show." He kept having to unstick the armpits of his paint-covered jacket as he moved and gestured. "You know what we heard just ten minutes ago? mkg is planning to announce their new product the same time as our product show!" He jabbed a finger in my chest. "Don't accuse me or RiverGroup. It was them! That grey-sucking Nora and her shit-faced dad. They shot you!
That
makes sense."

"There's no evidence of that, sir," said Joelene.

"I'd find evidence if I had time to look for it. That whole thing is a joke. How did that fucking freeboot get out of there? And how did he shoot Michael in the hands and feet from where he was supposed to be? Answer me that?"

"Again," said my advisor, obviously keeping her exasperation in check, "I'm not saying that I have all the answers, but the family commission has stated that a single freeboot did the shooting. And no evidence was found that mkg was involved."

"Commission
com-fiction
!" he spat at her. "mkg is on the commission! Besides, all the families hate us because we have them by the balls. They've been waiting to fuck with us for years."

"That's all conjecture," said Joelene.

"No, it's butt-tastic truth!" he declared. "mkg planned it, did it, and now they think they're going to be number one!"

"That's not true," I said.

"It was them!" screamed Father. "They're a thick layer of butt snot on toast!" He shook his head solemnly. "They think they're going to win, but they're not! We're gonna screw them right back." He threw his arms out. "We're gonna have our big merger news, and an even bigger merger wedding."

"I'm not marrying her!" I said. "I will only marry Nora."

"Did I ask you a question?" he snarled. "No! So don't fucking talk. And besides, I banned
her
name. So don't even think it!"

"Nora!" I said into his face.

The tendons in his neck tightened. He stepped an inch before me. "Dare you to repeat it."

Into the rancid fog of his breath, I said, "Nora." I stood my ground even as my eyes began to water from both the rotten carrot stink and my own fear.

Red blotches appeared across his face and neck. His right shoulder rose and I was sure he was about to backhand me. At the last moment, though, he turned to his film crew and screamed. "Stop! I can't have my boy talking back like this! Turn it off, and get outta my face!" As the two men backed away, Father stepped before Joelene. "Doesn't he understand his duty to RiverGroup?" Before she answered, he asked me, "Why do you think I worked so hard to have a son?"

I said, "I wish you hadn't."

"Well, I did!" he scoffed. "And believe me, I'm
real
sorry now." He paused, and then his lower lip began to vibrate. Jamming his fist onto his lips he tried to control himself, but he was crying. "Fucker pies!" he said, his voice shaky.

While the threat of violence before had been scary, this really frightened me. I hated his screaming and ranting, but the idea that he was going to break down was worse. I stared down at my shoes, ashamed.

"I tried so hard," he said. "So hard. All I want is your help with the company. We're in real bad shit—the squishy kind of shit with whole corn kernels." He took a deep breath and swallowed as if to down his unhappiness. "I gave you life."

"But now you're taking it away."

"If there's no RiverGroup, there
is
no life. Don't you understand?"

I shook my head. "Without her, I have nothing."

He smacked his face with his hand, clenched his eyes, and said, "Get outta here! I can't take this. I can feel my hemorrhoids acting up!" Pointing at Joelene, he said, "Take the idiot home and teach him something!"

"Sir, let me reassure you that—"

"Excuse me!" interrupted Ken, who had run from the table. "Sorry, Mr. Rivers. Bad news!" After glancing at Joelene and me, he said, "Just heard it on the channels."

"What now?" asked Father, as if he wanted to collapse.

Gritting his teeth, his blue eyebrows practically knotted together over his nose, Ken said, "Please don't be mad at me."

Father rolled his eyes. "You raccoon rectum! Just tell me!"

Ken cupped his hands over Father's ear and whispered. As he did, Father's eyes got large. "No!" He stood back and glared at us. For a second, I thought he was going to laugh. "They didn't!" he said, shaking his head. "No. It's impossible! They couldn't have. I completely forbid it!"

Ken shrugged as if he couldn't explain it and backed away a step.

Father's face turned the color of salmon. The veins on his forehead throbbed. "Fucktastic bombastic!" he finally bellowed. "You saw
her!
You met our enemy!"

"Sir," said Joelene, shielding me with an arm, "please! Listen to the facts. What happened was that we—"

Father's right fist shot forward in a karate chop of a punch that slammed her breastbone. A loud and horrible
puhh
came from her as she fell backward, crashed into a vending machine, and crumpled onto the floor. "I should kill you!" screamed Father. "I should have them give you an ant enema. We're facing the biggest crisis of all time and you help him do this!"

When he turned to me, I saw a ripple of fury like I had never seen before pass through his face. It was like a tectonic shift beneath his skin. "I'm killing someone today," he said to me, his voice raw.

Crouching beside my advisor, but keeping an eye on him so he didn't try and bash me over the head, I asked her, "Are you all right?"

As she huffed to try and get air back into her lungs, I think she said, "Yeah."

"First we pull a super twenty-two rating!" said Father, tugging at his Afro like he wanted to rip it from his skull. "We're hard lard and now another disaster!" Pointing at Ken, he said, "Get back to the table and tell Chesterfield something. Say whatever he wants to hear. Beg him. Cry for him! Anything!"

"Anything!" said Ken. He ran back to the table.

Joelene was breathing easier now, but her eyes shined with tears, her mouth was scrunched into a frown, and her teeth were tightly clenched. She was glaring at Father as if she were going to burn a hole through his chest.

"You are officially fired from RiverGroup," said Father to her. "I'll get you kicked out of the families and sent to slubberland where they'll eat your guts alive."

"It was my plan!" I told him. "I did it."

"Dick-tastic!" he sneered as he rubbed his hand, as if now he felt the impact of his punch. "You're like the worse son in the history of the universe."

"Just leave her alone!"

"Hiro!" said Xavid as he approached, "look what you've done to your 'fro!" With three long, hornbeam chopsticks, he began to fluff Father's Afro back into shape.

"They saw Nora!" Father whined. "It's a betrayal of everything RiverGroup. Most of all it's a big fat slap in my face."

"You need to control this," said his hairdresser, quietly yet sternly, as he chopsticked Father's Afro.

"I won't do anything if you fire Joelene," I threatened.

With his hands on his hips, Father glared at me. "You're no help anyway!"

"Hiro," said Xavid, "remember what I said. We need him. You need to
use
him."

"He just mocks me or makes me look like an idiot!"

"Joelene didn't do any of this. It was my plan," I said, ignoring his ridiculous hairdresser.

"Michael," Joelene said, "maybe it's time that I should—"

"No!" I told her, hating even the suggestion that she should quit. The thing was, she didn't look so much angry or hurt, but resolute.

"She can't leave me!" I said to both Father and her. Looking her in the eye, I said, "I need her. She's like my real family."

Joelene suppressed a smile, and then patted the back of my hand.

"Butt vomit!" said Father. "What is the matter with you? She's your damn tutor! Not your
family.
Don't you know anything?"

"Well," I asked, thumbing toward Xavid, "who is
he?"

"A damn good and loyal RiverGroup officer!" A drop of sweat rolled down Father's forehead. When he wiped it with the sleeve of his jacket, it left a green smear.

"Now look what you did!" said Xavid, scolding him like a little boy. As he got out a silky cloth and wiped Father's forehead, he leaned in and said, "I think you need to make it very clear to them what you expect."

"Yeah!" agreed Father. A beat later, he asked, "How do you think?"

"What about your friend in Europa-13?"

Father narrowed his eyes at his hairdresser. "Great idea. A threat!"

"Exactly!"

"Let us go back to the compound," I told Father.

"Don't think so! We're taking a drive." With a wink toward Xavid, he added, "I've got a rotten, horrible, stinking, evil bastard I'd like you to meet."

From the outside, our Loop cars were identical orange-and-blue-painted teardrops, with a tilted glass all around. Inside, his was not surprisingly a design catastrophe.

Every surface was upholstered with a different material so it looked like a cheap fabric sampler. Unlike the muted, indirect lighting in my car, here a hundred blue and orange pinpoint lasers scribbled Ültra lyrics everywhere at high speed. While it covered everything in a senseless, vibrating surface, occasionally a phrase lingered in the eye.
Unite our diseases . . .
Engage booster fuck
 . . .
My tender gender fatality
.

When I stepped in, I found that the floor was covered with an unpleasant super-shag rug that crunched like dried leaves. Scattered among the yarns was a vast assortment of garbage, including empty carrot liquor bottles, star-shaped pills, phallus-shaped pills, fist-shaped pills, skull-shaped pills, red and black dildos, some of which were twitching like dying insects, and several bits of what looked like bloody fur. I figured it was the debris of a debauched car-party while he watched the promotion date.

My car had only four seats with consoles; his had a dozen chairs all the way around. He and Xavid sat on the far side, the film crew set up in back, and Joelene and I were closest to the side door.

Once we were on the Loop, Father opened a bottle and poured glasses of carrot.

"Some rotten garden juice?" he asked us.

"Thank you, no," said Joelene.

Once he and Xavid had made a toast, he turned his glass upside down over his mouth and let the goop slowly drop in. "Thick!" he said, once he had finally swallowed it. For a while he turned on some painfully loud Ültra song and sang along. Joelene and I covered our ears. The phrase
Snuff Your Mind
flashed onto my leg. Instinctively, I swatted my hand at it as though it were a mosquito.

Then the music was off. "We have to start having rages again," said Father. "Dance parties every night! That's what we did when we were number one." As quickly as he had been excited, he slumped, and said, "Our clients all hate me," and stared at the black residue in his glass.

"They don't hate you," said Xavid. "You're a tough businessman. They admire you and fear you."

Father laughed. "They hate me because I'm a terrible businessman. They think I'm so stupid they can take me down. But I'm not going to let them." One of the lasers etched
Behold . . . The Immaculate Bruise
across his face.

The car exited the Loop, and after we traveled down the deceleration ramp, we were on local roads passing low buildings and wide avenues. I wasn't sure where we were, but it had to be somewhere in Europa-12, where there wasn't much of anything good. The streets became more narrow and bumpy. I saw stretches of abandoned buildings and junk everywhere. We came to a checkpoint; Father stepped out into the stink of the night and negotiated our passage with blue slub satins.

"Joelene," I whispered urgently, "what's going on?"

She just said, "Shh."

"No, sir," intoned one of the blue satins outside. "Off-limits to the families."

A moment later, Father was giving them bottles of carrot liquor and patting them on the back; soon we continued into the slubs.

Outside it was mostly just black. Only the occasional reddish electric light or fire illuminated anything. Along one road, I thought I saw what looked like thousands of broken and bent bikes. Down another were piles of garbage, with women and children picking through it.

Father was going to leave me out here, I figured. My only chance was to keep away from the slubbers until morning and then try and find my way back to the cities. Before, my mistake had been talking to them. This time I'd hide. I'd stay quiet.

The truth was, I doubted I would survive the night, so I said goodbye to Mr. Cedar, to
Pure H,
Joelene, and most of all, to Nora. I hated that I'd never see her again, but at least she would know that I would rather die than surrender my love.

The car made another turn; I saw people huddling around a bonfire. In the orange light, a naked girl danced. Farther along, I saw men fighting. One was hit in the face with a rock or a bottle. It knocked his head back with such force that I was sure his neck was broken. He dropped to the ground.

For several minutes I could see nothing. We made three more turns and then the car came to a stop. The engines whirred as they slowed. The laser lights stopped scribbling their madness all over us and, for an instant, the world was still and peaceful. The side door slid open, and in the faint moonlight, I saw dilapidated two-story cinderblock buildings.