The Glacier (4 page)

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Authors: Jeff Wood

BOOK: The Glacier
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SUE

(radio)

Fuck off, Gunner.

Gunner turns and hurls his paper coffee cup at Sue. It explodes coffee all over the truck window.

GUNNER

Church coffee!!

Sue looks out from inside the truck window, coffee running down the glass.

Gunner goes back to the scope on the surveyor's gun and sights up Jonah in the crosshairs. Jonah stands across the site, quietly writing in his notebook. Gunner observes him and then speaks to Sue over the radio again.

GUNNER

(radio)

What in the hell is this guy always writing down?

But Jonah can hear him over the radio. He looks across the field at Gunner, directly down the scope of the surveyor gun as if they're looking eye to eye through a telescope.

Gunner pulls quickly away from the scope and snaps off his radio.

GUNNER

Dammit.

He walks back over to the truck and speaks to Sue. From opposite sides of the window their conversation sounds muffled and bubbled.

GUNNER

Roll down the window.

SUE

Leave me alone, Gunner.

GUNNER

I need to talk to you.

Sue thinks it over.

SUE

All right, back away from the truck.

GUNNER

Oh, come on.

SUE

Go on. Back away.

GUNNER

Jesus Christ.

SUE

Well go on.

Gunner backs up a few steps. Sue cracks the window.

GUNNER

What is he always writing down?

SUE

Who?!

GUNNER

Him.

Sue squints over his dash and across the field at Jonah.

SUE

I don't know. I never noticed.

GUNNER

Well I have. The guy never says shit and every second he gets he's always writing something down in that little notebook.

SUE

So what?

GUNNER

So I don't trust him, that's what.

SUE

Oh, will you quit being paranoid.

GUNNER

I'm not being paranoid. I'm observing is all, and what I'm observing is one more thing I don't need in my workday.

SUE

Gunner, we are not going to invent problems where there aren't any, so just lighten up.

GUNNER

Now that is just exactly what they want us to do. Just go along with the whole goddamn thing.

SUE

What whole thing? What are you talking about?

Gunner looks back out at Jonah. Jonah gestures with his hands as if to ask, “What's going on?” Gunner looks over at the new houses, searching for an answer.

SUE

Can we get back to work now?

GUNNER

It's just something I think you should know about, that's all.

Sue rolls up his window and goes back to his numbers.

Gunner darkens…

GUNNER

(ominously)

Suit yourself.

He lingers for a moment at the truck and then goes back to looking down the scope of the gun.

***

A long pink corridor of concrete block and fluorescent tube lighting, frighteningly institutional and empty.

Around a corner at the far end of the hallway, the sound of a metal cart approaching, clanking and rattling through the industrial complex…

Simone rounds the corner, pushing a cart full of salt and pepper shakers vibrating on metal trays. She rolls down the long hall, attentive and focused, pink walls flowing by on either side. Then an invading awareness sweeps across her face like a passing cloud, furrowing. She slows down and stops.

She looks at a couple of doors, unsure. She gazes down the long receding hallway, and back up the route she has just traveled.

She listens to the building, deathly quiet but for intermittent clanking off in the distance, as if there isn't another soul for miles.

She listens to herself, the invisible map inside her, of whatever country that is. She flexes her hands around the handlebar of the cart and looks down at the salt and pepper shakers gathered on the tray like a clutch of extraterrestrial spores.

Then she turns her cart around and pushes it back down the hallway, taking another turn and disappearing down another corridor.

***

A clumsy, familiar melody in the air of the neighborhood. The invisible song floats down a quiet new street.

The ice cream man!

Samson rounds a corner and slowly navigates the glacial streets. Deserted sidewalks, lifeless windows, winter lawns, the strange empty spaces between houses— Somnambuland. The ache of a phantom limb. Out here the ice cream man is king. The truck brings a luminescent glow to the neighborhood, a white-hot cauter beneath the overcast.

Sam rounds another corner in the labyrinth, trolling for action. Suddenly a front door explodes open. Bingo!

A small boy wearing a silver snowsuit and a space helmet rockets out of the house. He sprints across his front lawn and launches out into the street. All engines, maximum warp speed. He chases Sam's truck down the center of the street.

Sam sees the boy in his side mirror and grins rakishly, watching the boy run… Then he pulls over.

The space boy looks up at Samson through his space helmet.

Samson beams down at him, radiant.

SAMSON

Hello there!

SPACE BOY

I'm in outer space.

SAMSON

You most certainly are! How may I assist your mission today?

SPACE BOY

It's cold.

SAMSON

Yes it is. But it can get very hot in outer space under certain circumstances like suns, supernovas, red dwarves, and Big Bangs. Then there's heat shield failure during reentry and other misfortunes. You're familiar with all this, of course.

Space boy is focused.

SAMSON

How about some hot chocolate?

SPACE BOY

Hot chocolate!

SAMSON

All right then. One hot chocolate coming right up… Here you are, sir.

Samson hands the boy a steaming cup of hot chocolate. Space boy holds out some change in his little hands.

SAMSON

Oh, I'm sorry, but your currency is no good on this planet. Save it. No charge.

SPACE BOY

Thank you.

SAMSON

You bet.

A sickly woman emerges from a house and stands in the front doorway in her bathrobe. Sam nods to her and she disappears back inside, leaving the door ajar.

Sam climbs out of the back of his truck and walks up the front walk with a doctor's house-call bag. He enters the house and shuts the door behind him. The sullen beige house glooms in the flat midday light.

The woman is lying on the living room couch in her bathrobe and an afghan. She's looking into the daylight filtered through thin, gauzy curtains.

Sam enters and approaches the couch. He moves a box of Kleenex out of the way and sits down before her on the ottoman, obstructing her from view.

From behind the couch we see him speaking to her softly, backlit by the light coming through the curtains. We can't see his actions, or her, but we hear her quiet replies.

SAMSON

Is there anyone you would like me to contact for you?

SICKLY WOMAN

No. Just the bank.

SAMSON

I will certainly do that.

SICKLY WOMAN

Thank you, Sam.

SAMSON

You're going to feel a little prick here.

SICKLY WOMAN

Ah—

SAMSON

It's okay.

SICKLY WOMAN

Sam…

SAMSON

It's okay.

SICKLY WOMAN

Sa—

SAMSON

It's okay.

Sam waits another quiet moment and then exits. Through the pale veil of the living room curtains we see him take a real estate lawn sign from out of his truck and put it up in the front lawn.

Sam fires up the melody maker and pulls away.

The sign on the front lawn reads: FOR SALE.

***

Robert is curled up like a baby on top of the covers.

The dresser, the mirror, the night stand. A clock ticks over the silence, surgically counting another day away.

A tiny, tempting melody creeps into the bedroom and dances around his head like a swarm of drunken mosquitoes.

Robert opens his eyes.

He descends his driveway and waves Samson down. Sam pulls over and leans out the window like a thousand-watt bulb.

SAMSON

Howdy.

ROBERT

Hello.

SAMSON

What can I do for you?

ROBERT

Well… I'm not exactly sure.

SAMSON

Hot chocolate is pretty popular this season.

ROBERT

I'll bet. What else do you have?

SAMSON

What else are we in the market for?

ROBERT

I'm not sure. Something a little stronger, I guess.

Sam considers him.

SAMSON

You a cop?

ROBERT

No. Do I look like a cop?

SAMSON

Yes. Do I look like the ice cream man?

Sam opens up the rear of the truck and leads Robert inside.

ROBERT

Holy smokes.

The interior seems oddly and deceptively bigger than it could possibly be. Part laboratory, part showroom, the ice cream truck has been perceptibly re-sized and retrofitted as a state-of-the-art medicine wagon.

SAMSON

As you can see, I'm able to offer just about anything that you might be looking for. So. What is it that you're looking for?

Hundreds of bottles and jars are beautifully displayed on glass shelves—a dazzling rainbow of pills, powders, capsules, and exotic plants.

ROBERT

Gosh. Something for pain, I suppose.

SAMSON

What type of pain?

ROBERT

A general sort of pain.

SAMSON

Physical or mental?

ROBERT

Well I guess it's sort of that gray area.

SAMSON

I see. Are you taking any medication, currently?

ROBERT

No, not really. Vitamins. Aspirin. Coffee, I guess. If that counts.

SAMSON

It depends on the quantity, of course. Can wreak havoc on the adrenals, but it's my weakness too.

How is your mortgage situation?

ROBERT

Fine. Paid off, actually. That's one thing I'm not worried about. Why?

SAMSON

Just a stress indicator.

ROBERT

What's this?

Inside a solitary medicine cabinet, behind a glass door, there is a vessel containing a silver metallic liquid.

SAMSON

Ah, that's just a novelty item.

ROBERT

It looks like mercury.

Robert leans into the glass to gaze upon the curious, attractive substance.

ROBERT

It's very beautiful.

SAMSON

Isn't it?

Sam moves to the work counter and begins working with a mortar and pestle and some herbal greenery.

But Robert can't take his eyes off the silver vessel. The shimmering liquid reflects a fish-eye view of the room.

ROBERT

Well, is it?

SAMSON

What?

ROBERT

Mercury.

SAMSON

Quicksilver, actually.

ROBERT

Oh… What's the difference?

SAMSON

Semantics.

ROBERT

What do you mean?

SAMSON

Exactly.

Robert draws a blank.

SAMSON

It depends on how you look at it.

ROBERT

Uh huh. What's it for?

SAMSON

It's not for anything.

ROBERT

Then why do you have it? What does it do?

SAMSON

It does have some therapeutic properties.

ROBERT

You just said it's not for anything. Mercury is poison.

SAMSON

Sort of. In a way, yes.

ROBERT

So you poison people?

SAMSON

Why would you say that?

ROBERT

Because that's what it is.

SAMSON

(more firmly)

Like I said, it depends on how you look at it.

The Quicksilver glimmers and glistens.

SAMSON

Many naturally occurring substances with poisonous properties also have therapeutic uses. This is called the law of similars, or, if you like, homeopathy.

ROBERT

So what does it do, then?

SAMSON

It's different for everyone.

ROBERT

You're not answering my questions.

SAMSON

You, sir, are momentarily in my charge and this substance does not concern you, except perhaps as an object of caution. Now I suggest we focus on the issue at hand or terminate this engagement.

ROBERT

I see. And what is the issue at hand?

SAMSON

Your condition.

ROBERT

Which is?

SAMSON

Chronic boredom. A pervading sense of uselessness. Loneliness, isolation, malaise. Textbook depression. Anxiety. General physical nervousness. Circadian inversion characterized diametrically by compulsive napping and insomnia. Regret. Remorse… Repressed anger resulting in self-deprecation, passive aggression—

ROBERT

All right, that's enough.

SAMSON

Denial.

ROBERT

Thank you.

SAMSON

Contempt. Bitterness.

ROBERT

Yes, I get the picture.

SAMSON

Impotence.

Robert glares at him, impotently.

SAMSON

Now what I would like to suggest is a very basic protocol—

ROBERT

I think I've had just about enough of your suggestions and amateur diagnoses. I don't believe you have any idea what you're talking about and I've half a mind to seek out a regulatory board or business bureau on behalf of the safety of the neighborhood.

Stand-off. Samson speaks calmly and confidently without a shred of doubt as to the accuracy of his knowledge.

SAMSON

The Quicksilver is a profound therapy in which the patient, having exhausted all other options, is injected with the element. Whereby, a neurological transaction occurs such that the benefit and the cost are relative, and terminal. The patient undergoes a complete psychological rehabilitation, the prognosis of which can, paradoxically, only be described as both highly personal and transcendentally impersonal. But in so achieving this level of catharsis, the patient trades his or her life.

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