Grey

I could climb up, and walk beside it until I found a camera. Surely Joelene was monitoring the system for me.

Making my way back from where I had just come, through the mud, wasn’t easy. I couldn’t put much weight on my left leg, and at one point, my right sunk in so far I wasn’t sure if I could pull it out. What I had to do was fall back into the gunk and slowly wiggle it free. Several times, I stopped to rest and let what felt like white-hot embers of pain in my left subside.

When I got to the base of the Loop, I doubted I could make it. It was thirty feet high and steep. After I took a breath, I started to climb, but when I dug my fingers into the sticky soil, black roaches scurried out of holes as if I had disturbed their sleep. I got maybe three feet before the soil let go and a half-ton of it avalanched down.

After slapping the bugs from all over, digging dirt from my eyes, nose, and ears and spitting the stuff from my mouth, I tried again. This time I went slower, but my climbing had brought out so many waterbugs I spent half my time flicking them off my arms and legs. When I got four feet high, the earth let go again and half-buried me in a mound. Once I had pulled myself out and cleaned off, I felt sick. I vomited blood, and knew I didn’t have much time.

Turning, I watched the men. One had taken off his silver jacket and was waving his arms about as if explaining something. The sleeves of his undershirt—if that’s what it was—hung to his knees like long pillowcases.

The undershirt man began wrestling one of the others in white plastic. They pushed each other back and forth and shouted. When the plastic man fell, the others cheered. I feared they were going to start kicking him or pummeling him, but a moment later the fallen man was helped up. They all laughed as though it was fun.

They were people, I reminded myself. They weren’t unlike me. They just lived in a different place and wore different clothes. Some of them had to be friendly and polite.

Pulling myself out of the sand, I stood, and started limping toward them, avoiding the deeper water and mud and muck. When I was ten feet away, the one in his undershirt pointed at me. He had frizzy-looking light brown hair, round, bloodshot eyes, a thin crooked nose, and a patch of oozing purple skin on his forehead. Up close, I could see that his undershirt was a ghastly nonwoven that looked as rough as unfinished oak plank. Just below the neckline was a small, blue bug-looking thing with text below that read M. Bunny. Pointing at me, he said, “I thought I recycled you!”

The others laughed.

I tried to smile, but felt instantly ostracized. One of them in a silvery jacket pointed to my suit, snickered, and nudged the man next to him. Another said something about my bride throwing me in the ocean and I wondered if they knew of Nora. Pure H issue seven had copy that read: Mechanical Man. Exquisite Oceans. After swallowing a knot in my throat, I said, “Hello. I’m Michael Rivers.”

“Who?” asked the man I presumed was Mr. Bunny.

“First son of RiverGroup.”

“No!” said another. “What shitting team you with?”

“He doesn’t shit. That’s why his jacket is that color!” answered someone else.

They all laughed.

“I fell from the Loop,” I continued. “Can anyone help me back?”

“He’s the enemy!”

“He stinks!” said another, covering his nose.

“I used to dance,” I said, hoping they might know me from my PartyHaus days. “I was on the channels.” None of it seemed to register. Instead they giggled and pushed each other like schoolboys.

“He’s ill and delusional,” said one.

“Could be high-fructose psilocybin!”

“Wait!” said Bunny, as he looked me up and down. “He thinks he’s the one who dressed in gold.”

It was true. I had a twenty-eight-carat-gold outfit. “Yes,” I said, glad he remembered if disheartened how.

Bunny stepped beside me, and as if introducing me to the group, said, “You slubber idiots, it’s the evil banging-boy. In the deadest jacket ever seen with his diseased face in need of serious recycling!” He got them to laugh again.

I tried to smile to show that I didn’t mind, but worried that no good was going to come of them. I wished I had blacked out in the mud and suffocated.

“That’s not him!” said another, who had hair all over his face. “That kid was the richest pill ever. He’d never be here.”

“Yeah,” concurred Bunny. Wiping his dripping nose with one of his huge sleeves, he asked, “Who are you, and who do you shit for?”

“I need to get back to the families,” I said, as a ripple of fear, like gamma rays passed through me.

“I don’t want to hear any families!” The thing on his forehead oozed a yellowish puss, and he smelled like rancid frying oil.

“If he came off the Loop,” said someone. “Could be soaking with p’thylamine!”

“Satins will zap a slubber dead if you get up there,” said one of the others. “They electrocuted my uncle. Half his body was burned away. Couldn’t get anything for him.”

I retreated a step from Bunny and tried to make eye contact with the other men. “Will someone help me?” No one spoke. “I could assist you,” I suggested. “I know we’re supposed to be foes, but I could have some clothes tailored for you.” They looked at each other and laughed again.

“What’s wrong with our knits?” Bunny wanted to know, as he primped his sleeves and smoothed the stiff spunlaid material over his belly.

“No, nothing,” I said, taking another step backwards. “Sorry. Um… my family company keeps information… and… identity and…” Bunny glared at me as if I wasn’t making any sense. My voice trailed off.

“Michael Rivers,” said a female voice from farther back in the group. A short, chubby woman in red shorts, a sparkling red bra, and a small, white plastic jacket stepped forward. Her hair reminded me of Mother’s from last time—a stiff, multi-colored muddle shaped like a garden shrub—only hers was so laden with tiny silvery trinkets, it sparkled and tinkled like an enormous charm bracelet. Around her otherwise naked belly was a wide red plastic belt with a large button in the middle. “I heard he’s getting married to that Gonzalez-Matsu girl next week.”

“I was going to,” I said, “but there were complications.”

“Complications!” roared Bunny. “There’s going to be more than complications when they grind your ass into pate and spread you on bunny crackers!”

Everyone laughed except the woman. Instead, she peered at me suspiciously.

“I am Michael Rivers,” I told her, and thought I saw a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. I quoted, “The moment became her life.” Her expression darkened, and I cursed myself for thinking she knew Pure H.

Tilting her head to the right as if sizing me up, she said, “You look like that boy.”

“If he is,” said one of the men, “he is a big pill.”

Bunny said, “Pay for all of us to do Kandi’s hole.”

“Shut up!” she snarled.

“I was playing!” he said. “Next time you’re at the clinic, get a humor implant!”

Curling a lip, she said, “No more for you. Never again!”

“I was just joking!”

While the other men made cooing sounds, Kandi stepped forward and asked, “What are you doing here, honey?”

“I don’t know,” I said, glancing at her belt. The thing in the middle wasn’t a button but a plastic lid attached to her stomach.

She noticed my eye-line. “You want it?” she asked, with a sly grin. “You have to wash, honey.” She licked her lips and smiled.

It felt like the cooling system in Mr. Cedar’s suit had given out. “No, thank you,” I stammered, ashamed. I knew what it was: she had a vagina implanted where her bellybutton had been. Back when I danced, some women had it done, but it was terribly out of fashion in the cities now.

Meanwhile, the men were laughing at me again. Someone had said virginity. Another said spilling Grandma’s gravy, whatever that meant.