The Stupidest Angel Chapter 8

Chapter 8HOLIDAY HEARTBREAKChristmas Amnesty. You plenty f each egress of contact with a friend, fail to return c alto operatehers, ignore e-mails, revoke tenderness contact at the Thrifty-Mart, for grasp birthdays, anniversaries, and reunions, and if you show up at their stick forth during the holidays (with a gift) they are socially bound to forgive you act standardised no intimacy drawed. Decorum dictates that the friendship move forward from that point, without guilt or recrimination. If you proceeded a chess game ten years ago in October, you exigency further if remember whose move it is or why you interchange the chessboard and bought an Xbox in the interim. (Look, Christmas Amnesty is a wonderful thing, only when its not a dimensional shift. The laws of time and space continue to apply, even if you watch been avoiding your friends. scarcely dont try using the expansion of the universe as an exempt give care you unbroken miserlying to stop by, tha t their house kept getting utmostther out-of-door. That crap wont wash. in force(p) regulate, Sorry I consument called. smiling Christmas. Then show the present. Christmas Amnesty protocol dictates that your friend say, Thats okay, and permit you in without further comment. This is the way it has endlessly been d cardinal.)Where the fuck realize you been? state Gabe Fenton when he stretched the door and saw his old friend Theophilus Crowe standing there, retentivity a present. Gabe, forty- vanadium, short and wiry, uns dupen and slightly balding, was erosion khakis that looked like hed slept in them for a week.Merry Christmas, Gabe, said Theo, holding out the present, a astronomical red bow on it sort of waving the box solelyt and forth as if to say, Hey, I clear a present here, youre not conjectural to sandbag me for not calling for three years.Yeah, nice, said Gabe. But you skill have called.Sorry. I meant to, and you were involved with Val, I didnt lack to i nterrupt.She dumped me, you hit the sack? Gabe had been entailing Valerie Riordan, the t births only psychiatrist, for several years now. Not for the shoemakers last month, however.Yeah, I heard well-nigh that. Theo had heard that Val wanted meveryone who was a particular to a gr squanderer extent involved with human culture than Gabe.Gabe was a behavioural field biologist who studied wild rodents or marine mammals, depending on who was providing the funding. He lived at a small federally owned bungalow by the lighthouse with his carbon-pound black Labrador retriever, mule skinner.You heard? And you didnt call?It was nearly noon, and Theos boil had mostly worn off, but he was still thrown. Guys were not supposed to lament the lack of support from a friend, unless it was tole double-dealereup in a bar fight or help in moving unplumbed stuff. This was not normal behavior. Maybe Gabe really did need to spend more time almost human beingnesss.Look, Gabe, I brought you a p resent, Theo said. Look at how glad Skinner is to see me.Skinner was, in fact, glad to see Theo. He was crowding Gabe in the doorway, his beefy tail beating over against the spread door like a Snausage war drum. He associated Theo with hamburgers and pizza, and had once conception of him as the emergency keep outletup Food Guy (Gabe being the simple Food Guy).Well, I suppose you should come in, said Gabe. The biologist stepped remote from the door and allowed Theo to enter. Skinner said hi by shoving his nose into Theos crotch.Im kneads in here, so things are a little messy.A little messy? An understatement on a par with calling the Bataan Death inch a nature hike it looked like someone had loaded all of Gabes belongings into a cannon and fired them into the room through the wall. impure laundry and dishes c all overed every surface except for Gabes workt able-bodied, which, except for the rats, was immaculate. subtle rats, Theo said. What are you doing with them?Im st udying them.Gabe sat down in front of a series of five-gallon aquariums arranged around a center tank in a star pattern and linked by Habitrail tubes, with inlets for routing rats from one chamber to another. Each of the rats had a eloquent disk about the size of it of a quarter attach to its clog.Theo watched as Gabe opened a gate and one of the rats rushed to the center tank and immediately tried to maturate its occupant. Gabe picked up a small remote control and gain the button. The fight rat nearly did a backflip stressful to retreat.Ha Thatll teach im, Gabe shouted. The effeminate in the center cage is in estrus.The rat backed away tentatively and did some sniffing, thence campaigned to mount the female again. Gabe hit the button. The male was jolted off of her.Ha Now do you get it? Gabe said maniacally. He looked up from the cages to Theo. There are electrodes on their testes. The silver disks are batteries and remote receivers. Every time he gets sexually aroused, I m contact his little nuts with fifty volts.The rat do another attempt and again Gabe hit the button. The rat spazzed its way to the corner of the cage.You stupid patronize Gabe shouted. You think theyd learn. Ill hit each of them with the jolt a dozen bankers bill today, but when I open the cage tomorrow, theyll all run back in and try to mount her again. You see, you see how we are?We?Us. Males. See how we are. We bop theres liberation to be nothing but pain, but we go back again and again.Gabe had always been so steady, so calm, so professionally detached, scientifically obsessed, so dependably nerdy Theo felt as if he were chating to a whole different person, like someone had scrubbed off all the in regularizeect and had exposed the nerves. Uh, Gabe, Im not sure that we should equate ourselves with rodents. I mean Oh, sure. Thats what you say now. But youll call me and tell me I was well(p). Something will happen and youll call. Shell stomp your amount of money and youll finish the destruction she starts. Am I discipline? Am I right?Uh, I Theo was thinking about the memorial park sex followed by the fight hed had with molly last night.So Im going to change the association. Watch this. Gabe stormed over to a bookshelf, threw aside a clop of professional journals and notebooks until he found what he was flavor for. See. See her. Gabe held up a recent Victorias Secret catalog. The model on the front was wearing garments spectacularly inadequate in concealing her appeal. She looked as if she rightful(prenominal) couldnt be happier about it. Beautiful, right? Amazing, right? Hold that melodic theme. Gabe reached into the pocket of his khakis and pulled out a stainless remote just like the one on the rat table. Beautiful, he said, and he hit the button.The biologists back arched and he all of a sudden became six inches taller, all the muscles of his body seeming to flex at once. He convulsed twice, then fell to the floor, the crumpled c atalog still in his hand.Skinner lapsed into a barking fit. Dont die, Food Guy, my bowl is on the porch and I cant open the door by myself, he was saying. It was the same every time, he was always glad when the Food Guy wasnt actually dead, but the Food Guys convulsions made him anxious.Theo rushed to his friends aid. Gabes eyes were rolled back and he twitched a equal of times to begin with he sucked in a deep glimmer and looked Theo in the eye. See. You change the association. Wont be long and Ill have that response without the electrodes glued to my scrotum.argon you okay?Oh yeah. It will take hold, I know it. It hasnt worked with the rats yet, but Im hoping it will before they all die.Theyre dying of this?Well, it has to hurt or theyll never learn. Gabe held up his remote again and Theo snatched it out of his hand.Stop itI have another set of electrodes and receiver. You want to try it? Ive been dying to try it out in the field. We could go to a titty bar.Theo helped Gabe to his feet, then set him in a c haircloth facing away from the rat table and pulled a chair around for himself.Gabe, you are out of control. Im sorry I didnt call.I know youve been busy. Its okay.Great, now he has the appropriate Christmas Amnesty reaction, Theo thought. These rats, the electrodes, all of it, its just wrong. Youre just going to end up with either a bundle of paranoid misogynist males, or a pile of corpses.You make that dense like a bad thing.You got your heart broken. It will heal.She said I was dull.She should see this. Theo gestured around the room.She wasnt interested in my work.You guys had a good run. fin years. Maybe it was just time. You told me yourself that the human male was not evolved for monogamy.Yeah, but I had a girlfriend when I said that.So its not lawful?No, its true, but it didnt bother me when I had a girlfriend. Now I know that I am biologically programmed to spread the seed of my loins far and wide, to as many females as possible, a series o f torrid, meaningless matings, only to move on to the next fertile female. My genes are demanding that I go across them on, and I dont know where to start.You might want to shower before you start the seed spreading.You dont think I know that? Thats why I was trying to reprogram my impulses. Tame the animus, as it were.Because you dont want to shower?No, because I dont know how to talk to women. I could talk to Val.Val was a pro.She was not. She never turned a misrepresentation in her life.Listener, Gabe. She was a pro listener a psychiatrist.Oh, right. Do you think I should start with a prostitute, or tutes?For a broken heart? Yeah, Im sure that will work just as well as the electrodes on your scrotum, but first I need you to do something for me. Theo thought by chance, just maybe, work nonfreakish work might bring his friend back from the brink. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the hank of yellow hair hed interpreted out of the Volvos wheel well. I need you to look at this and tell me about it.Gabe took the hair and looked at it. Is this wickedness stuff?Sort of.Where did you get it? What do you need to know?Tell me everything you can about it before I tell you anything, okay?Well, it appears to be blond.Thanks, Gabe, I was thinking maybe you could look at it under the microscope or something.Doesnt the county have a crime lab for that?Yeah, but I cant take it to them. There are circumstances. standardised?Like they will think Im stoned or nuts or both. Look at the hair, Theo said. You tell me. Ill tell you.Okay, but I dont have all that cool CSI stuff.Yeah, but the guys at the crime lab dont have batteries Super-Glued to their gonads. Youve got them there.Ten minutes later Gabe looked up from his microscope. Well, its not human, he said.Swell.In fact, it doesnt appear to be hair.So what is it?Well, it seems to have a lot of the qualities of heart fiber.So its man-made?Not so fast. It has a root, and what appears to be a curlicle , but it doesnt look like keratin. Id have to have it tested for proteins. If its manufactured, theres no evidence of the process. It looks as if it was grown, not made. You know polar-bear hair has fiber-optic properties transmit light energy through to the black skin for heat.So its polar-bear hair?Not so fast.Gabe, goddammit, where in the cavity did it come from?You tell me.Just us, okay? This doesnt leave this cottage unless We get some confirmation, okay?Of course. Are you okay, Theo?Am I okay? Youre asking me if Im okay?Everything all right with you and mollie? The job? Youre not smoking dope again, are you?Theo hung his head. You say you have another one of those electrodes?Gabe brightened. Youll need to shave a spot. preserve I open my present while youre in the bathroom? You can use my razor.No, go ahead(predicate) and open your present. I have some stuff I need to tell you.Wow, a salad shooter. Thanks, Theo.He took the salad shooter, Molly said.Wow, was that importa nt to him? Lena asked.It was a wedlock present.I know, I gave it to you. It was a wedding present to me and Dale, too.See, there was tradition. Molly was inconsolable. She drank off half of her nutrition setback and slammed the plastic Budweiser cup down on the bar like a pirate cursing over a schooner of grog. BastardIt was Wednesday evening, and they were at the honcho of the Slug saloon to coordinate the replanning of the food for the Christmas for the Lonesome political party. Lenas first reaction to Mollys call to help was to beg off and stay at home, but even as she was creating an excuse, she realized that shed only sit home obsessing alternately on getting caught for killing Dale and getting her heart broken by this strange, strange helicopter pilot. She decided that maybe meeting with Molly and song thrush down at the Slug wasnt such a bad idea. And she might be able to find out from Molly if Theo suspected her in Dales disappearance. Yeah, fat chance, with Molly obse ssing on Theos whatever it was that Theo was supposed to have make wrong. It sounded to Lena like he had just taken a salad shooter to work with him. You were supposed to empathize with your friends problems, but they were, after all, your friends problems, and Lenas friends, Molly in particular, could be a little wacky.The bar was full of singles in their mid-twenties and thirties and you could feel a desperate energy sparking around the coloured room, like loneliness was the negative and sex was the positive and someone was brushwood the wires together over an open bucket of gasoline. This was the fallout of the holiday grief cycle that started with young men who, lacking any stronger motivation toward ever-changing their lives, would break up with their current girlfriend in order to avoid having to buy her a Christmas present. The distraught women would sulk for a few days, eat ice cream, and avoid calling relatives, but then, as the idea of a solitary Christmas and New Year started to loom large, they swarmed into the Slug in research of a companion, virtually any companion, with whom they could pass the holidays. Full speed ahead and forget the presents. waste Coves male singles, to display their newfound freedom, would descend on the Slug, and avail themselves of the affections of dejected women in a game of small-town sexual melodious chairs played hungrily to the tune of Deck the Halls everyone hoping to have slipped drunkenly into someone more comfortable before the last fa was la-la-ed.There might have been a bubble around Lena and Molly, however, for they were obviously not part of the game. plot of ground both were certainly more than attractive enough to garner charge from the younger men, they had about them a mystique of experience, of having been there and moved on, of unbullshitability. Essentially, they scared the hell out of all but the drunkest of the Slugs suitors, and the fact that they were drinking straight diet Coke sc ared the hell out of the drunks. Molly and Lena, despite their own personal distress, had slain their own holiday desperation dragons, which was how the Lonesome Christmas party had started in the first place. Now they were on to new, individual anxieties.Sloppy joes, said song thrush, a bang-up cloud of low-tar smoke powering the announcement and washing over Lena and Molly. It had been illegal to smoke in California bars for years, but Mavis ignored the law and the authorities (Theophilus Crowe) and smoked on. Who doesnt like his meat dingy on a bun?Mavis, its Christmas, Lena said. So far Mavis had only suggested soupy or saucy entr??es Lena suspected that Mavis had misplaced her dentures again and was therefore lobbying for a gummable feast.With pickles, then. Red sauce, green pickles, Christmas theme.I mean shouldnt we do something nice for Christmas? Not just sloppy joes?At five bucks a head, I told her that barbecue was the only way to feed them. Mavis leaned in and look ed at Molly, who was muttering malevolently into her ice cubes. But everyone seems to think its going to rain. Like it ever rains in December.Molly looked up and growled a little, then looked at the television screen behind Mavis and pointed. The sound was muted, but there was a weather map of California. About eight hundred miles off the coast there was a great blob of rubric whirling in jump-frame satellite-photo motion, making it appear that a Technicolor amoeba was about to consume the Bay Area.Aint nothin, Mavis said. They wont even give it a name. If that thing was crouched like that over Bermuda, theyd have given it a name deuce days ago. Know why? Cause they dont come onshore here. That skreigh will turn right a hundred miles off Anacapa Island and go down and dump all over the Yucatan. Meanwhile we wont be able to wash our cars because of the drought.The rain at least will stop any sand-pirate attacks, Molly said, crunching an ice cube.Huh? said Lena.The hell did you say? Mavis adjust her hearing aid.Nothing, Molly said. What do you guys think about lasagna? You know, some garlic bread, a little salad.Yeah, we can probably do it for five bucks a head if we dont use sauce or cheese, said Mavis.lasagna just doesnt seem very Christmasy, said Lena.We could put it in Santa Claus pans, Molly suggested.No Lena snapped. No Santas We can do a snowman or something, but no friggin Santas.Mavis reached over and patted Lenas hand. Santa played a little grab-ass with a lot of us when we were little, darlin. Once your mustache starts growing youre supposed to let go of that shit.I am not growing a mustache.Do you wax? Because you cant see a thing, said Molly, being supportive.I do not have a mustache, said Lena.You think its bad being a Mexican, Romanian women have to start shaving when theyre twelve, Mavis said.Lena took that probability to plant her elbows squarely on the bar and grip two great handfuls of her hair, which she began to pull, slowly and steadily , to make her point.What? said Mavis.What? said Molly.And there was an awkward instant of silence among the three only the muted jukebox thumping in the background and the low murmur of people lying to one another. They looked around to avoid talking, then turned to the front door as Vance McNally, Pine Coves senior EMT, came through it and let loose a long, growling belch.Vance was in his midfifties, and fancied himself a charmer and a hero, when, in fact, he was a bit of a dolt. He had been driving the ambulance for over twenty years now, and nothing gave him pleasure like being the bearer of bad news. It was the measure of his importance.You guys hear that the highway patrol found Dale Pearsons truck parked up in Big Sur by Lime Kiln Rock? Looks like he was fishing and fell in. Yep, surf coming up from that storm, theyll never find him. Theos up there now investigating.Lena stumbled back to her bar betray and climbed up. She was sure everyone in the bar, all the locals anywa y, were looking at her for a reaction. She let her long hair hang down by her face, hiding in it.So, lasagna it is, said Mavis.But no fucking Santa pans Lena snapped, not looking up.Mavis pulled both of their plastic cups off the bar. Normal circumstances, youd be cut off, but as it is, I think you two really need to start drinking.