Shudder Page 11

  Anton spread his hands theatrically, “So, it becomes crude magical theater. You underestimate the influence of the most primitive part of the human psyche. When you play them out in symbolical form, in some sort of ritual, that’s how magic works.

  “Now, for the first time in history, we have a bunch of people working this chaotic but highly potent magic, consisting of rituals which when viewed unleash emotions from the deepest layers of the psyche, and it’s seen by everyone, including, let’s not kid ourselves, kids.”

  “Magical theater you say, rituals...” Dave raised an eyebrow. “You know—you may have something there.”

  “Well, thank you very much, professor Cohran.”

  “Ever thought of writing a dissertation on that?”

  “You read me like an open n-pad. I tried, some years ago.”

  “Didn’t work out?”

  “No. Absolutely politically incorrect. Now is the fashion to say that it’s mature to not talk scientifically about sex. At least not concerning anything too human like psychology, it should only be talk of molecules and receptors, and leave anything else to preachers and specialized blogs.”

  “You are not talking so much about sex, as about porn, right?”

  “Well, about both, truth be said.” The albino waved his hand dismissively. “Anyway, people feel safe only if you pretend that porn is like it was thirty years ago, and conclude your dissertation with something nice, like that it’s mature to have porn, and not dig too deeply into it.”

  He planted his hands on his thighs and leaned forward, giving Dave a knowing leer. “If you dig into sex, everyone feels threatened. They feel you want to take something away from them, to break the fragile magic that allows them to enjoy at least a little respite from the grind. The closest they have to touching God in a way.”

  Dave smiled with deliberation. He had just been thinking along very similar lines while listening to Anton. He had forgotten how frighteningly perceptive the albino could be. Inside his head, he was defending himself against what he perceived as an attack. He was mentally on the defensive for about two minutes now. “Well, good thing they didn’t chase you out with torches and pitchforks,” he said.

  “Or rather with whips and butt plugs. Yeah.”

  Dave gave a chuckle at the thought and then remembered something. “Wait, you’re actually saying that new trends in porn make new trends in our society, is that correct?”

  “Bang on.”

  “That’s a pretty brave statement.”

  “It is, isn’t it? Then again, you must remember, that people nowadays don’t think about what they are doing, they just follow trends. Fashion. If it’s fashionable to wear whorehouse boots, they wear whorehouse boots. If it’s fashionable to drink pee—they drink pee.”

  “So, you’re saying that whatever new trend does appear, everyone just takes it in their strides?” Dave thought of his secretary and of Georgette. “I kind of agree. It’s a little strange, isn’t it?”

  “Not really. Because you see, we are a civilization of legal and illegal stimulants and antidepressants.” Anton took another drag from his nicotine mood stabilizer. “So, no one has to ever change, and no one has to ever think deeply about himself or life in general.”

  Dave tried to not lose track of the turns and twists of Anton’s logic, which as always demanded considerable mental effort. “How does that follow from being on speed or antidepressants?”

  “Well, imagine you are raised as a Christian. Then, as you grow and mature, years pass, shit accumulates and finally you begin to have hints of doubts along the line that maybe life sucks and there is no God.”

  “Yeah,” Dave agreed, again feigning detachment.

  “Even before you really think it, when only the shadow of the hint of doubt arrives, you start feeling anxiety. To take another angle, if your thoughts edge towards actually comparing the life you lead with what the good book teaches, again, at the very hint of this thought anxiety jumps out of the bushes.

  “So, you either take some speed to outrun the anxiety, or you run your ass to the doctor, which is what all respectable folks do these days. There you get a pill which dulls the fear.”

  “Sounds logical.”

  “In another time this person would have felt his doubt and would have tried to deal with it by examining himself and his faith. In the end he would either have left the fold or have become a true believer—who has looked at the world and at himself unflinchingly, and still found the light of Jesus. Now…now you just have someone who never leaves the level of a trend.

  “You grew up and were told that you were a Christian, and you never questioned that, and that’s it. A pill helped you to not change, when the time for change came. So you didn’t.”

  “So, you are saying we have very little real Christians left?”

  “Very little real people left, is what I’m saying.”

  Anton stopped to get his breath, or rather, his smoke. Dave looked at him and wondered whether the talk was becoming personal, or was still purely theoretical.

  Anton fumbled with his lighter and a crumpled cigarette and continued. “Any issue, which in the past could have been life-altering, is now evaded, so this basic human trait, the ability to reason and to change, has been successfully suppressed. The same goes, of course, for the maturity crisis, mid-life crisis, making peace with old age, and everything else.”

  “Oh, I agree. I hate this stuff myself.” Dave spread his hands. “Everyone being on pills all the time. How does that help people drink pee?”

  Anton leaned in, forgetting for the moment that he should try to spare his guest’s face from the cigarette smoke. “Because no one has to examine why this notion excites them, what exactly they feel when they do it, or why. They just do it, because that’s what’s being done this season by trendy people, and maybe it even makes their hearts flutter and their limbs tremble in an exciting manner and generally feel very spiritual, and if anxiety or doubt start hovering on the horizon, they take a pill or snort a line and everything is a-okay.”

  Understanding stirred in Dave’s mind. “So, you’re saying folks can be fed any shit and they will accept it, because if it makes them feel bad, they take pills to not feel it.”

  Anton nodded forcefully, “Precisely. Not with everyone but with a sufficiently large percentage. Not only if it makes them feel bad, but also if it make them think too hard. That’s already frightening enough in itself.”

  “The Russians are the same, only with vodka.”

  “Nooo, nooo.” Anton waved his hands. “Being constantly drunk makes you an inefficient fatalist. Our civilization can’t survive on inefficient fatalists. It needs intense manic depressives in order to function. You know—run around, make money, be afraid of losing money, wring yourself out for the sake of the firm, impossible things if you are just an old-fashioned drunk.

  “We need the 1980’s ideal—a young speed freak, pretending he isn’t a speed freak, wringing himself out, pretending he’s having fun.”

  Dave gave him a military salute. “Good thing we have rational chain-smoking albinos to tell us that.”

  “Asshole.”

  The afternoon turned into evening, and evening into night. Both old friends, being coffee freaks, drank cup after cup of the stimulating brew, Anton smoked through a pack and a half, jumping up every half-hour to open the window for a minute for the sake of his guest, and Dave relaxed, and debated with his friend every topic under the sun.

  Anal porn and geopolitics, the economic situation and the decline of polite politics, contemporary music and contemporary school crime, everything was chewed over and passed back and forth.

  Finally, it was eleven in the evening and Dave stood up. “It’s been great, man, I missed these talks.”

  “Yes, and we both have much more to talk about now
.”

  “A sign of getting old, probably.”

  “We should do this again soon, detective.”

  “Absolutely, let’s give each other a call at the end of the week.”

  Dave went out and heard the door lock behind him. As he drove back to his home, he thought of the aged Anton. He was still smoking far too much but it was so good to hear him ramble.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “We have twenty-five percent of undecided voters who think they will vote in the elections,” Bob said.

  Natalie nodded, prodding him to continue. He continued. “Of those roughly half are with nationalist-conservative value systems and another five percent are green socialists, whom I feel we can win over in one way or another. Theoretically.”

  “So, that makes about seventeen percent of potential electorate.”

  “Yup. We’ll be lucky to convince four percent though, if you ask me. What about the peripheries?”

  Natalie placed her printout near Bob’s and pointed at the figures she had highlighted in yellow. “Well, the core of the conservatives is twelve percent and the periphery—eighteen. The periphery of the libertarians is two, and of the lefties—fourteen.”

  “Good, good, so we can, at least in theory, unburden the right-wing of a few percent from the periphery.”

  “Yes. But less than two months...that’s insane.”

  “I know that, and you know that, but we mustn’t let the customer know that.”

  Fancy that, Natalie thought and grinned, they had suddenly exchanged roles, now Bob was saying her lines.

  Would he be a good strap-on bottom? She tensed at the unexpected fantasy.

  A third person appeared at their desk. Penelope, the office manager. Her majestic puffy orange mane fell on her seriously padded shoulders. She was a hard-core 1980’s revivalist. “Natalie, Mister Blonski wants to talk to you in his office.”

  “Okay, I’m coming.” Natalie collected her printouts and her notebook, and followed Penelope to the chief’s office.

  Penelope knocked on the door and opened it. “Natalie is here, Mister Blonski.”

  “Thank you, Penelope, come in, Natalie.”

  Natalie delicately maneuvered herself into the chair in front of Blonski’s desk, opened her notebook on her lap, and waited.

  Blonski eyed her thoughtfully. “So, Natalie, how are things going with the National Patriot thing?”

  “Well, me and Bob were just talking about the undecided voters...”

  “What about the peripheries?”

  “Them too, Mister Blonski.”

  “And?” Blonski laced his hands as if in dignified prayer and leaned back.

  “Well, in theory, there are enough loose voters around to help a fourth party wedge itself into parliament, but frankly, I don’t think there’s enough time to achieve this.”

  “I also think that way but our customer, Mister Eberstark, seems to be an optimist. He’s paying good money, and also, I happen to owe him a favor from way back.”

  Natalie looked at Blonski. He was leading the conversation somewhere.

  Blonski cleared his throat and started looking somewhere above Natalie’s head. “He saw the preliminary report you and Bob wrote and he asks...he asks whether you would like to be his head of election headquarters.”

  “What? Me? But…”

  Blonski leaned forward again. “Now, you don’t have to accept. I would be glad if you did, because as I said, I owe him a favor.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because I told him that he needs a miracle and the only person who can conceivably work this miracle is you.”

  I owe him a favor he said. Natalie felt something like anger stir inside her, and straightened out her back and stiffened her belly. “Well, boss, I guess I accept. But I’ve never actually worked on a campaign, let alone direct it...”

  Blonski smiled and waved away what he thought of as childish fears. “No problems, really, he’s willing to take that gamble. He knows his chances are small and he was impressed with your report. We all know you had more input in it then Bob did.”

  “Still...”

  “You know what?” Blonski looked at her like a parent about to produce a stuffed Christmas stocking. “I told him about your brain scan idea.”

  “Still he wanted to work with me?”

  “Not only that, he promised to buy some brain scan equipment immediately.”

  Natalie closed her mouth and thought. Perhaps fate had thrown something valuable into her lap for once. In a rather unsophisticated manner certainly, but it did suddenly sound promising.

  * * * *

  As she traveled home later that day, conflicting emotions struggled for dominance inside Natalie. On one hand, she felt almost betrayed by old Blonski, as if he was giving her to another master like some sort of serf, a peon.

  On the other hand she felt a certain excitement just thinking about being in control of the whole process of trying to win the elections.

  Big league at last.

  With the brain scanners.

  All in all, things were working out quite fine.

  The evening rain briefly drummed at her scalp while she ran from her taxi to the foyer of her apartment block. Inside, she brushed the water drops from her hair, and entered the lift.

  It creaked and moaned as it went up to her floor, but mercifully nothing went wrong. Natalie exhaled as she went out. Back in childhood, she had developed a fear of other people’s germs, and tried not to breathe while in an elevator. Not in all elevators, but in dirty ones like this one.

  She went into her tidy home, and switched on the TV, unleashing a cheerful advertisement medley, and it felt almost like she wasn’t all alone.

  Part Two

  Chapter Nineteen

  Monday. Morning. Rain. A gray dusky light creeping in through the window, with a promise of allowing the sun to make a serious comeback in about four months.

  No hammering anywhere in the building. No music pounding and no kids galloping in homes where parents have already left for work. Only one faraway drill whining forlornly in the unknown distance.

  When the elements conspire to make the day perfect for sleeping through it, only one thing can help.

  Dave threw away his blanket in an act of manly defiance and with half-open eyes fiddled with his stereo until he found Obituary’s Slowly We Rot album. Then he abdicated from his struggle against gravity and lay down on the carpet, his nostrils reminding him that sooner or later he will have to vacuum his pad.

  A minute later, as the puke-like growls of John Tardy ripped into shreds the veil of sleepiness, Dave was already shaving and peeing into the sink, as bachelors are wont to do for lack of the restraining influence of a spouse.

  After washing his face and briskly smacking his cheeks with lemon-scented antiseptic lotion, he paused to study his reflection. How had he looked in Natalie’s eyes after all these years? He tried to imagine what she had seen.

  A David who had slightly more pronounced bags under his eyes, with some tiny wrinkles around and below them. He still had a rather clean complexion, was not prone to bad teeth, and was free of the red patches that blossom on and around the chronic drinkers and the pill-poppers noses.

  He fried himself some eggs and bacon and had a splendid breakfast with two large mugs of coffee with milk, scanning the day’s news on his computer.

  “Congratulations,” he told himself sardonically upon reading that the retirement age would rise again next year, from seventy-two to seventy-four. Another present for everyone.

  Well-groomed, earnest government spokesmen talked of the right to work, longer life spans, aging populations, and market forces.

  Why don’t they cut the crap and establish firmly the limit once and for all, he thought, just
say honestly that the retirement age starts one year after death and have it done with.

  Dave promised himself to make his first million before he reached fifty. He smiled at his childish evasions of unpleasant thoughts, put on his coat and shoes, and went out.

  “Drive, James,” he said and as his car vibrated to life he buckled up, pushed the gas, slowly released the clutch, and with the car’s first movements flipped on the radio. This time he had opted to let fate decide. Every time he pressed ‘waveband’, the radio would choose the next station in random mode.

  A city bus crowded him and with a perfunctory honk, Dave changed lanes.

  “The classical hit from the summer before last. Snowball, by Jake Buvarro.”

  After the normal short introduction of a three-tone keyboard melody, the bass and the drum machine added themselves to the mix. Then a deep, male voice began rapping.

  “Lissen up mah world.

  I’m talking to you,

  Snow White snorting snowflakes”

  A burst of female back vocals interjected:

  “Snow White, Snow White.”

  The male voice resumed:

  “Ready up—for the ball

  Ready up—for the snow ball

  Ready up.

  Ready up.

  Lissen up mah world.”

  Dave nosed his way in behind a gray Volvo, to the consternation of a retro man in a retro Smart behind it, and pressed ‘waveband’ again. With a quick crackle, another song took the place of the previous one.

  Although he had gotten rid of Jake Buvarro, what his ears registered now was something infinitely worse. Something, which gnawed at the very roots of that which made music, even bad dance music, was a mediator of the body and soul.

  There was an acoustic guitar alternating five chords, at least three of which were open ones, a simple piano melody piddled along, and the tinkling of many tiny bells accentuated the chord changes. A longing male voice whined: