subrosa: the adventures of bill chase chapter_22_2

Chapter 22_2


"Mutant is not the right word. Mutation is a natural deviation that can hinder or help survival. When it helps survival, such as a reptile mutating into a bird over a few thousand generations, then that creature finds a new niche in life where it might of had to die in its previous form. Such as if the world gets colder and you are a tree that does not know how to throw its leaves off in winter and sleep until spring. And I am one of the results of a project conducted by many scientist and technologist and philosophers and I do not know who all, that had concluded that humans needed to mutate to improve their chances of living in the future they had created for themselves. And natural mutation is too slow in our case, so they chose to manipulate it to their pleasing. So far they have not done much better than me."

"You certainly are pretty but if they went to all that trouble for a nice face it’s a bit of a waist of time."

"They accomplished a few things. We are healthier. No genetic faults.
That is a big step. I am not sure what else they can do. I know my brain functions a little differently but I do not know how much of that is from what I learned in my childhood."

"I don’t see the need for it."

"They are convinced man as he is will soon be extinct; either we make ourselves into something that succeeds us or we give the world over to the insects."

"Dolphins are pretty smart."

"But they live in our chemical dump."

"This manipulation cloning thing sounds a little dangerous."

"We are, I mean the all of us, dangerous and we are learning new methods to manifest or depravity. But on the other hand, we may inadvertently use some knowledge to our survival advantage."

We took our shoes off and walked along the beach until we found a little secluded spot up on a small dune. I took my clothes off so that I could feel the energy of the sun’s rays.

"Do you think that’s a good idea?"

"Danny says he does it all the time out here"

"And if Danny says he does it then it must be okay," Kathy said sarcastically.

"Take your shirt off," I said and helped her.

"You’re nuts."

"No, it is just one set of beliefs against another. It is ridiculous to be so prudish."

"I suppose you are right. I was raised in a Christian family and we didn’t do this sort of thing."

"No, but you had sex with me and let me lick you all over."

"But I’m not a good example. I was lonely and needed love that a dead
Jesus couldn’t give."

"It is all nonsense. Those who say they follow, only follow when it is convenient. Not when they are seventeen and full of hormones."

"No. I suppose we don’t think of most of the things we believe and do."

"No. It is our lot to do as we are told. It is easier than making decisions all the time."

"Nice day, isn’t it?" said a short hared fellow wearing only a moustache and a baby blue jock strap that barely held in his genitalia. "My name is Vince. I saw you two walking up her and thought you looked like the ones in the paper. But you don’t look like you want to kill her anymore."

"No. We worked out our little dispute."

"I’m sure. And I wouldn’t worry about that cut between your breast. You are so pretty even if it didn’t heal it wouldn’t matter. But it will fade. They were careful to sew it up well. Those young doctors take their time around those kind of tits."

"Thanks," Kathy said.

"I don’t know what I’m rambling about. I’ve been in the sun too long. I just thought it funny to see you two together."

"They got the story a little mixed up," Kathy explained. "Bill is my lover and doesn’t have to use force to use my body any way he pleases."

"Bill is a lucky man. Then again he can abuse me if he wants. I’m sorry.
It’s the sun; I can never stop talking. And you can be sure I’ll tell everyone I saw you two together. I’m off. If the cops come up the beach, I’ll give a screech so you can put your clothes on. Sometimes when the pricks are up tight, they come out here and bust a few homos for exposing their parts. Okay, stay happy."

"Good talking to you."

After he disappeared over the small sand hill, we spread out our clothes and laid back on them to relax.

"He seemed like a friendly sort," I declared.

"Must have some good DNA."

The day slipped away while we sat and watched the dirty poisonous waves licking the oil stained beach. We decided we had spent enough time lying on the beach so we dressed and walked along the shore until we came to Centre Island where we put our shoes on to walk through the goose shit that covered the grass.

"Did you know that geese shit every fifteen minutes?" I asked.

"No, I didn’t stop to think about that. And now that I do I don’t know if I care to believe it."

"Geese do not seem natural to me when they are living in the thick of
civilisation."

"It’s hard to be natural these days."

"But if it is natural that humans have had their hands in everything everywhere than natural is what there is. So in that way maybe geese are just finding their new niche."

"If you think so."

"I have sometimes wondered if we say what we think would fit in the conversation, things said to manipulate reaction and agreement rather than saying just what we think. I find myself saying what I know people want to hear sometimes and I am not sure why. I want to make people think about the things I like to think about. I want people to agree with me. Sometimes. I guess sometimes I am not so agreeable.

"If you say so."

"I do. You know we manipulate each other in little ways. Sometimes it is friendly and other times it is mean. Sometimes people try to poke at soft spots."

"Is that right?"

"I know it."

"And you’re the one to know."

We walked through the square garden of square trees and square shrubs, then over the bridge to the Far Enough Farm where we watched the caged animals munching on grass and seeds.

"I love watching chickens. I did it often at the Harrison’s farm."

"Why?"

"Chickens are great animals."

"You will have to tell me how."

"They are entirely mindless with their little reptilian brains. They are ignorantly rude and arrogant and walk like they are obsessed with mad intent."

"Those are good qualities."

"For a pecker-headed chicken. It suits them. Evolution made no mistake with chickens."

"Humans had there hand in there too. A chicken laid twelve eggs a year until they were bread to lay two hundred a year and not complain."

"I guess that is true."

"No one asked the chicken what she thought about the whole thing."

"At least she has a job."

"Ah."

"Bunnies are excellent creatures too. They seem so unprepared for a hostile environment. They are so soft and frail looking."

"They shit almost as much as a goose."

"Ya, but they eat half of it again."

I looked over at a fat lady wearing bright coloured baggy clothes. She was throwing popcorn at the rabbits. Her fat son was with her, eating candy floss and being somewhat ignorant of his surroundings.

"Humans are the strangest animal though. I can not imagine how they ended up like they did. Their conduct is irrational. They take their selfness too seriously."

"Or not at all seriously."

"Maybe that is it."

On our way past the fat people, I could not resist making a face at the obese kid. I wanted to disturb him. He just looked at me as if I was the idiot. I wanted to slap his brain to wake him up but his beliefs and ways of seeing were likely already crustified. He wanted nothing from me.

We walked through the little mock town and stood in a line to purchase ice cream cones. They tasted great. Sugar and fat. We sat on a bench watching the parents and kids amusing themselves in the miniature railroad station. Humans and their delusion amusements. It was both pleasant and sad.

When we got back to the mainland, we walked along the harbour front and observed the great number of expensive boats and the construction sights that were destined to turn the area into a rich man’s territory. It made me feel lonely to know there was little room for poor people in the scheme of city planning. If one could not make enough money, one was only a burden to the city. They were making a beautiful city with their ugly buildings but it would be an unbalanced city. I wondered if it was so very different from the Roman civilisation, a civilisation that appeared well off but in actuality lacked some of the more important aspects of life for the ordinary man.

At Bathurst Street, we turned north and walked toward Kathy’s humble, over-priced, cockroach infested dwelling place in the market.

"Hi," I said to Sally as we came in.

"Bill, they didn’t let you out?"

"I took leave."

"But you are under arrest. They were going to move you to jail to wait your trial."

"I was not interested."

"I hope they don’t find you."

"Me too."

"You shouldn’t be on the streets."

"It might be necessary for me to leave here."

"Where will you go?"

"Maybe I will go back west. All the way to Vancouver or move up into the mountains and work in a bar or something and just enjoy the fresh air. I would not need much, a small room and a library card and the mountains."

"If that’s your thing. I couldn’t live like that. I need more action and entertainment."

"An old Chinese curse went something like that. May you live in interesting times."

"That’s a dumb curse."

"Not from a philosophers point of view. But not everyone has the patience for a quiet life. It can be hell for some people."

"Did you see your picture in the paper?" Shelly asked.

"No."

She went to her bed and brought back one of the city papers, the one with the big print on the front page. There was a picture of the police watching as I was put into an ambulance.

"That was the first day. There’s been a few different stories, some even suggesting your innocence and connection to the young woman who is a teenage runaway."

"I hope they get it figured out," I said.

"You could try explaining it to them, if all else fails. I think if you and
Kathy went in to the police together they should believe what you tell them."

"Maybe they would, but they would soon find connections back to the farm and my origin, then I would be in as much trouble."

"Caught between a rock and a hard place," Kathy said. "Dad used to say that."

"Ya, well, we better figure something out, ‘cause they’ll be already looking for you. You can’t even look out the window while you are still here," Sally said.

"Let’s start with some tea," suggested Kathy.

"Let us just take it easy tonight and tomorrow I will get on a bus and either go west or east."

"Or you could go north to the tundra, there’s not many to disturb you up there, ‘sept for maybe the odd polar beer," Sally suggested.

"I wonder if other planets that have a different balance of chemicals would have different life forms. We are living water mostly, carbon units, I guess. On other planets there might be living sulphur sacks or living mercury sacks or living hydrogen sacks and whatever else can form into a sack. Life seems like an animation of a thought or will or some kind of force that is manifested through matter. It might not matter what the matter is. Matter is made of atoms, which are almost all space. Space and motion. We assume this world we live in is the way it has to be because in our limited way of sensing, this is all we can perceive. Maybe our belief in our intelligence is a side track. Maybe it only confuses our motion, our animated dance of energy."

"I’m sure it’s the way you say it is," Kathy declared.

"I’m not so sure. But I know for sure that it doesn’t matter to us."

"If we understood that we do not know as much as we think we know and that knowledge is mostly just propagated theories on ways of seeing, then maybe we would live more in tune with the natural flow or rhythm of our world of motion. If we did not waste so much energy trying to prove something that does not lend itself to our minimal perception, maybe we would not destroy whatever it is that is happening?"

"Ignorance never helped much either."

"I do not suggest we stay ignorant."

"Then what."

"I do not know. Pursue other directions, stop being a cancer to the planet. Evolve into a new creature with a different way of thinking."

"Become like you."

"No, I am just a little step in a long journey."

"That’s pretty. Any one want to play cards."

"Sure, what can three people play?" Kathy asked.

"I learned this one from some foreigner that comes to the bar with his
foreigner friends. He claims it’s the best game ever."

"Well then, let’s try it."

We played cards into the night, taking time out to make something to eat and a few pots of tea. Kathy and I talked about back home, which was not really home for either of us. We tried to clear up the topic of Jesus and drugs and terrorism but ended up on weather and friends and what stories we heard from who.

"I want to tell you that I have really enjoyed tonight."

"What’s wrong," Kathy asked.

"I do not know. I think they are here."

"Who?"

I was not certain if I felt something wrong or if I had noticed outside noises that did not fit with the usual noises. I put my shoes on and paced around for a minute wondering what to do. Carefully, I looked out the front window. It looked the same as it every did. Unless it was too quiet. I went back and sat down at the table.

"What’s up your ass?" Sally asked.

"I do not know. I do not feel safe."

I stood up again.

"You don’t want to play cards anymore."

"No."

I ran to the door and locked it.

"Is the bottom door locked?"

"Not likely," Sally said.

I ran again to the front window.

"Shit!"

"Open up! Police."

The door was being shaken off the frame. The law came down once more. Again, I transformed into a hunted animal. I flew through the apartment to the back fire escape.

"I have to go," I said on the way out the window.

"Hold it right there, asshole!" screamed the two cops that busted down the front door.

"Move and you’re dead meat," screamed more cops from down in the alley.

The bastards were not taking any chances of losing me.

"Eat me arse!" I yelled and scurried up the fire escape.

Bullets rang off the metal stairs around me as I climbed up to the roof. I was probably bleeding but I could not tell what pain came from where. I sensed doom. The two cops that busted down the door were close behind me on the fire escape.

"You’re not getting away this time, asshole."

I did not want to believe them. I ran through the darkness pursued by hostile monsters. There was not much chance of escape on the roof but I could not give up. A bullet went through the clear-story window in front of me just before I dove through it. I do not know why I dove into the window unless it was a deluded hope to break through to the other other side.

Perhaps my own brain had betrayed me. Blood and glass. Broken glass and my blood lay beside me. I had fallen about twelve feet. I was a panicking animal trying to escape death by running into it. I knew I was not strong enough to move but I had to. I managed to find a set of stairs to stumble down. At the bottom of the stairs, two cops with automatic weapons awaited my arrival. I did not deserve all the attention.

The three of us stood motionless for a few seconds. They looked as though they wanted to kill me. Their guns and eyes were glued on me. The eyes looked through their guns. The guns could make me less than a worm at any second. The demigods behind the guns could break their motionlessness and kill me on a chance firing of the wrong neurones in their crusty brains. Something had to happen. My heart was pounding the blood out of me so hard that it would soon run out.

"Why don’t you run, punk? Run for your fuckin’ miserable life," said one of the gun holders.

"You fucking stupid shit. Without your gun you are just shit. With your gun you are shit with a gun. You are coward mindless stinking shit. Why do you wait to kill me, you stinking wretch. That is what you have been trained to do, you mutt. But you are just a shit with a finger on a trigger. You can not even kill without guidance. You can not even think without help. Come and kill me without your guns. Be a real killer. Tear me with your teeth and claws. Come on you sorry pieces of shit."

"A fuckin’ smart ass," one cop said.

"It would save a lot of trouble if we just cut him down."

I looked at the door behind them and guessed that I would only have about two hundred holes in me by the time I got past them. I stood looking at the door. Could I will myself through the door alive? I was about to move towards it when it swung open.

"What you doing here!" demanded a big, short Italian woman.

"We are just waiting for these cops to kill me."

I was so glad to see her that I wanted to call her Mom.

"No. Police don’t kill," she said. "You go and leave us be. All of you."

Three more police came in the door and one of them put handcuffs on me and dragged me outside.

"I will bleed to death."

"Shut your mouth."

Outside, the vulturous reporters were already frothing at the event. They took pictures and asked stupid questions.

Kathy jumped on one of the police men and tore at his face screaming,
"Fuckin’ bastard. He needs a doctor. You can’t arrest him. He hasn’t done anything."

She was quiet on the ground after another cop hit her on the head a few times with his billy-club.

Two other cops held Sally back an beat her just a little to show her who was in control.

"When a camera man tried to get a shot of Kathy, a cop knocked his camera to the ground.

"Get the fuck out of here," the cop yelled.

"I’ll see you in court, the camera man yelled back."

"Get in the car, asshole," a cop said as he tried to throw me in the back seat of his cruiser.

Though I was on the edge of collapse from exhaustion, I could not accept my handcuffs and the cage in the back of the police car. I refused to bend to be lead in. I straddled my feet against the doorframe while the two police tried to manoeuvre me into the opening.

The cops dropped me on the ground at the sound of a crash. They hit me once each with their sticks before finally forcing me head first in the back seat. The seat was covered in glass. Someone had thrown a cement block threw the back window. When I managed to sit up, I noticed quite a crowd of onlookers. They were screaming and cheering.

There were enough other police to deal with the crowd. We pulled away unobstructed. Except for a few flying beer bottles, the car was not assaulted.

I tried to open the door as we started along Dundas Street toward the fifty-second torture station. There was no handle.

"Hey, Assholes, there is no handle here."

"You’re not to leave, you little prick."

"Fuck you. Dumb shit."

"If you shut up, you might not die tonight," the cop said and pointed his gun through the screen at me.

"Are you going to torture me first or fuck me, you stinking pig?"

I slid down on the seat and kicked with both feet against the screen. The gun went off.

"You idiot," the driver yelled.

He swung around and with his left hand punched his partner full in the face.

"You fuckin’ well shot me."

The other cop punched back.

"It’s no fuckin’ cause to punch me."

"What. I’ve got a mother fuckin’ bullet in my arm."

"Red light," I said.

No one heard me. I braced myself as well as I could. I knew that at
Dundas and Spadina the chances of making it through a red light even for a police car were not very good.

A bus hit just behind the back tire and tore the back of the car off sending us spinning into the next lane to meet a speeding taxi. The engine of the police car was driven back nearly to the screen.

"Have fun explaining this to your boss," I said not likely loud enough to be heard as I climbed out the back window.

Both yelled obscenities. I hit the ground face first and managed to pull my feet through my arms so that I could run with my hands in front of me.

Behind me stood a crowd of accident vultures and a line of traffic. I ran up the middle of the street toward College Street. I did not know where to go. I went back into Kensington Market when I came to the big Chinese restaurant. I saw I was running back to Kathy and Sally and stopped to wonder if that was a good idea.

"Bill," someone said.

I tried to see who said it. It was someone in front of me. He was someone I thought I recognised from the bar. I did not remember his name. His friends called him something else. It was too much to remember. I could think of no response. I fell towards him.



by Joanne B. Washington

read on. chapter_23



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