Five

Back in the future, the driver and his captive continue their journey.

I jumped back and gaped at him. "Dude, Gene, I'm not feeling this. I climb that, I'm going to die." The mystery of my driver had disappeared. Gene was a lunatic. That gave me confidence, enough to stammer, "So could you. So could anybody! Except for maybe Sammy, but –"

 

In a flash, I was punched in the stomach, keeled on my knees, wheezing at Gene's worn leather shoes. His face reared down to mine and snarled, "That has to be the last time ever that I do that, Case! That was stupid, Case!"  I tried to crunch up from the gravel. Gene thrust me back down, rolled me on my back. "Now," he said curtly before himself collapsing prostrate onto the gravel beside me, beside the tower. "Look up there," he said with hands tucked behind his head. "See the top? Up there is the best thing in the world. It's rock bottom."

 

The painful irony of the situation gritted between me and the cold grit. Gene rose, pulled me up. I felt my lip bleeding, a sour ordeal in the biting cold. I didn't fuss with it. My hands wanted more to be in their pockets. Gene grasped the first rungs of the communications tower. "Don't let the height or conventional physics deceive you, Andrew. Climbing the tower goes down both ways." One hand came off, saluted me, rejoined the other and began to ascend. "Feel free to follow, of course."

 

Suddenly overwhelmed by the idea of sitting idly at the base of an abandoned communications tower after midnight, I scurried to the bottom of the rung ladder and looked up to see the dark leather loafers had already risen several yards. They climbed loudly and recklessly, occasionally ramming into the tower itself with a soft, "Almost."

 

A phantom wisped mockingly from my condensed breath. I charged at it, seized the rungs, and climbed with the hollowest bravery of my life.

 

Gene's voice floated down from a few stories above, "Wait, you're actually following? Conformist." I prayed he was joking. I continued upwards, slipping at frequent intervals.  "You have to treat your life like the hilarious probability machine it is," the voice slid down.  Any second now, that meteor could plummet from the sun and crush you into your constituent atoms. Or Zeus will smite you with a bolt of lighting. Or an armada of teletubbies will emit gamma rays …"

 

I could tell I was gaining on Gene. My hands were raw, caustic orange rust burrowing into my skin. Gene's tirade irritated me worse, his words mixing with my anger somehow. "Dantès was right, strolling into his treasure cave. 'Perhaps, perhaps,' he kept saying. There's the supreme word of human philosophy right there. Perhaps everything! What's at the top, Andrew? Perhaps chaos? Perhaps harmony? Or the Devil with his big green chainsaw?" I bore on. I could see Gene fully again. He was slowing his climb.

 

"Perhaps is our addiction, Andrew. It's our magnet. A different version of ourselves farting around through time. Everybody else is running from their perhapses. They're terrified of them! They're much too obligated to farting their own precise tune that they die at the notion there are other songs to fart!"  Gene  and I reached the bottom of the crow's nest at the same time. We split the ladder.  His free hand grasped at my collar and his voice got smooth. "We're modern salmon, you and I. Spawn like them too. Help me."

 

The trapdoor above us had been long unlocked, it seemed, though it took several grunts from each of us to swing it up and in. Gene hopped up to the deck, jolted to its railing and flung out his arms to embrace the again-visible city lights. I pulled myself up and gazed. They were brilliant, and so many. The chaotic colored orbs beamed from all the locations I had always been only marginally aware of. I saw the beams of the enclave, Calabasas and Thousand Oaks, stretching out to the canyons of Topanga, and even dotting far beyond to the solid glow of Los Angeles. Or was it Burbank?

 

"All of that," came the calm flow of Gene's words, "is the worst thing in the world."

 

The lights seemed to twinkle in resentment. "Those lights have a soul, Andrew, and it hates us. Because we're up here, on a tower. Because we're not down there, being one of them." He swept his arm, grasped at the air. "See all those people? Those lights are refrigerators, traffic signals, televisions and scented candles." He turned to me, cast a deadpan stare.

 

"Are you a scented candle, Andrew?"

 

"No … I'm just me?" I asked. I hated scented candles.

 

"You're much less than just you! You are only you. Against all of those." He stepped forward. "They're all lumped together in big houses in small neighborhoods. That's how their heads work too. And when the sun comes up a few hours from now, they're all off in their BMWs to the real world, so they can – yes, the real world – so they can compete!" Gene stabbed a finger at my chest. "It's a competition, Andrew, haven't you heard? Only the victorious get the spoils! Light your scented candles and wear them like merit badges. Show them off to your parents! At least the boy scouts make real fire."

 

His face sobered. I stood erect, ready for anything. "Love," it came, "doesn't happen for them. Love a person in unmanufactured darkness. Love someone …" he paused. Eyes closed, Gene exhaled a ghost and his eyes rose up with the answer. "Who doesn't love you back. Only way to keep from becoming one of them."

 

Cold seconds passed. Rock bottom was so high up. My one question made its way through my throat. "What happens if they love you back?"

 

Gene might have grinned. "Sammy figured that one out. While he was gone, I'm guessing. You see, Andrew … they always love you back. Anyway." He shrugged once and leaped onto the side of the railing. A bold hand curled down under the platform, rustling about the side of the tower opposite the trapdoor. "Success!" it shouted.

 

When he stood again, Gene had produced a length of weathered twine-rope fixed at the end to some crude conglomeration of metal clasps. A grappling hook? "First time Sammy wanted to explore up here, we had some trouble with the locked trapdoor," he explained. "Had to haul ourselves up the hard way, unlatch it once we were already inside. Didn't matter to us, though. Sammy loved climbing."

 

I was surprised at my relief and excitement. Gene actually knew Sam! "I know," I proclaimed. "He had this oak tree at the old school he used to climb every day."

 

Gene smiled something different. The maniacal glint integral to his speeches was absent. Gone was the actor-grin.

 

And then something in him flipped the switch right back on again. "Now," he announced. "The reward for the long and arduous journey, well-deserved." He approached the railing once more, regarded all the lights. Suddenly, a great unzipping was heard. I understood him even before his head turned to face me. "This, sir, is perhaps the deepest bond of fellowship two companions may heterosexually initiate. Are you completely and unconditionally prepared for such a commitment?"

 

I smirked and affirmed. Before long, two glorious streams of urine rained above the lights of the city, determined to someday extinguish them once and for all.