Global warming, she said. Climate change. She raised her eyebrows and wagged her head. Whatever those idiots want to call it.
Content warning: This story contains sexually explicit material and historically racial language.
When the apprentice opened the door to the red dressing room, the woman on her knees turned quickly and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. A flutter of white satin, then still life. She didn’t try to stand up. But instead, sat back on her white high-heels and hung her head like a schoolgirl caught beneath the bleachers. Waiting for chastisement, her blonde hair covering her face, her head and shoulders rounded forward. Later, when he was sitting in the convention hall with all the other young conservatives, the water flowing in rivulets down the concrete floor to the stage, the apprentice would wonder why she had remained so still. Demure was the word, abashed, ashamed, her limp forearm glistening from the long slurping swipe, her head just a little lower than the drooping penis of the guru. He couldn’t see her face through the veil of her hair, but she looked familiar. The guru’s penis was swollen and red. His balled fists plugged into his naked hips like a superhero, his starched white shirt bunched at his waist, his pants in a puddle around his ankles. The apprentice saw it all—the tie thrown over his shoulder, the string of saliva—in the single instant before he jumped backwards out of the room, the guru commanding him, as he disappeared from sight, not to move a muscle.
The boy didn’t know if he should pull the door closed and cringed when he heard the old man’s voice again. This time it wasn’t speaking to him.
Did I tell you to quit, sugar tits?
How different than that famous voice of knowledge that jumpstarted the new conservative movement half a century ago. Cool, calm, collected—even in the face of the hysterical liberals he’d debated on network television. Swallow it, he said behind the door. How different than the voice that praised donors to the institute. The grandfatherly voice that vibrated in the brains of young conservatives as they took the leadership roles for which the institute groomed them.
The apprentice pretended not to listen. To her labored breathing. To the smacking wet gagging sounds. To the guru quietly moaning, quietly muttering. Deeper. But he couldn’t help imagining the bobbing blonde head behind the door, the age spotted hands tangled in her hair. Repulsed. Yet aroused on the threshold. He had given up pornography before the summer started, and on more than one occasion had dreamed wet dreams in the institute’s dormitory bed.
He remembered watching videos of the guru with his sophomore-year crush. And considered peeking through the crack.
More than a crush, really. His dream-girl, the Branch President of the College Conservatives. She had invited him to stay after one of the chapter meetings. For specialized debate training, she said. Alone in the room beneath the student union, they hunched toward the little TV. Feeling alive. He had imagined turning and kissing her, imagined proposing on a beach of white sand. Their future unfolding, their wedding, their first house, their children as they sat in the basement watching old debates. She called him a puppy dog. He imagined her slim body slipping from her clothes as the guru demolished his adversaries in the budding days of political punditry. She was the one who forced him to apply to the institute in the first place. And before the debacle at the campus chapel—and the horrifying aftermath—she had helped him secure funding through the apprenticeship which she herself had held the year before.
What would she have done in this situation? His hand was sweaty on the doorknob.
He imagined her behind the door in nothing but a towel. The towel slipping open.
Soon, another boy came bounding down the stairs at the other end of the hallway. Down the length of the red carpet between the closed white doors on either side, a tan Southern boy in a blue suit and bowtie. Bounding right up to the apprentice with a smile on his face.
The apprentice pulled closed the door. Click.
He’s busy, he said as the boy in the blue suit reached past him.
Their hands touched, both balmy on the little brass globe.
What do you mean? the boy in the blue suit asked.
I mean he’s busy, answered the apprentice.
The other rolled his eyes. They want to take his picture with the notables, he said. The rain’s let up for a minute.
He’ll be with you momentarily, the apprentice replied.
The boy in the blue suit shrugged. He scratched at his gelled brown hair. It’s a shame about this rain, he said, attempting to sound like an adult. I wanted to get down to the beach with these girls. He winked. You know what I mean?
The apprentice nodded his head.
Now they’re saying it might flood down there. The whole ocean spilling out. He nudged the apprentice with his elbow. Maybe the girls will strip down and go swimming off their balconies. He laughed.
The apprentice stared him in the face. He tried to make his voice sound like the guru’s. He’ll be with you momentarily, he said again.
Deflated, the boy in the blue suit shrugged. Whatever, he said, turning back down the hallway. No bounce in his step anymore. Word was, he had hooked up with at least three of the female cohort. Knowing such things, the apprentice knew, would serve his political career. He watched him shuffle toward the stairs. Then up toward the convention hall that had been ringing with rain for six weeks.
Behind the door, he heard whispering and the sound of furniture being moved. Then—all of a sudden—the guru’s booming voice as the door flew open.
Just what do you think you saw? the old man shouted into his face.
The apprentice whipped his hand away from the space where he had been holding the doorknob, regrettably focusing on the little bulge in the guru’s trousers. Nothing, sir, he said, looking down the empty hallway.
Red and pinched, the guru’s face inched closer to his own. Reeking of aftershave.
That’s right, the old man said. There was nothing to see, was there?
The apprentice closed his eyes and shook his head. No, sir, he answered.
Come in here, boy. The old man moved aside so the other could enter. He put a hand on the young man’s shoulder to usher him into the room.
There was no woman in white satin and no apparent route of escape. A large mirror surrounded by light bulbs sat on the white desk, and in front of the desk was a chrome chair with the old man’s gray blazer hanging on its back. The apprentice figured she was hiding under the desk. How childish, he thought.
Listen, the guru said. It’s a shame about your friend. No one could have anticipated…
He trailed off, and the boy wondered why he had brought her up.
I had high hopes for her, the guru continued, rubbing his chin. Musing on the white panels of the ceiling. Media magnet, he said. A mover and a shaker in the fight for life.
His neck was smeared with bright red lipstick. The same color as the walls of the room.
Might have made a future candidate, he continued. I don’t know. She had lobbyist written all over her. He put one fist on his hip so that the apprentice couldn’t help but picture him with his pants around his ankles. She always had that doctor politician in her mouth.
What a terrible turn of phrase.
It’s the 1770s all over again! the guru shouted in imitation. He shook his head. And the good reverend and the radioman, he said. She had them wrapped around her fingers.
The apprentice nodded. He didn’t like the guru talking about her mouth. Or her fingers.
Yes, the guru continued. With time, the radioman might have given her a TV show. She was so pretty. And all of us were on her side, you know.
The boy imagined his old crush on her knees on the carpet, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
It’s a shame, the guru said. But we must soldier on. That’s what she would have wanted.
He waited for the boy to nod.
And you, he said. You stepped right up after that fiasco at the chapel and filled her shoes. He patted the boy’s back and chuckled. Probably wanted to fill more than those, he said.
His brass laughter made the boy flinch.
That’s why you’re by my side, the guru said, clapping him on the back again. Through thick and thin. He looked the boy in the eyes. My best friend in the world.
How sad, the apprentice thought. What was he talking about?
The chair teetered—a little hiccup of motion in his peripheral—but he held his head rigid and concentrated on the guru’s mouth.
You already know, the old man continued, this is the most important training these kids will ever get. He looked at himself in the mirror, sucked in his belly, whipped a hankie from his pocket and wiped his neck. I only wish I could get my hands on them sooner, he said.
The boy imagined the old man’s hands in a mess of blonde hair.
Raise them from the get-go on the foundational values of this country, the guru continued. Free market economics. The boy whispered the words along with him. And the constitution of the United States.
That’s right. The guru clenched his fists. That’s why you’re here, boy.
The apprentice nodded, looked to the corners of the room, his eyes sweeping over the makeup table where the chair moved again.
Nothing to see, the guru said, smiling. Everything’s A-OK.
The apprentice jerked his head back toward the old man. They need you upstairs for a photo, he blurted.
The guru hitched up his pants, and there again was the damp bulge at the crotch.
How about this rain? the old man asked.
They’re talking about floods, the boy answered.
The guru ran his hands through his colorless hair. No matter, he said. We’re all right.
The boy thought again about watching the old debates beneath the student union. The old man’s hair parted in the same place for half a century. Receding now from the age-speckled forehead. The guru adjusted his tie, and the boy noticed how his skin fell in a fold around the lip of his collar. He wished the guru had done a better job of wiping the lipstick off. There was no real chin to his face, just a polished protrusion in the trunk of flesh. He was as old as the boy’s grandpa. Or older. But virile, he thought. A word the guru often used to describe the conservative movement.
The men in the pornos he used to watch were always so much older than the women.
Weather fluctuates, the old man said, flinging his jacket over his shoulders like a matador. That’s how it works. Weather. Everyone knows that. We’ll be all right.
Although the convention center was cavernous within, from the outside, the building appeared to be a single story of brown brick. It doubled as an enormous bomb shelter, the vast majority of the structure buried underground. The guru himself had helped design it during the height of the Cold War and the communist purge. There was talk back then of a secret safe room for political friends if the nuclear option was invoked. Although the building bore the name of one of the institute’s magnanimous donors, everyone just called it the convention center. They always had and always would.Give the folks what they want to see, the guru said, and they’ll be more willing to listen.
The green lawn that surrounded the building had been underwater for weeks, a shallow lake that prevented the students from taking the promised trip to the beach—a point of high contention for the less studious fraternity brothers and sorority sisters. The beach trip was supposed to be half the fun. A selling point for the College Conservatives who recruited on guru’s behalf. The living quarters—which had recently been revamped to accommodate women—were attached to the convention center by a concrete walkway covered with galvanized steel. This walkway had also been underwater for a few weeks, and most of the young men now followed the lead of the young women in removing their shoes and socks when travelling between the two buildings. Everyone was careful, though, to have their shoes back on before they entered the convention center. Earlier in the week, a barefoot girl was publicly reprimanded for breaking the dress code. One of her friends found her in the bathroom later that day wearing nothing but a filthy smock and scrubbing toilet bowls with a toothbrush. Discipline along with decorum were core tenets of the institute.
Some of the younger instructors had been talking for weeks about the growing sense of cabin fever, about an imminent student rebellion, about a catastrophe on the horizon. But the guru and his closest allies didn’t engage in such nonsense. The boys were always pranking one another, and now that there were girls, there were love trysts to deal with as well. Boys will be boys, they said to one another. And girls, girls, they now added. Nothing had changed. This so-called cabin fever occurred every year.
Outside, the notables—the students who best exemplified the scholastic and moralistic mandates of the institute—perched like sea birds upon the top stair of the convention center’s entrance. This was the last bluff of dry land, and the water, lapping upon the concrete, now seemed perilously close to surmounting it. But the session was coming to a close, and no one seemed all that concerned about the water. Crammed into such tight quarters upon this outcrop, the boys in their black and blue suits took every advantage they could to squeeze close to the girls in their bright dresses. Tight dresses. That was the dress code. Bare legs shaved smooth like the ladies on the news networks. The business suits of feminists were anathema here. That too was a lesson learned.
Their ears are in their eyes, the guru liked to say. The overweight girls were put on strict diets and exercise regimens at the institute. Give the folks what they want to see, the guru said, and they’ll be more willing to listen.
Everyone guessed that this break from the rain would be brief. The students had not yet tired of watching the photographer splash around in the shallow lake of the lawn. He wore green rubber waders like a duck hunter and moved antically through the water, bringing his knees up to his ears as he travelled back and forth from his half-sunken tripod to the students on the shelf of the stair. He had been trying to get them to twirl their matching red-and-white-striped umbrellas in syncopation, but there was no spirit in their performance. They were too preoccupied with rubbing against one another. Although this hankie-pankie was strictly forbidden, the rules were relaxed for the notables.
The instructors stood just inside the glass doors, watching disapprovingly as the boys put their hands on the girls’ hips and whispered jokes into their ears. They wanted to get the picture-taking over with and get back to the training which would soon be finished.
Done with this batch, at least, one instructor said to another. The future of the Grand Old Party.
They watched a boy in a red bowtie perform a spinning dance move on the wet concrete and catch a girl in his arms. The photographer encouraged this tomfoolery, and soon all the boys had found girls to spin. They all knew the same dances from looking at their phones.
The instructors stared through the glass. How quickly the world changed.
Like a bunch of jigaboos, one man said, and all the others laughed.
When the boy in the blue suit came running back up the stairs, one of them asked him, Where’s the old man?
He’s busy, the boy answered. Then, noting the frowns of his superiors, he corrected his tone. But he’s on his way, sir, he said. He should be up momentarily.
The instructor nodded to dismiss him, and the boy stepped outside to join his friends. The rain began to fall in fat drops once again. The sun was a gray smudge behind the stacked nimbus clouds, and everything smelled of mildew.
What’s the rush? another instructor whispered. We’re stuck, aren’t we? It’s not like we can drive anywhere.
We’ll get the old man to load us up on his yacht, someone answered. Go deep-sea fishing downtown.
Several of them laughed, loosening up as if taking a cue from the youngsters.
In every picture I’ve ever seen, said a redheaded man with a mustache, women were sprawled all over that yacht.
Chuckles ran like minnows through the group of men.
Fish in the sea, answered an older instructor, wistfully. Always more fish in the sea.
Outside, the students crowded beneath their umbrellas as the rain began pouring down.
Why are we taking these pictures anyway? said a slick, dark-haired instructor who didn’t look much older than the students. I mean, if the press gets a hold of this, he said. If any of these fucking kids post pictures to social media—which you know some of them are going to do—no matter the rules. He threw his hands up. Then we’re f—
Watch your language, interrupted a gray-haired elder with gold rings on his fingers.
Everyone fell silent.
And don’t forget, the elder continued, you were one of those kids just a few years ago.
I know, senator, the young man answered. I’m sorry about the language. But think about it. He loosened his tie. We’re scheduled to continue talking about global warming today. About liberal media bias and the—quote, un-quote—facts spewing from the mouths of liberal professors. Right? I mean, that’s what we’re scheduled to do. And if these kids start posting photos of the flooded yard—well? He threw his hands up. Y’all have seen the forecast just like me. Six weeks and counting. There’s more rain scheduled. He shook his head. If they start posting pictures, he said again, the headlines aren’t going to say what we want them to say—
There won’t be any headlines, the senator interrupted, the very picture of authority. And since when do you worry about what the liberal media has to say?
The younger man steadied himself. I try to worry about what everyone has to say, he answered.
The senator laughed. The others joined in as if on cue. He raised one eyebrow in a dramatic gesture that he had perfected decades ago. Well son, he said, patting the young man on the shoulder, then you have a long row to hoe.
The others erupted, and when the laughter finally wore thin, the redheaded man spoke up again. Climate alarmists be damned, he said. We were talking about pretty little fish! Several men chuckled. Little blonde fish and brunette fish, he said, that’ll wiggle up onto a sailor’s lap.
The men stared through the pane of glass at the young legs falling from bright dresses.
Wait a minute, someone said as they began to resume their old conversations. Y’all shut up. Here he comes.
They turned quietly in their expensive suits—professional—and watched the guru stride toward them. His apprentice lagging behind, matching his step to the old man’s, balancing in the guru’s shadow.
By the time the notables entered the auditorium—their shoulders and hair dappled with raindrops—the rest of the institute’s students were already seated and staring at the stage. They turned to watch the train of gallant future leaders parade down the slope of the aisle to the very front of the auditorium. The guru said pomp should always be maximized to heighten the image. One by one, the notables filed into the front row, concentrating on their posture, their shoulders pulled back, knowing that all eyes were on them. Looks were everything, the guru said.The sound of running water accompanied her clicking heels. Water sloshing from the outside in. An odd sound, to be sure. But no one seemed to notice.
The instant that the apprentice—the last of them—sat down, a blonde woman in white satin entered, stage left, and waved with a cupped hand at the crowd. A beauty queen. The apprentice gasped as the other students began clapping. He recognized her now. She walked proudly on toothpick legs to the front of the stage and introduced herself.
She was the news anchor of a popular conservative television show, a conservative activist, she said, an advocate for life, a licensed concealed carrier, and a woman, above all, who acted according to her lady smarts—she winked at the crowd—not her lady parts. This was a slogan that the apprentice’s old crush had made popular in a viral social media campaign. The students clapped again and some of the boys whooped as the woman did a runway walk to the front of the stage and turned in a flourish like a model. The rain reverberated against the metallic roof like a million machine guns at once.
And that’s why, the blonde news anchor said, it is my privilege to introduce to you the most preeminent climate scientist in this country. A man who is no stranger to controversy, a man who holds honorary degrees from a wide array of colleges and universities, a man who has held top positions at some of the most prestigious institutions in our country. A man, she continued, who speaks his mind no matter the partisan politics. Who dares to challenge the status quo, and I believe—
The students began clapping as a small round fellow teetered onto the stage and waddled toward the nearest armchair.
Clearly, he had arrived before his cue, but the news anchor clapped along with the students, and took quick little strides on her white high-heels to reach her own chair before the bald man reached his.
The sound of running water accompanied her clicking heels. Water sloshing from the outside in. An odd sound, to be sure. But no one seemed to notice.
This man, she said, holding her arms out to indicate the scientist, is hard at work fighting the climate mafia.
The students cheered louder. In front of his chair, the age-speckled scientist gave the news lady the once over, then snatched her hand and kissed it before lifting it aloft and bowing to the crowd. She was obliged to bow with him. The students went wild, their cheers drowning out the splashing commotion at the back of the convention center where flustered instructors were trying to stanch the water running in from the exit doors.
As the old man sat down, the woman followed suit. She crossed her legs, and her skirt rode up her thighs, leading some of the boys in the audience to whoop again. They elbowed each other in the dark while she adjusted herself. She was beginning to look uncomfortable.
The apprentice found it hard to catch his breath. It was like he had entered a dream. The way the woman tried to cover herself—while in the very spotlight—recalled to him that terrible day at the chapel when his crush had been unmasked. He remembered the cameras snapping and the guardrails giving way, the opposition spilling over the flagstones, the scene splintering into chaos. He thought it had been the beginning of something, but really it had been the end. He remembered her afterward, cradled in the azalea bush babbling nonsense. Everything so violent.
On the lapel of the news anchor’s dress, he spied a milky stain. And fled from his chair, trying to hide the bulge in his pants, back up the slope of the auditorium.
Water ran in streams down the aisle to make a little moat around the stage. The apprentice splashed toward the back of the convention center, loosening his tie, untucking his shirt. Everything felt like it was closing in on him. There was too much saliva in his mouth. He couldn’t figure out why there was so much water on the floor. He kept thinking the word wet and wished his crush was here to tell him what to do. He felt like he needed to cry.
Seated in her armchair on the stage, the svelte woman in white satin had regained her composure. She read from notecards and cleared her throat between almost every sentence. Like something had gone down the wrong pipe. I want people to feel empowered to ask questions, she said. About what they have been fed by the scientific community. It’s not making a whole lot of sense when it comes to inconsistent data. Her eyes went wide, and, at the back of the auditorium, the apprentice imagined the guru’s cock in her mouth. Same as every porno he’d ever seen. Deeper, the old man had said. He wondered what he might have done to help. She had looked like a little animal on her knees on the carpet. Slopping wet sounds surrounded him now, the water gushing down the aisles. Data, data, data, she continued. Data that has been produced—manufactured—and is being fed to our children—she pointed vaguely into the auditorium. Global warming, she said. Climate change. She raised her eyebrows and wagged her head. Whatever those idiots want to call it.
Several of the students laughed, and the apprentice remembered how his old crush had always insisted that if you could get a crowd laughing, you were already halfway there.
The instructors shoved shoulder bags and briefcases against cracks in the doors. They splashed around in various stages of undress, struggling against the deluge that pulsed more powerfully every second. This was getting out of hand, the apprentice thought. He watched as the water rushed down the aisles toward the stage. The instructors looked like cartoon characters trying to plug a dam with their fingers. He felt very claustrophobic, and watched to see which of the students would notice the water first.
These lies are repeated so often, the news anchor said, that people start saying—oh well, I guess if 97 percent, or whatever bogus number they regurgitate—she stuck her finger in her mouth as if to make herself vomit, and the apprentice remembered the long string of saliva. If 97 percent of all scientists believe that man’s activities are creating changes in the weather then—Jeez!—she threw her hands in the air—who am I to question that? But listen to me, she said, getting very serious. Don’t question yourself. She swept her finger over the audience. You have every right to make your own decisions.
Several of the instructors had braced themselves against the doors, straining against the silver spray of water bursting from the casings. They looked like figures from Catholic iconography. Sunbursts of water gleaming around them. Again, the apprentice remembered the president and that bright day in front of the chapel when all hell broke loose. The photographers capturing that image of her all dressed up like a Muslim. Instantaneous fame. Infamous. That was the beginning of the end. It was their fault she did what she did. The media called her a coward. And what pictures would they take now, in this room filling up with water? He was glad social media was banned at the institute. He heard the guru’s malediction. The modern media was the brainchild of leftist politicians. He remembered his crush beneath the poplar tree surrounded by azaleas. Yes, he thought, the media had become an oppressive plug to stop the mouths of conservatives.
And let me tell you—the news anchor leaned forward in her seat—there’s a problem when you’re led to believe that there’s a consensus on global warming. She threw her hands in the air. No sir-eee. Don’t believe that for a second.
As she talked, the guru entered, stage left, and bee-lined toward the seated woman. We have to develop our natural resources! she said. We have to—
The guru snatched the microphone from her hand. OK, he said smiling. I think the kids want to hear the scientist speak.
The children erupted in applause.
Let’s give it up for this pretty lady, the guru said, looking her up and down. Full of fire, he continued, pulling on her arm until she rose from her chair. He twisted her in a pirouette. And another. And another. He ran his hands up and down her body. It was egregious, the apprentice thought.
The audience roared, drowning out the splashing of shoes in the first few rows.
The guru handed the very same notecards from which the woman had been reading to the scientist who adjusted his glasses accordingly and squinted at the script. Listen here, the guru said, walking toward the wing. Y’all might hear some commotion, but—trust me—everything’s A-OK. By now, the students could hear the heavy sound of water rushing down the aisles and the urgent whispers of the instructors posted at intervals throughout the auditorium. Just stay put, the guru said, and mind your manners now. He exited the stage in a hurry.
The paunchy bald man with the translucent skin and the heavy glasses picked up where the news anchor had left off. We have to develop our natural resources, he said, holding the notecards in front of his faltering eyes. We’re talking about reason and common sense here. For America to be great again, we must develop our resources.
A whimpering young lady in the third row stood and splashed across several peers before an instructor physically confronted her and forced her back into her seat. The apprentice thought about all those women crying in the porno clips.
Global warming is a political agenda, the scientist said. The leftists want us to fail!
A few more students stood up and were immediately wrestled down by instructors.
Just stay put, the guru’s voice boomed over the speaker system. Everything’s A-OK.
That’s right, the scientist answered. Everything’s A-OK. The simple fact-of-the-matter is that there are unexplained changes in what they call the “climate” all the time. He used his fingers as quotation marks when he said the word climate. The “science,” he said, has made a sharp turn to the political left. We don’t actually know whether the temperature will go up or down in the future. The leftists hate America.
Several backpacks and briefcases went bobbing toward the stage, and one girl near the back—who had escaped from her row—went sliding down the aisle as well. The boys whooped and hollered as she glided past, her dress slipping scandalously up her thighs.
What we do know, the scientist said—taking off his glasses, wiping them with his tie, and putting them back on—is that the climate is always changing. And that will never change.
The water sloshed about the waists of the seated notables in the first row, but they kept their attention fixed on the stage, slowly sinking like statues in the flood. They knew they were being watched, so they took a stand to lead their peers. They stayed seated—stoically—their postures decorously impeccable, their eyes fixed upon the stage as the water swallowed them whole. The news anchor was crossing and uncrossing her legs to the delight of the sinking boys. She looked ready to flee at the drop of a hat, but she too knew the rules of decorum. Out in the audience, however, several students crouched atop their seats, while several others made mad dashes up the flooded aisles. Two instructors began brawling with a group of bow-tied boys in knee-deep water, and someone started screaming.
Excuse me, the man on stage shouted. Have a little respect. He cleared his throat and began again. Before man ever had a carbon footprint, he said. Long ago in the days of Genesis. He waved his hands in a vague manner. Way back then—there was climate change.
Just stay put, the guru shouted over the loudspeakers.
Now, all of a sudden, it’s manmade? the scientist shouted. Is that what they’re trying to say? His face was red. How arrogant! he continued. To think that we—he spread his arms to encompass the swaying auditorium—that we could have that kind of an impact on God’s green earth. He stamped his foot on the ground. Great God in heaven, he said.
And as he spread his arms again—Moses-like, to encompass the world—the doors at the back of the auditorium burst asunder and a great wave of dark water gushed into the room.
The apprentice climbed an iron ladder to the scaffolding where the light-crew worked. His shoes were soaked through, his pants clung to his legs, and the water fluxed below him. Black and green and sucking. Waves swept past in succession, and he lost track of time, unable to process what was happening below. He couldn’t stop shaking, and when he tried to stand up, his legs went rubbery beneath him.These were animals, the apprentice remembered, that lascivious sailors once mistook for beautiful fish women.
He felt like he’d been crawling along for ages when he finally found one of the enormous spotlights and swung it in an arc over the mayhem.
The whole building seemed to be unmoored and heaving. Students swam madly against the tide below him. A tangle of flailing limbs attacking the water, screaming, struggling, drowning one another in their rush to save themselves. He watched one boy bite another in the neck, then scrabble atop the shoulders of two young women. Only to be replaced by another boy who was swinging a metal stick. The girls’ arms looked like the frantic tic of metronomes as they sunk, and the apprentice remembered how he had once played the public piano in the student union for his old crush. He tried to shake her image from his head, but he couldn’t help remembering how she had sat on the bench beside him and stared at his hands on the keys. In the spotlight, the boy who had pushed the girls underwater was finally washed away by a wave. He was not the only one. Feeding frenzy was the phrase that came to mind. Kinked bodies crawling upon the water. Everything muted in the long sigh of alluvion static. Rain pelted the roof overhead.
The apprentice tried not to concentrate on any of the specific violence down below, but—taken as a whole—the slimy mass of movement made him sick. His eyes went glassy, and he saw strange shapes rolling through the liquid. Buoyant elephantine figures washed into the room. The other spotlights—abandoned by their operators—oscillated in the water. Where had they gone? the apprentice wondered. There didn’t seem to be any way out. He remembered the news anchor beneath the desk in the guru’s dressing room. Down below, the great gray floaters washed—one after the other—onto the stage.
Manatees, the apprentice said out loud. He had never seen them before in real life.
Manatees. Riding the waves from the outside in. Caught now in the circle of his spotlight, one of them went sideways and pinned the scientist against the back wall. The old man called out feebly as the notecards exploded in a puff from his twisted fingers. He popped like a balloon and slumped into the luminous water beneath the mass of the manatee.
There were others, aloof and smooth, moving effortlessly through the chaos.
There must have been drains on either side of the stage because great whirlpools formed and sucked the brown-green water—and everything in the water—toward the front of the auditorium. Students were screaming everywhere, some clinging to debris. And as the water receded from the stage itself, the spotlight paused for a moment on the splayed scientist squashed beneath the gray hulk of the sea cow.
These were animals, the apprentice remembered, that lascivious sailors once mistook for beautiful fish women. He had seen a porno once that was based on The Little Mermaid. The old man’s busted body leeched bright blood into the wet. And as the water continued receding, the manatee found itself caught. Perched atop this human pedestal, flapping its tail in the air.
Finally, the apprentice found the white-clad news anchor halfway up a stage curtain. Her arms and legs were wrapped around the velvety folds, her whole body resembling a clenched fist. She turned her head over her shoulder as the curtain rotated, and the apprentice followed her eyes to the stage, the dead scientist, the beached manatee.
Tracking the round beam of light from the stage to the rafters, the news lady spotted the apprentice and continued shimmying up the curtain toward the scaffolding. The boy abandoned his light and rushed to help her. But his legs were still rubbery beneath him, and he had to balance between the handrails to hold himself erect. Waves of nausea washed over him as he viewed through the metal grating the snarl of bodies squirming upon the skein of water. He remembered orgies on his computer screen.
He saw someone walk onto the stage. It was the guru. And he was shouting something at the woman in white. He held a pistol in his hand that he fired into the air several times, motioning for the woman to slide down the curtain. The roar of rain against the roof made the gun sound like a toy.
The news anchor’s eyes were very wide when she looked at the apprentice above her. The boy grabbed the bunched fabric of the curtain and tried to haul it onto the scaffolding. But the thick folds were much too heavy in his hands. I can’t, he cried out to the woman, clenching his teeth and heaving until he fell to his knees. I can’t, he cried. I’m sorry.
Down below, the guru holstered his gun and grabbed the bottom of the curtain. He began violently shaking it, the pendant woman spinning round and round until her long legs came loose and scissored through the air.
She was all sinew for a moment, a tense muscle rippling like a flag in a squall.
She looked up at the apprentice. And he remembered again his crush in the azaleas. Then her body went slack. Floated limply free of the bunched fabric, limbs splayed, plunging toward the stage.
It happened in slow motion, and the thud that she made was the first sound that the boy had really heard since the water rushed in. The bright splash of glittering liquid where she landed seemed to hang in the air like the sparkle in a snow globe.
The guru hurried over and crouched down to listen for her breath. Then stood—apparently satisfied—and smiled up at the apprentice. He wagged his finger back and forth and shouted, but the boy couldn’t hear what he was saying. The old man lifted the woman’s ankles in his hands and began backing across the stage. In the shallow water, her arms floated up above her head. And when her dress caught on a nail, it sloughed off like a snakeskin, turning inside out as she slithered naked from the molting. The apprentice closed his eyes, but he couldn’t escape the vision. The scene soggy in his head, her pale breasts bobbing loose in the brown water. He collapsed on the metal lattice and squeezed his head in his hands.
Bodies clogged the whirlpools on either side of the stage, and the water was rising again. When the guru tripped backwards over the beached manatee, he dropped the woman’s ankles, pulled his pistol from its holster, and shot the flailing beast in the head three times. Pop. Pop. Pop. Like a cap gun. The manatee’s back flipper flapped slower and slower until it stopped altogether above the water. The boy in the rafters watched the old man pick up the woman’s feet again and continue across the paludal platform toward the wing. She looked like a worshiper who had been struck senseless by a powerful preacher, her arms trailing a clear streak through the blood and lapping brown.
What glossolalia from the penitent? Disappearing into the shadows behind the lauded prophet. Amid the roar of water and the garbled screams of drowning students. What would his crush have done? There was no precedent, but she always had an answer. He strained to remember her face. Her arm against his arm in the basement meeting room as they watched the old debates. The guru and his cohorts in skinny ties and tight jackets—black and white celluloid—cigarettes hanging from their lips as they made mincemeat of progressives. A different man entirely back then in the good old days. The Grand Old Party. Beneath the student union, they had dreamed themselves into the old recordings. Hot blood ablaze as they argued for the nation’s soul. Representatives of the radical right and righteous. The brush of her blonde hair on his neck as she listened to him play piano, swaying gently and humming to the hymn he pounded out. Her clothes on the floor of her dorm room as he stood at the threshold and peeked past her in those final days leading up to the protest at the chapel. He remembered standing in the hallway—as she barred the door in nothing but a towel—peeking past her and wondering what might happen if she invited him in.
The scene below him fell away. The suck of the whirlpools at either side of the stage, the splash of spongy flesh, the screaming. He heard nothing but the rain beating down on the roof above him. Like all the stars falling from the sky.
This will take a while, he thought to himself, hunched all alone on the catwalk, while below him, the water continued gushing into the auditorium. There was no way down. No way out. He wiggled from his slacks, thinking about a woman hiding beneath a make-up table. He wiggled from his white boxer briefs and laid supine on the scaffolding. Cradled in a cage above the flood, he closed his eyes, saw the woman on her knees in the red room, her head bowed, her chest and neck glistening through her hair. Penitent. She was not the news anchor now, but his crush—the golden girl of the youth movement. So pretty, the guru always said. But it was not the guru standing over her. The apprentice felt her precious hair in his fingers. She smiled up at him and batted her lashes. Demure. He lifted her from the floor in a sepia swoon to kiss her parted lips. The beginning of a song. Bump, nuzzle me, manatee. Everything liquid and melting to pulp. They embraced in the room of his mind, filling up with water, her limpid clothes lifted away, and everything luminous beneath. Iconographic as they coiled into each other, arched out the window, a glissade over the sill into fields of sunken cress. Infinite, the green world, they two become one: a naked creature connected and all of a piece, buoyant and flapping slowly through the grassy water, flames on their tongues. He moaned nonsense from the hanging bridge and shivered gray above the dark slosh, the world blue beyond his eyelids. And bright.
Original header photo by David Tadevosian, courtesy Shutterstock.