“The beat,” said Gunderson, and he felt his phone vibrate, read the backlit text: Serious offer.
“Hey, shouldn’t I be dead yet?” said Gunderson, looking over at Baltran. “This thing’s been crashing for a while.”
“Not really. That’s just how you’re experiencing it. Okeydokey, here it comes, baby.”
“I can feel it,” whispered Gunderson. “I can taste it. It’s coming on sweet.”
“That might be your lozenge. See, really, there is no sweetness. What comes is pitiless, blind to you.”
“Aren’t we all connected?”
“Yes, we are all connected,” said Baltran, “but that’s not really a good thing. For the record, I always liked you, Gunderson. Breathe easy.”
Gunderson watched his friend’s form collapse into a sprinkly nimbus.
“Connected how?” cried Gunderson. “To what?” But he knew what, had known for some time, a few thousand years at least, back before his own shaman days on the shores of Oaxaca, longer, much longer, back before his human days, his golden molting days, his wailing vapor days, back before anything you could call a day, when he was just another stray vector shooting through great jagged reefs of anti-space. He’d known, but had he believed? Had he ever believed? Did it matter? Beyond the seal of the multiverse was a wet, blazing mouth. It slavered. It meant to munch. It had journeyed through many forevers to reach what it existed to devour: the real-ass jumbo.
Gunderson began, or ceased, to dream.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to the editors who first worked with me on these stories, including Willing Davidson, Deborah Treisman, Amy Grace Loyd, Jeff Johnson, Lorin Stein, Rob Spillman, Hunter Kennedy, Jason Fulford, Michelle Orange, Tom Beller, and Joanna Yas. Thanks to Eric Chinski, who helped me make a book out of them. Thanks to the late George Kimball, whose book Four Kings: Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran and the Last Great Era of Boxing proved a valuable source in the writing of “The Worm in Philly.” Thanks to Ira Silverberg and Eric Simonoff. Thanks to Ben Marcus. Thanks to the MacDowell Colony, where several of these stories were begun. Thanks to Ceridwen Morris, who encouraged me to finish them.