The words became ideas that were more fantastical than he had ever thought he could create. A girl in the subway carried around a box, its contents were the shadows of fingers from beneath spinning plates. A man with no fingers waited in the begging room for a bastardized phone to shudder. A man was thrown off a bridge and it sounded like skeleton keys being dropped down a vacant stairwell.
The Fremont hotel is saved the indignity of being demolished because a local historian torches the place the night before the wrecking crew moves in. The rags that were ignited were being worn at the time by a toothless bum named Blackstone Shatner, who drank his Wild Irish Rose from a detergent measuring cup. So many wonderful tales. He knew how to give of himself. How to define the slivers with his own last breaths.
But he would not allow himself to smile at the rush of a dream realized, at least in some small way. When the next squad car showed, his blood had pooled against the far wall of the garage. It had started to dry up.
In memory of Ray Rexer: 1953-1991
FEEDING THE MASSES
by Yvonne Navarro
The man on Seymour Tussard’s front doorstep smiled pleasantly.
“You realize, of course, that life goes on. There are thousands of people just like yourself who have suffered even greater losses, yet they continue to be loyal Americans and do their duty—without complaint, I might add.” The man pulled a pen from his pocket, clicked it open with his thumb—a clean, well-manicured thumb—and ran it down the information sheet on his clipboard. “It says here you have a wife and two daughters, Mr. Tussard. It also says that you’re a successful attorney with an average income before deductions of approximately one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year. Is that correct?”
Tussard squinted at him. “I—well—no, I don’t have a job—”
“But you did have a job, isn’t that true? Up until a month ago?”
“Well, yes, I suppose I did.” His eye was burning again and Tussard resisted the urge to scratch at it. He’d rubbed the left one too hard last Thursday and it had popped; though it had been sightless for weeks he’d felt slightly off-balance ever since.
Bennigan—Tussard remembered the man’s name from the I.D. he’d flashed—stretched his neck slightly to see over Tussard’s shoulder. “May I come in, Mr. Tussard? I’m sure we’d both be more comfortable.”
“Uh, sure, sure.” He stepped back and pulled the sheet covering the doorway of his ranch-style house to one side so the younger man could enter; his fingers left a sort of smudgy print on the already filthy material.
Bennigan didn’t seem to notice. He breezed into Tussard’s home as if he’d been invited to dinner, glanced around quickly, then made himself a place to sit by turning a plaster-dust encrusted chair pillow upside down to expose its unmarred underside. He didn’t lean back as he placed the clipboard on his knees; instead he folded his hands demurely on the clipboard’s paper-covered surface.
“All right, Mr. Tussard, let me lay it out for you. Based upon your last return and assuming your wife and daughters haven’t worked—by the way, where are they?”
“The cart took them the day before yesterday,” Tussard answered. His limit on pain—physical and emotional—had been reached long ago, but saying those words so matter-of-factly to the parasite sitting across from him was like rinsing with a mouthful of motor oil. He hadn’t realized he could feel any dirtier.
Bennigan smiled benignly. “My sympathies.” Like magic the pen appeared again and he returned his attention to his papers. “Where were we? Oh, yes. Well, you’ll still be able to claim a deduction for each of them for last year—this year, too. Keep that in mind for next April. Now, assuming an income of one hundred fifty thousand dollars—which is probably low but we’ve given you the benefit of the doubt since the computer records are gone—that would put you in the thirty-three percent bracket. As I said before, you can still claim your wife and daughters even though they’re dead, so that makes four dependents. It says here that you normally itemize, but I’m afraid we’ll still require detailed records for you to take the kinds of deductions that you have in previous years. Are those records still available to you, sir?”
Tussard’s eye drifted blearily toward a blackened doorway at the far end of the living room. Through it he could see little besides the scorched ruin from the electrical short that had triggered the fire. That same room had been his home office, holding all the written recordings of a once happy and shamefully oblivious life. One of the shockwaves had caved in an area of the roof; the rain had been the only thing that had kept the fire from spreading to the remainder of the house. He wondered how Janet had felt, alone here, with the girls at school. He had been downtown, if such a word could be used for the business district of this small city thirty miles southwest of Chicago. By the time he’d made it home, it had all been over.
“Mr. Tussard?” Bennigan said patiently, jolting him back to the present. “Will you be able to substantiate itemization for this year?”
“Uh, n-no.” This can’t be happening, he thought. Of course, there were other things he’d thought couldn’t happen too. Why not this?
“Very well. As a married couple unable to itemize, you’re entitled to the standard deduction of five thousand dollars. You’ll also be given nineteen hundred and fifty dollars for each dependent—that’s four—for a total deduction of twelve thousand eight hundred dollars. As a self-employed person for the first time this year, you have made no payment to date on your tax bill. Using the aforesaid figures, we’ve come up with a rounded-off amount of thirty-four thousand, four hundred and eighty dollars due.” Bennigan looked immensely pleased with himself and Tussard heard a faint click as the pen was closed and whisked into a hidden pocket beneath the man’s suitcoat. “The fifteenth was last week. We’d like to know when we can expect payment.”
“My hair,” Tussard said slowly, “is falling out and my family is dead. And you’re sitting there expecting me to pay you thirty-some-odd thousand dollars in taxes. You must be out of your fucking mind.”
Somehow the younger man managed not to look offended. “On the contrary, Mr. Tussard. I have it all right here, in our Condensed Pamphlet on Relevant Policy. Let me read it to you.” Like the elusive pen, Bennigan suddenly held a crisp white booklet, already open to the appropriate page. He began to read in a clear, righteous voice.
“The Internal Revenue Service will begin collecting taxes again as soon as possible after the event of a nuclear holocaust. In hard hit areas, payment of taxes may be deferred at the discretion of the agent performing collection services on behalf of the taxing body. However, in those areas not sustaining direct hits, there is no discernible reason why payment of past due taxes cannot be made on an immediate basis.”
Bennigan closed his booklet with a muted snap and it was gone in the blink of an eye—or maybe that was the reason Tussard couldn’t see everything. His remaining eye wasn’t functioning at full speed. “I’m afraid I see no reason why we shouldn’t expect payment of your taxes, Mr. Tussard.”
Tussard struggled to make his brain cells work, but he was having difficulty comprehending Bennigan’s words. “But Chicago was hit,” he said. “That’s why so many here are dead, my family—we’re all sick…” He coughed, feeling phlegm rise in his chest. He swallowed, forcing the vile mucus to stay down, unwilling to spit on the floor of his home in front of this man who had miraculously escaped harm. He had the fleeting idea that Bennigan—and thousands like him—had been retrieved by the IRS from deep underground storage vaults and were now scurrying around the country like hungry spiders. “What would they do with money anyway?” Tussard asked. His eye burned and teared and he stopped his hand only when he realized his scab-covered fingers were a few inches away from his face.