He handed the device to Michael, and although Michael felt his own Pavlovian urge to slip into a comfortable beat, he didn’t put the headphones on just yet. Instead he watched. By now Tory was rubbing her hands in front of her like a fly as Okoya reached for the bottle of lotion. Okoya took his time, spilling a drop of the lotion onto his index finger. “It’s fragranced with the essence of ten different kinds of rose, and guaranteed to make you feel as fresh as the day you were born.” He held it toward Tory, but not close enough for her to smell it.
“You said you would kill for it,” said Okoya. “Did you mean what you said?”
She kept her eyes glued on the viscous pink liquid dripping down his finger. “Definitely.”
Then Okoya reached to a compartment in the bus’s kitchenette, peered inside, and retrieved a crystalline ice bucket. Inside was a silver ice pick. Instead of giving Tory a dollop of lotion, he gave her the ice pick.
“Kill Winston,” he said. “And you can have the whole bottle.”
Tory stood immobile with the pick in her hand, giggling at the thought.
“Go on,” prompted Okoya. “You want your lotion, don’t you?”
Tory looked at the sharp end of the ice pick, and found herself turning it toward Winston’s chest. Lourdes filled her mouth with cake and eyed Tory, but made no move to intervene. Winston spread his arms pushing his chest forward.
“C’mon,” he said with a grin. “Right here—right through the heart!”
Perhaps it was because Michael had not yet plugged into his music, or just that he had dredged up a moment of clarity, but whatever the reason, in the midst of everyone else’s laughter, Michael realized that Tory was pulling her hand back, like a gun hammer cocking itself. She was actually going to do it!
Michael dropped his Walkman and lurched forward as Tory began her downward arc. He firmly grasped her wrist, and the pick stopped an inch from Winston’s chest.
“Tory—what are you doing?!”
Tory turned to Michael as if he had done something wholly inappropriate.
“The lotion,” she said simply. “I want the lotion. For my skin.”
“You almost stabbed Winston!”
Unconcerned, Winston vanished behind his magazine. “Big deal,” he said. “Dillon would have brought me back.”
“That’s not the point!” Michael turned, hoping to find support from Lourdes, but she was digging her hands into the rest of the cake.
“It would have been interesting to see if he could actually die,” she said matter-of-factly. “For all we know, we’ve become immortal.”
“Immortal?” said Michael incredulously. “What about Deanna? She was one of us, and she died.”
“That was then,” said Lourdes; “this is now.”
“How could you be so flippant about it?” yelled Michael. “How could you be . . .” But even as he thought it, he knew it wasn’t just them. He wasn’t much different. How self-absorbed had he been lately? How malignant had his own arrogance become; the thrill of being worshiped, the self-satisfaction his own power now brought him?
“What’s happened to us?” he dared to ask.
“We’ve risen above where we used to be,” said Winston. “Our perspective has changed, that’s all.”
Michael had to admit that he was right. Their outlook, their desires and needs, were markedly different than they had been three weeks ago. Their place in the world was so much grander than they ever imagined it to be.
“We used to be limited by fear, and small-mindedness,” Winston said, puffed up by his own sense of wisdom. “Not anymore.”
But as Michael stood there, a splinter of that old limited perspective came back . . . and for a moment, he was not a god—he was just a kid. A kid with more power than he knew how to wield.
Michael knew that in some way, Okoya’s music had bolstered his pride—his hubris. It added to his sense of comfort and confidence. He didn’t need the music—he wanted it. Okoya hadn’t forced him to listen—it was Michael who had seized upon it, keeping himself emotionally sated.
But there was an advantage to hunger.
He dropped the Walkman in his hand, knowing that if he didn’t, he’d be swayed by those rich melodies that he, too, might kill for.
“I don’t like what’s happening here,” he said.
Okoya had a radar fix on his eyes. “It was only a game, Michael,” he said, with such control in his voice, Michael felt the urge to nod in agreement in spite of himself. “You get way too emotional,” continued Okoya. “You should be more like Lourdes. She’ll go far.” By now, Lourdes had finished her cake, and was licking the whipped cream from her fingers. She glowed with Okoya’s compliment.
Michael felt the air around him become oppressive and cold. Dewdrops began to form on the ceiling of the bus.
“Hey!” Winston said. “If you have to rain on someone’s parade, take it the hell away from me, will you?”
“Yes, Michael,” said Okoya. “Perhaps it’s time you left.”
Michael didn’t need another invitation to leave. In spite of his hunger, he stepped over the Walkman, and hurried out the door without further word.
Tory saw him go through the corner of her eye, but her attention was on the ice pick still in her hand.
Is that my hand? she thought. Was that me bringing the pick toward Winston’s chest?
There was a sentence playing over and over and over in her head now; the words Winston had muttered when Michael saved his life. “Big deal. Dillon would have brought me back.” Was she so great a soul that she was beyond the need for conscience? And was her lust for Okoya’s aromatic potions so powerful that it made even death seem unworthy of her attention?
“Dillon would have brought me back.”
Was life so cheap now that murder meant nothing?
She wanted to let these thoughts slap her—perhaps enough to slap her off the alabaster pedestal she had so willingly climbed on—but Okoya approached with a palmful of pink lotion.
“You’ve earned this,” Okoya told her, “for helping me find the weak link.”
The ice pick dropped from her fingers, she leaned forward, and Okoya stroked the smooth fluid across her cheeks like war paint. The scent hit her, and instantly any thoughts of what was right, what was wrong, what was clean and what was foul, were snuffed in the sweet flood of a million rose petals.
Michael fought off the dewpoint, determined not to telegraph his emotions to the world. His emptiness had returned in full force, growing unbearable by sunset. A hunger, deep in the channels of his ears. Is it possible, Michael began to wonder, to be nourished through one’s senses, rather than through one’s stomach ?
Michael took sustenance that evening from the campsites of the followers. It was the first time in days he had eaten real food, but even so, it was unsatisfying—vapid, and flavorless in some fundamental way. It was as Michael wandered from campsite to campsite that Drew came to him with a request.
“See, there’s this girl,” Drew said. Michael immediately knew where this was headed, and he had no desire to go there.
“Drew, I’m tired. Talk to me tomorrow.”
“Can’t wait. No, no—can’t wait,” he said, his words coming out in anxious staccato beats.
Michael picked up the pace, and Drew followed, pushing people out of his way to keep up.
“The thing is, she doesn’t like me,” said Drew. This was no surprise to Michael. Drew had not quite mastered the finer points of conversing with girls he was attracted to. In fact, many of those ill-fated conversations ended abruptly with Drew executing one of several bodily functions, none of which were too pretty.