CHAPTER 5
1454 Words
CHAPTER 5Juaquin Prado slid into the red leatherette booth that smelled of decades-old cigarettes, grease and beer. He grabbed a napkin from the metal dispenser that also served as a holder of keno slips, and wiped away the rings of water and bits of food that remained on the table. Grimacing, he looked around the tavern-s***h-neighborhood-restaurant, the name of which he could never remember. He always came in the back door of the cinder-block structure where there was no signage, so he simply referred to the place as The Chicken because it smelled like the seldom-changed deep fryers in the kitchen behind the bar.
In front of the bar, a couple regulars slumped over their drinks while the bartender, a frenetic rail-thin woman of forty, ran back and forth dropping drinks and making a few quips, as close as she could come to flirting with the demands on her time. Occasionally a customer would raise a hand, while sitting at one of the video poker machines along the wall at the end of the bar, and she would jog over to them, grab their credit card, run back to the register and return with more cash to feed into the machines.
A pudgy, balding man stepped out of the gloom into the ambient glow of the video poker machines and stopped at the end of the booth where Prado sat.
“Hey, stranger,” Pudgy said. He levered himself into the booth by grabbing the edge of the table with latex-gloved hands, sucking in his gut and hopping across the seat in three short bursts. His face reddened with the effort.
Prado inclined his head slightly, causing his brow to cast shadows over his eyes. “Merv. You’ve not been returning my calls.” He had a deep, sonorous voice and a subtle, almost undetectable lisp, a hiss of air on the end of his Ss without the tongue that would turn them into a full-on th sound. Most people weren’t sure if it was an accent or a speech impediment, and most people never had the nerve to ask.
Merv’s hands fluttered over the table edge nervously. “I’ve been dealing with some stuff since the plane crash. It’s been kinda crazy, you know?”
“This stuff you’ve been dealing with, it keeps you from returning my calls?” Prado asked. “It keeps you from taking care of business, meeting your obligations?”
“Man, we ain’t got no business or obligations since they pulled us out of that river seven weeks ago. Everyone thinks I’m a doctor, a freaking dermatologist of all things. Don’t things seem a little strange to you since we got on that flight to San Francisco?”
The bartender walked up to their booth with a pad in her hand. “You gents want something to drink?”
Prado said, “Hi, Linda. We’ll take a pitcher of the usual.”
She looked up from her pad. “I’m sorry, what’s the usual for you guys? Have I served you before?”
Merv’s hands fluttered and pointed at her. “See? Strange.”
Prado made a calming gesture with his own hands. “We’ll take whatever light beer you have on tap. Thanks.”
She scrawled on the pad and said, “Anything to eat?”
“No thanks,” Prado said.
As she left, Merv leaned forward and whispered, “You’re a dermatologist too. That’s what we were doing on that plane. We were going to a skin-care products convention. That’s what everyone thinks. We are friggin’ dermatologists, and our office keeps calling me wanting to know when we’re going to come back to work. Apparently there’s an epidemic of zits over on the west side of town that we’re supposed to do something about. Haven’t you heard any of this?”
“I’ve heard. That’s why I’ve been calling, to see if your . . . perspective had changed since our plane went into the river.”
“You bet it’s changed. It’s like we took off in one world and crashed into a different one. I’ve got a friggin’ wife outta nowhere, man. A wife! Well, I had a wife. I think she’s pretty much took off after—”
Prado sighed and said, “Okay. Tell me what you were doing on that flight. Where were you going?”
Merv stared out into the bar to make sure no one was listening and said, “We were going to San Francisco, you know, to deliver the drive and pick up the payment.”
“The drive?”
“The flash drive with the source code on it for the wireless payment system.”
Prado’s brow furrowed. “We wrote software code?”
A crestfallen look melted across Merv’s features. “Now you’re doing it, talking craziness.”
“Answer the question.”
“No, we stole the code. We were taking it down to our client in the Bay Area. We were hired to get the code and take it down there. Why do you think we were on the plane?”
“I was on my way to San Diego, on business.”
“So the way you remember it, we were going to San Diego.”
“Not we. Me. I don’t remember ever meeting you before, but I saw your name in the paper, on the list of survivors from Flight 559. Now that I see you, you look familiar. Maybe you sat next to me. I’m not sure.”
“Great. That makes no sense. You called me and told me to meet you here. Why would you do that if we have never met before?”
“We are partners in a dermatology practice, remember? I got your number at the office. It took a while to get out of there. I think a couple patients are going to be surprised when they find they have prescriptions for drugs that don’t exist.”
“How’d you know we come to The Chicken?”
“Again, I come here occasionally for a beer. I don’t know you.”
“Why were you going to San Diego?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah, if we’re gonna keep being partners.”
Prado slowly rolled his eyes, then locked them on Merv. He took a sip of beer and stared for a moment like a cat trying to decide if the mouse in front of him was worth the effort. As beads of sweat broke out on Merv’s upper lip, Prado said, “Partners in what, dermatology or petty larceny?”
“There weren’t nothing petty about that code. It was worth a decent chunk of change.”
“I’m sure it was, but it seems inefficient and time-consuming.”
“What do you mean?”
“Stealing software, ferrying it down to San Francisco and hoping that your client doesn’t rip you off. Too many moving parts, too many things can go wrong.”
“You got a better idea?”
“Perhaps. Tell me why you are wearing latex gloves.”
Merv held up the gloved hands, looked embarrassed. “I’ve been morphing. Into everything I touch.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Morphing. It’s like I’m a baby all over again.”
Prado straightened, looking interested for the first time since Merv had sat down. “I’m still not following you. Did you say morphing?”
Merv looked exasperated. “You don’t know what I’m talking about either. Morphing, it’s what a newborn does before it imprints on its parents. You know, you’re born with—what do you call it—undifferentiated genomes, something like that. When you’re a baby, you touch something with DNA, and your cells morph, until you get imprinted.”
“Babies touch something with DNA, and they morph?”
“Yeah.”
“Morph as in change.” Prado punctuated the word with a subtle drop of the chin.
“Right.”
“Change into what?”
“Whatever they touch.”
“A baby touches a cat and—”
“Morphs into a cat, right.” Merv smiled, happy to be getting through to someone.
“But you’re not a baby.”
“Right.”
“And you said you were morphing.”
“Right. Ever since the plane crash.”
Prado leaned forward and pulled his wallet from his pocket, took out some bills and threw them onto the table. “I think we’re done here. Have a good life being a doctor or a felon or a cat, for all I care.” He scooted over in the booth.
“Wait, I’ll show you.”
Prado stopped with one foot under the table and the other at the end of the booth. “You’ll show me what?” he asked.
“Just one minute,” Merv said, holding up a finger. He stared across the room and watched a wiry, bearded man in a mechanic’s uniform put on a ball cap and get up from the bar. The customer turned and went out the front entrance at the end of the bar opposite the video games. Merv stood, snapped off his rubber gloves and threw them on the table in front of Prado.
“Watch,” Merv said, then crossed the narrow bar and sat on bearded mechanic’s stool. He reached for the empty beer mug and lifted it to his lips. A thin stream of foam slid to his mouth.
Hairs sprouted out of Merv’s jowls over the rim of the glass and appeared to pull away as his skin tightened over his narrowing skull. Within seconds his chins receded, and his Adam’s apple protruded from his neck. His eyebrows thickened and arched downward, as his nose lengthened, and his lips thinned. His cheekbones roiled beneath his skin, climbed higher, pushing on his profile, shoving his ears back and out like airplane flaps being extended for flight. He c****d his head to one side and popped his neck. His shoulders broadened, but his chest sunk, causing his shirt to sag down over his belt. After a few more seconds, his belt and pants sagged, threatening to fall off. He reached down and grabbed them, pulling them back up, revealing his lengthening calves and bursting athletic shoes.
“Ouch, that hurts,” Merv-morphed-into-the-mechanic said, looking down at his feet.
The bartender walked up and said, “What hurts, honey? That empty mug?”
“You got that right,” Merv raised the glass to Prado. “I’ll take another. Can you bring it to me over there?” He pointed to the table where Prado stared back, pale and stone-faced.
- Writer
