John has been published in Terra Incognita (read it here), written numerous non-fiction pieces for Cricket magazine, and wrote a juvenile book on Japan’s Kensai Airport that can still be found on Amazon.com.
A
Hard Life
by John C. Waugh
It
makes me boil. Don’t they know how easy I break? You’d
think soft creatures--soft except for those teeth--would
think soft thoughts and do soft things. I mean, they weave
and bump and rub up against each other sometimes when
there’s just two of them, and then they put their soft lips
together--so why clank me down like
I don’t even matter?
Anyway,
Ralph comes in at two-thirty like he always does, except
that he’s been out sick for a week. Ralph’s never sick, but
that’s what he told Shirley. “Shirl,” he said last Monday,
“I feel terrible. Like I’m gonna collapse. I’m going home.”
So Shirley rubs up against him and says “How about if I
come home with you and make you some chicken soup?” And
they bump a little and put their lips together. I don’t
know if those teeth connect, but Ralph says, “Uh-uh Shirl.
We’ve got a good thing going here. Let’s not push it.” But
that’s what Shirley does--she pushes Ralph away and turns
her head just a little so she’s looking at me instead. But
she doesn’t really see me. She says, “You’re afraid of
commitment aren’t you?” And Ralph says, “No, I’m not
afraid. I’m just not ready.”
I knew something was wrong because Ralph’s never been sick
a day while working here. He was always doing the rubbing
and twisting with Shirley in the stock room--I can see in
there when the door is open--and they’d smack up against
the shelves sometimes, and then slam the door, and then I
couldn’t see any more. So Ralph was out sick for a week, or
so he said, and Shirley asked if people had seen him, but
nobody had. At first Shirley was worried about Ralph but
then later she was mad.
On Thursday, Wayne was talking to Peggy and he says, kind
of quiet, “You know where Ralph is?” and Peggy says, “He’s
out sick.” And Wayne says, “No he isn’t. He’s in Aruba with
that blond from human resources. What’s-her-name.” And
Peggy says, “You’re kidding! Ralph?” And Wayne says,
“That’s what I heard,” and he refills his mug and--of
course--flops me down hard.
So as I was saying, Ralph came in at two-thirty as usual
after being sick--or in Aruba--and grabs me by the handle.
No soft caressing like he does with Shirley. He jerks me
around so I spill some on the floor, and that’s plenty
embarrassing. His mug says “The Only Ultimate Bitch”-- it’s
the one he gave to Shirley on Valentine’s Day--and he slaps
me down on the metal as if he thinks I’ve got Superman’s
ass. He takes a swig and then Harris comes in. Is Harris a
first name or a last name? I don’t know. Harris, that’s all
anybody ever calls him in my room.
So Harris says, “Jesus, Ralph, you’ve gone and done it now.
I mean, who would’ve guessed.” Then, of course, he picks me
up, slops coffee into a Styrofoam cup, and whacks me back
down. Then he says “Jesus,” again.
Ralph
says, “Don’t get a coronary Harris. How the hell did you
find out about it anyway? I thought I’d covered my tracks.”
“Hey man,” Harris says, dumping sugar in his cup, “what do
you think? You think being a sysadmin I don’t know every
frickin’ detail about what goes on here? Didn’t I get you
the lowdown on Brenda? Her emails? That was in like Flint,
man. Aruba--go Ralph. There ain’t no...”
Ralph cuts him off. “What do you mean? I thought you
were
talking about
Brenda. Us going to Aruba. Isn’t that what you found out
about?”
Harris gets this expression like he’s smiling and sort of
wondering and then it clears up and he’s just smiling.
“Hah,” he half laughs. “Hell no. Think again pal. Your
secret’s ...”
Then
Bremerton walks in and whaddya know, Harris and Ralph clam
up pretty quick. Except some small talk, like Harris says
to Bremerton, “Hello Bremerton. What brings you down here?
Not the coffee I’d bet.”
And that hurts. I mean, I do my best with what they give
me. What am I supposed to do when I get stuffed with
supermarket brand? A good roast is as tricky as making fine
wine. It’s as if they want some kind of magic, like Arabica
comes out when you put in Robusta. Bastards. Sometimes I
think I oughta jump off and smash myself on the floor. But
then I come to my senses. I’ve got no legs anyway. So
Bremerton says, “Hell no, dang, this stuff’s like it’s been
sitting here all day.” But he takes a cup anyway--Styrofoam
like Harris--and guess what. Slams me down too as if I was
a stapler or something. Damn. Why can’t I be soft?
“Hell
no,” Bremerton says, “I heard a rumor that Ralph was into
something big.” Then Bremerton looks at Ralph with those
dark eyes with the heavy black eyebrows and that graying
hair. “That so Ralph?”
“Me? Nah,” Ralph says. “I haven’t done one original thing
since I was hired. I’m
just a technician. Where’d you hear this anyway?”
But Bremerton--I kinda like Bremerton; he treats me nicer
than most--Bremerton is perceptive. I think he’d understand
me if he thought about me because he doesn’t see things
like everybody else sees them. He looks deeper, like maybe
he’d understand about how it’s no fun to listen all the
time and never get to talk, and to sometimes get left all
weekend with coffee that turns into sludge by Monday. Like
when Doris is out. So Bremerton looks at Ralph, then at
Harris, then back at Ralph, and smiles. “So it’s true,” he
says. “So what is it? Come on Ralph. No secrets from Ops.
Ralph says, “Screw off,” and holds his hand up with all but
one middle finger folded down, which usually makes folks
mad. But Bremerton just grins at Ralph and says, “You’ll
come around. You’re gonna realize I can help you. Ops can
make or break you in this place. Think about it.” Then he
throws his cup in the trash, still mostly full, and walks
out without closing the door.
I’m pretty low by now and thinking Doris ought to come in
soon to set me up again. Harris has finished his coffee and
pours another cup, leaving me with maybe four ounces. The
music on the overhead speaker is disgusting. I hate that
puppy love crap. “…lost in a kiss…my heart slips away…baby
I’m sorry…” I’ve only been kissed once, back before Y2K.
Yeah, ok, it was just Doris but it was great. Not like I’m
gonna pine over it for the rest of my life though. So
Harris closes the door and says to Ralph, “Ok, Pardner, I
know you’ve made a breakthrough. Something to do with
luciferase in the tk binding ring. This is big isn’t it?
We’re gonna make a bundle.”
Ralph isn’t buying. He’s mad but he’s hiding it. He leans
against the counter trying to look casual and takes a sip
from his mug. “How the hell do you know about this? How
long have you been spying on me?”
Harris dumps another spoonful of sugar in his coffee,
stirs, and smiles at Ralph. “Oh, long time now. Told you,
as an admin I get everything. Tryst-mail from Ms. Big. She
thinks she’s going through her own encrypted port but I see
all of it. Hey, every time you air into the network with
your notebook, I upload your hidden directories.”
“You
could go to prison,” Ralph says.
“Me?” Harris plays the naïf. “How about you? Must be five
years you’ve been using Company equipment to do your own
work. You’ve scarfed up trade secrets left and right.”
Ralph’s brow creases as he pans a worried look around the
room. “Maybe this isn’t a good place to talk,” he says.
“Why the hell not?” Harris says. “Best place around.
Remember? I looped the security camera so you could bag
that bitch in here. Right now they’re watching the canned
stuff. Not that those guys watch rooms like this anyway.
Only thing we need is some decent coffee.”
There he goes again, ragging on me. Harris takes a crunch
donut and dips it in his cup. I hope he chokes.
Ralph sets his mug on the counter. “You’ve got some damn
nerve.”
“You
noticed.”
“Look, the military would kill for this thing. I can’t tell
anybody about it. They’d come in and lock this place down.
Probably lock you up, too.”
“That’s why we need each other Ralphie baby. See, I know
enough to blow this wide open already. Clue me in. What’s
really going on?”
Ralph paces around the room shaking his head. He runs a
hand through the hair around his bald spot. He picks up his
mug and dumps cold coffee down the sink. Then he grabs me
and pours the last couple ounces. He mutters to himself and
turns fast to face Harris. “You swear you won’t let anybody
in on this? Swear on your mother’s head. Christ, how did
Bremerton find out? I wonder how much he knows?”
Harris sits down at the table, smiling. “He doesn’t know
shit. I sent him an anonymous email.”
Ralph stares at Harris. “Huh?”
“Insurance policy. I had to put the pressure on. Know what
I mean? We’ll feed him something he’ll be happy with.
Bremerton’s no problem. So what’s the skinny?”
Ralph hesitates, his eyes wild, like something’s burning
inside. “Swear it won’t go beyond the two of us,” he says.
“Christ. Of course I swear.”
“God, I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Ralph says. “Ok.
Look, you know my unit is working on coding viruses to do
customizing, right?”
Harris nods.
“You’ll
get a virus in a chewable tablet that goes inside every
cell in your body and changes what needs to be changed.
We’ve engineered the docking into the surface receptors and
we’ve got the fail safes locked down. That HIV mutant
that’s been giving trouble--that was our Manna from Heaven.
If this works, you can get fuller lips. No shaving. Bigger
tits. Heart shaped birthmark. It’s not that far off.”
“Yeah yeah,” Harris says. “Old news. The Company’s gonna
have the patents screwed down tight. Trillions. Bigger than
Google.”
“Well there’s a dark side to it.”
“The whole thing’s a dark side. Like crack. People will
sell their souls to look like movie stars.”
“No,” Ralph says, “that’s not what I mean.
It’s
…”
And just as Ralph says that, the door swings open and in
walks Doris. “Hi guys,” she says. “How’s it going?”
After pleasantries, Doris sets me up for the next round. A
few more words and Doris leaves. Ralph and Harris look at
one another, saying nothing. I sense that this moment is
critical. Ralph is not one hundred percent convinced he
really wants to tell Harris his secret. Or that he needs
Harris’s help. Or that he can buck Harris’s blackmail.
They’re both sitting at the table now. The air is stiff
between them. Then it melts somehow, maybe it’s the
piped-in music, and Ralph says, “All right. It’s like this.
We’re all ninety-nine point nine percent the same. More
really. But there are differences. You have green eyes,
mine are brown. You’re taller. It’s all in the DNA.” Harris
comes over, pours a cup of my fresh brew, and sits down
again.
Harris was clueless, but I saw that the critical moment had
just passed. Ralph decided to talk. Harris would have
ruined it by getting coffee a few seconds sooner, when
Ralph was fragile. Harris is an ignorant, lucky
son-of-a-bitch. Such is the soft life. They’re blind. I see
everything, but what can I do?
Ralph continues, “I think I’ve made a mutant that can
detect that tiny percent difference. Call it the bloodhound
virus. Give it the scent and it’ll lock on to just one
individual. Or a group. Joe. Sally. Blacks. Gays.
Schizophrenics.”
Harris isn’t convinced. “How do you know your detecto-virus
works? Haven’t similar things been tried? And failed?
Couldn’t spot the target?”
In response, Ralph turns around and pulls down his pants,
revealing a perfect star-shaped mark on his left butt
cheek. “I gave it skin cells from inside my mouth,” he
says. “That’s my gold star. Nobody’s done anything like
this yet. Mine works. Get the picture?” Ralph pulls his
pants back up.
Harris laughs. “Hell yes. Get this to work on other people,
and pretty soon the Asians go blond. The Aryans turn black.
Your grade school bully grows tits!” Harris is practically
rolling in the aisle. “Fabulous. I love it. Chaos
reigns.”
Personally
I don’t see the big deal. “But don’t you see?” Ralph says,
almost pleading. “The military will grab it. This would be
the greatest assassination tool ever conceived. All you
need are a few skin cells or a bit of hair and that head of
state is toast. You can target whole groups. Bye bye to the
Chechens or the Sunnis.”
“Jesus Chainsaw!” Harris says. “I get it. World domination.
Absolute power. Whoever controls the spice controls the
universe. But hey, Ralph, baby, if you can figure this out,
somebody else will too.”
“I don’t think so,” Ralph says. “I got an MS in Biotech but
my BA was in poetry.”
Harris has a blank look and opens his hands in front of
him. “Huh?”
“DNA
is information, like movies or poetry. At least that’s how
I looked at it. They used to call most of it junk DNA
because nobody knew what it was for. Well it’s encoded
holographically but you’ll never find that by experiment or
brute force or trial and error. You’ve got to feel the
rhythm in the codes, touch the meter. Stanzas in the
strands. A few billion years of evolution--how could the
music of the spheres not be in there? But how many poets
are also gene lab techs working for big greedy companies?
And if I was more than just a technician here, I’d have
been pounding down all the wrong paths, full of myself,
looking for that Nobel. I wouldn’t have smelled the roses.
No, it’s a once a millennium thing. If that.
“But
now that I know that,” Harris says frowning, “say I’m a big
fancy scientist and I know I need poetry ...”
Ralph shakes his head. “You don’t get it. It’s not a
science kind of thing at all. It’s not ‘if this then that.’
It’s the dawn chorus from the dawn of man. Haiku of the
heart. The dream of life.”
“But if I read your notes ... hell, I did read your notes.
I didn’t see any dawn chorus thing in there.”
Ralph smiles. “What do you think, I’m stupid? I didn’t
write that part up. Didn’t need to. Once you know it, you
don’t need notes. Sure, for the biochemistry. But not for
the Rosetta stone.”
So they just sit there for a minute facing each other
across the table. I figure Harris is thinking, how the hell
do I get this secret out of Ralph? I can almost smell his
brain smoking. And Ralph is thinking, do I really give him
this?--I haven’t crossed the line yet. And me, I’m playing
God like I always do. The perfect observer. I see all, but
I can’t do a damn thing except brew coffee.
A
sappy remake of
Revolution is
playing on the overhead. No lyrics. Arranged by some
dumbass who didn’t know a bassoon from a b-flat. Shirley
comes in, pushing the door wide open. She looks different.
Hard. “You fucking low-life son-of-a-bitch,” she says, way
too calm. “With Brenda yet.” She’s holding what the
detective, Styrofoam cup in hand, later calls “one huge
gun,” and pulls the trigger.
Well
personally I wouldn’t care either way. Some
bigger-than-Hitler asshole takes over the world with fancy
chemistry, what’s it to me? I still gotta make the coffee
and they’ll still complain about it.
You say you want a revolution, well you
know.
I feel sorry for Shirley. I liked her; she had spunk. But
look where it got her. And I liked Ralph better alive than
dead, but oh well. At least Shirley made sure his secret’s
safe now. All I can do is make coffee. Still, they talk and
talk and what do they get? Hard bullets in soft bodies.
I’m still unbroken though. Being hard isn’t so bad after
all.
Don’t you know,
it’s gonna be all right...
Copyright 2007 by John C. Waugh