Horrible screaming echoed out of the tube.
“Quiet down. I can’t think.” Serge walked behind the control panel and began throwing switches. “Now, how do we get this baby going?…” More switches and dials. “These machines use a powerful magnetic field to produce three-D X-ray-type images. And when I say powerful, I’m not kidding. This is an absolutely true story: One hospital learned the hard way it couldn’t mount fire extinguishers in the MRI room. They were in the middle of scanning a patient, and the extinguisher snapped out of its wall holder, flew clear across the room and stuck to the side of the machine. That’s why they can’t use this thing on anyone who has metal plates or pins — rips them right out your body…. Okay, I think this is the right switch…. Are you ready? I sure am! This is going to be so great!…”
Downtown West Palm Beach: the wee hours
A POLICE CRUISER rolled quietly toward the waterfront. A spotlight swept storefronts and alleys. There’d been numerous reports of a suspicious person in the vicinity of Clematis. He matched the description the Michigan couple had given of the vigilante in their motel room.
The patrol officer was bored. He turned at the end of the block and backtracked on Daytura, just to be thorough.
Okay, this is definitely a waste of time. He clicked off the spotlight. Just as he did, a silent form shot across the end of the street. At least he thought he’d seen it. He clicked the light back on.
Nothing.
The patrol car accelerated and whipped around the block. The spotlight scanned the street. Empty except for a skinny cat darting under a van with four flat tires.
Five blocks away, a dark form flew down Dixie Highway. It zoomed under a street light. A lanky man in a flowing tropical shirt on a ten-speed ultralight aluminum racing bike. Leaning way over in aerodynamic wedge, legs like pistons, no wasted motion.
The bike took the next corner in a graceful arc and zigzagged through a grid of streets near the train tracks. It raced south on Tamarind Avenue. Knife-fight territory. A juke joint had its door open to the street, blue light and arguments spilling out, then the next corner, two guys waiting for business. One saw the bike coming and pulled a pistol. “Give it up!”
“Buy a fuckin’ antecedent!…”
The cyclist’s voice trailed off as he sailed through the intersection; the gunman never had a shot and went back to discussing the Monroe Doctrine. The cyclist sat up in his seat as he cruised down the center line with no hands. He looked at his left arm and the checklist taped around his wrist like a quarterback’s game plan. Jupiter Inlet Light, Blue Heron Bridge, Royal Poinciana Playhouse, Flagler Park, Hypoluxo house where they shot Body Heat… All crossed off. He activated the backlight of his watch, then looked up at a red and blue sign three blocks ahead. Right on schedule.
The cyclist parked in front of the bus station. He leaned the bike against the wall and went inside, and someone jumped on the bike and rode away. Half the people in the waiting room were fighting to stay awake, the rest trying to fall asleep. The man walked briskly for the lockers. He opened one of the largest and removed a beaten-up knapsack and a guitar case, then ran out the back exit to the loading platform. The door closed on an idling Greyhound.
“Hold on!” — waving a ticket — “You got one more.”
The door opened. Serge A. Storms bounded aboard.
The bus was mostly empty as Serge walked down the aisle, thinking: Where do I want to sit? Whom do I want to talk to? That’s absolutely critical. For long rides, I require a stimulating conversation partner with deep reservoirs of cultural references upon which my metaphors can find purchase….
Serge spoke his thoughts out loud, quite loudly in fact, as he moved through the bus, studying fellow riders who either gathered their belongings tightly or spread them out on the next seat so there was no room.
Serge placed a hand on the back of each person’s seat as he passed by.
“…No, not this woman, a disaster-in-waiting. Clothes and makeup that are only in fashion in penitentiary visiting rooms…. Not this guy, the bad-breath merchant keeping alive his record-breaking streak of wrong life decisions… Not this woman, who looks like she’s running from a failed two-week marriage consisting of late-night shrieking, credit card debt and venereal disease…”
Serge was running out of people. He glanced toward the back of the bus and brightened. “Ahhh, that looks like a hospitable chap.”
He trotted all the way to the last row and took a seat across the aisle from a late-stage alcoholic from Lower Matecumbe Key on the verge of kidney failure. The bum was sleeping across two seats with his neck bent against the side of the bus in a way that would remind him later.
Serge stowed his knapsack, then opened the guitar case and began strumming. He rattled around in his seat. He cleared his throat. He paused and looked over at the bum. No movement.
Serge reached across the aisle and shook the man hard — “Hey you!” — then quickly sat back in his seat and strummed. The bum raised his head and looked around in a fog.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Serge. “Did I wake you?”
The bum began reclining again.
“Well, since you’re already up—” Serge hopped across the aisle and made the bum scoot over. “Traveling is all about talking to new people. That’s the ball game. That’s the whole point, travel to an exotic place, meet the people, immerse in their culture, and find out why they’re so fucked up. If you’re not going to spill your guts to complete strangers, why take the trip? You might as well just stay home abusing sex toys until that mishap that brings paramedics and you become the talk of the neighborhood. But communication is easy for me because I’m a listener. I love to hear people gab about themselves. Every single person is special. Everyone has great stories. Like you. I’ll bet you have a million. How old are you? Sixty?”
“Forty-three.”
“I’m all about listening. That’s why the world is in shambles. Nobody listens anymore!”
“I, uh…”
“Shhhhhh! Listen,” said Serge. “I have big news. I’m getting married! I don’t know who yet. I’m still conducting the statewide search, in case you have any undamaged relatives…”
The bum began slouching and closing his eyes.
Serge jerked him upright. “I’m taking it to the next level. Marriage will force personal growth. In the meantime, I’m trying other methods. Like this one.”
Serge turned forward and stared with intense concentration. Small folds twitched under his eyes until…
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
The bum jumped. The bus driver looked up in his rearview.
“Sorry,” said Serge. “I’m training my brain to look directly into the naked essence of life. Do you realize the person who lies to us most is ourself? Several times a day I stop and take a prolonged, unblinking look at the truth….”
The bum started getting up. “I’d like to go to another seat.”
Serge yanked him back down. “…It usually goes one of two ways. Horror or ecstasy. That time I flashed on the Black Death sweeping Europe in 1348. Let me try again….”
Serge stared ahead and squinted.
“Yeeeeeeeeeeeee-hawwwwwwwwwwwwwww!”
Serge turned to the bum. “Now that was a good one! I just realized how lucky I am. I could have been born a cystoblast! It’s not important what that is. All you need to know is it’s one of the many, many things you definitely don’t want to be. It’s not even an organism, just a bunch of cells, which means they don’t have eyes and can’t appreciate the radiant colors of God’s creation. From nature: sky blue, forest green, the creamy pink of the spring blossom, the honey in the clouds at sunset. From food: eggshell, guacamole, tangerine, cranberry. From science: carbon, chrome, cobalt, copper. From women’s magazines: mauve, ecru, fuchsia, taupe. Colors I dig just because I like saying the word: gamboge, gamboge, gamboge. Other words that should be colors but aren’t, like Cameroon and DiMaggio. You’re a cystoblast, you can forget about all that….”