Neon Literary Magazine #38 Read online

   

  *

   

  The Flood

   

  The floods came

  and some

  were hauled up in

  their cars

  and some sang

  from rooftops

  and some

  drowned in gutters

  like rats.

  Some built boats

  like Noah

  and sailed

  through the city

  streets,

  as grandiose

  admirals of no-

  hope.

  I sat in my garden

  with the hose-

  pipe

  turned on

  water rising

  up to my waist.

  This was the life,

  I said to myself

  they wouldn’t

  beat me this year

  those cunts in

  government,

  those suit

  and tie

  fuck-jobs.

  the hosepipe ban

  had been lifted,

  and I wasn’t

  going

  to miss a drop.

   

  Karen Heuler

   

  Image by Chris Denman

   

  Glorious Plague

  An extract from the novel Glorious Plague

   

  Hallie was on her way to work but she stopped and stared, along with a growing crowd, at the church across the street. Fire engines, police cars, and an ambulance all flashed their lights and threw out sounds. She thought someone had a radio on, because there was music, but when she looked for it, she saw a man standing on the corner, his hands clasped in front of him, singing gospel. Behind her, a woman was softly humming along.

   

  “Do you hear that?” the woman whispered. “Do you hear that glory?”

   

  Hallie turned back to the church and finally saw a man standing absolutely still on the top of the bell tower. At first, she thought he was some kind of statue because he seemed frozen in place, but then there was a slight wind and she saw his tie lift up slightly and fall back.

   

  “What is it?” she asked.

   

  “Suicide,” a man said decisively.

   

  “He’s not threatening to jump,” someone else said. “Been there all morning. Someone called it in and he hasn’t moved at all.”

   

  The ladder was extended all the way up, and the little cage at the top of it was next to the man. There were people on the ground with a net to catch him if he jumped.

   

  The firefighter on the platform was talking to the man. He held out his hand and touched him: his arm, then his face. He paused, and said something on his radio.

   

  “He’s not coming down,” a man with a cap said. “And he’s not threatening to jump. Probably one of them cults. It was on the news last night. People on top of the Supreme Court building downtown. Singing ‘Age of Aquarius.’ Do you remember that?” He laughed to himself. “It’s been a while. Anyway, the news was saying it might be a cult, or a new religion.”

   

  “It’s time for a new religion, maybe,” the humming woman said. “Don’t you just feel that?” She looked up at the man on the church. “It’s time for a whole new vision.”

   

  The jumper was tied up and lowered down. He didn’t move at all. Once again, Hallie thought it might be a statue or a mannequin because it was so unnatural. People moved, after all; they moved all the time.

   

  A murmur spread through the crowd.

   

  “Why, he’s dead!” Hallie heard, and she felt the same sudden shock that made everyone take a little step, left or right, as if avoiding the impact.

   

  With that, Hallie left. She started to speculate on how the dead man came to be where he was, but then she gave it up. The world was full of strange.

   

  She got to the apartment a good ten minutes before her first set of clients arrived. She had picked up lilies and coffee on her way, and opened the coffee in the kitchen and put the lilies in the living room. It always helped to have some homely odors when she was showing real estate.

   

  Hallie led the clients into the bedroom. “As you can see, you have an unobstructed view to the river.”  It was a bright day. She thought the windows were a little too small, but there was, indeed, a view.

   

  They were middle-aged, following her with polite but greedy faces. “Too bad the view isn’t from the living room,” the husband said.

   

  “Well, the view from the living room isn’t bad,” Hallie said evenly. “You have good sightlines.”

   

  “There is that one building that gets in the way,” the wife said. “I mean, it’s a little too close to be in the background.” She frowned, not sure she’d said it right. “It interrupts the sky.” Her voice got a little peevish. “Who would want to interrupt the sky?”

   

  Hallie could tell that they wouldn’t take it, but she continued showing the apartment. They nodded patiently, accepting everything they saw without much enthusiasm. She let them go easily.

   

  It really was a nice place, Hallie thought, looking out all the windows while she waited for her next appointment. Yes, the river view was lovely. There were two boats cutting a wake through the river right now, one large, one small.

   

  There was, indeed, one building across the way that ended only a story below this floor, so that too much of the flat, tar-paper roof was visible. Unbeautiful, yes, and her second appointment felt the same way. They were a little sad about the good view being in the bedroom and they, too, were obviously not going to bite.

   

  “We were going to move back to Ohio,” the husband said. “But you know – with all the things they’re saying now, that new Mad Cow outbreak in the Midwest – maybe now is not the time. The news says they think it might be contagious.”

   

  “Oh look,” the wife said in the living room. “Someone’s on the roof. Can they see us, do you think?” She pointed down to the problematic building and indeed, there was a man down there. Hallie had seen workmen once, but this man was in a suit. He was walking around slowly, looking out in all directions. The couple watched him for a moment, then turned and walked to the door, Hallie following. She, too, knew the view was everything.

   

  Back at the office, she looked through listings and marked the ones with good sightlines. She couldn’t blame them; she wanted to look out at the sky just as they did. She confirmed a few meetings for the next day and left work early. It was a relief to be outside.

   

  A front had moved in overnight, pushing in some cool air that puffed lightly against Hallie’s face. She passed a few people who were complimenting the sky. “Such gorgeous weather,” one woman was saying. “And the sky is so clear.”

   

  “We don’t look at the sky enough,” a man agreed with her. “The color today is extraordinary.”

   

  Hallie glanced upwards. It was nice, she thought. Clear, clean, the kind of weather where you thought you could go on forever.

   

  Her boyfriend was out of town, so she treated herself to a movie, a stop at the Barnes and Noble café for coffee and a browse through some magazines. She was a little restless. She missed Bruno, of course, but she was fairly used to his travel schedule. It was just one of those days when you longed for something. Hard to say what, exactly; something sharp and extraordinary.

   

  She found a message from her mother on her phone when she got home and called her back. “What are you up to?” she asked as she opened the shades and looked up at the sky. “Are you still doing th
ose livestock samples?”

   

  “Not livestock samples,” Dale corrected her. “Forage samples. We’re checking the feed for the cows, for mold and fungus. I don’t go near the cows. Not that I would mind. I’m not afraid of cows,” she said and laughed.

   

  “Is anyone, really?”

   

  “They’re talking about culling in the Midwest. That’s what I mean. They kill them and don’t even use them, it goes against the grain with me. I think I might become a vegetarian. The cows I’ve met are nice enough. And maybe I could learn to like, what is it – tofu?”

   

  Hallie laughed. “Tofu’s not so bad, Mom. But what’s happening with your cows?”

   

  She could almost hear the shrug in her mother’s voice. “They think it’s just a variation of something that happens every so often. Something in the feed. I really like what I’m doing, Hallie,” Dale said. “I like being out and driving way back in the hills. There’s one road in particular that cheers me up whenever I get on it. It goes up a hill and then it slides right down into a valley that’s like a big green cup. And I like it anytime I get a new farm to check, because it’s a great excuse for me to drive down a lot of roads marked ‘Private.’”

   

  Hallie smiled. It was the way she felt showing apartments: sneaking into other people’s lives. “Are the farmers nice to you?”

   

  “Very nice. Very friendly, although they don’t talk much. I don’t know if they’re suspicious for some reason or just don’t like all the snooping.”

   

  “You’re not snooping. You’re trying to help.”

   

  “We’re checking the feed for mycotoxins – that’s a mold that can grow on the feed. It’s a common mold, but when it reaches a high concentration it’s poisonous and it can cause infertility. The cows get sick, they don’t conceive, they can even die. We did one round of testing, and there was just a normal amount of mold. That’s why we’re testing again, to see if there’s a variation. A lot of the farmers think we’re trying to blame it on them.”

   

  “Who are they blaming it on?”

   

  “They think it’s the feed. Most of them have been relying on government feed because of the drought. Usually they grow their own, but they lost the crops last year.”

   

  “Could it be the feed?”

   

  “It could be anything, Hallie. I’d be the last one to know.”

   

  -

   

  Dale filled in her report sheet with the name of the farm and got out of her car. She had learned that the best time to find the farmers was before noon. Some of them did construction or some other job in the afternoon, since farming barely paid a living wage. They farmed because that’s what they knew and they hoped, against all reason, that they could make it work.  They were a little idealistic, a little bit out of their time, but she was glad they were still there, still keeping some land free of mansions and malls and used-auto lots. She sometimes felt a little guilty that she could get so much pleasure from her job, since it depended on the farmers’ bad luck. She loved the back roads and the mud and the lowing of the cattle, she loved the farm dogs and the fences and the feed.

   

  There was no one in the milk barn, but she’d been at the farm before and besides, she now knew how to distinguish the bins, cribs and silos. She went to the storage trenches and put samples into the brown paper bags she carried, labeling them and sticking them in her sack. She always gave the farmer time to see her out in the open, before she went to find him or her. They had received their notices, they knew she was coming, but still it always felt a little sneaky when she didn’t see anyone.

   

  Dale left the troughs and went to the other side of the house, where the barns and silos were. She had just rounded the corner when her eye caught something out of whack, and she looked up. There was a man standing on the very top of the silo, his hands by his sides and his chin in the air. She thought she could see his mouth moving, but she couldn’t hear anything.

   

  She stopped, stared, and then slowly consulted her sheets to make sure she had the name of the owner right. “Fred?” she said in a soothing voice, as loud as she could make it without shouting. She didn’t want to startle him. “Mr. Lafayette?” she said again, coming up closer. She stood below, staring up at him, trying to see what was happening. She looked where he was looking, and saw nothing in the sky.  She looked at the ground, and saw nothing to be loaded, unloaded, hiked up or down – nothing at all that would give her the start of an explanation. His dog was there, staring up. Fred didn’t look like he would fall; he didn’t look like he was in danger, but his stillness was unsettling. After calling him a few more times, she turned around, went back to the barn and picked up the phone that was there, and dialed 911. Her hands shook terribly.

   

  -

   

  Hallie was having a good morning; she showered, made her coffee, dressed and went to work with a feeling of heightened satisfaction. When she got to the street, she even skipped a little. It was something in the air, it was a beautiful day. She filled her lungs with the glorious day, closing her eyes to breathe in, raising her head and opening her eyes to breathe out. The sky! The sky was incredible! It was glowing with blueness, a saturated blue.

   

  She felt a little restless when she took the subway. She wanted to look at the sky, so she got off the train a stop early.

   

  The streets didn’t seem to be bustling in their usual way. Sure, some people still rushed past her, but she had to wonder at their lack of sanity – to rush on such a day! With such a sky! She felt like singing, like joining those two people on the other corner who were gently leaning together in a hymn she hadn’t heard since childhood. It had been years since she’d heard a hymn. It was a shame, because it was a beauty denied.

   

  At the stoplight she overheard a nearby conversation. “Do you smell that?” a young woman asked. “I think I smell vanilla.” Hallie took a deep breath. The day was bright and specific. In contrast to all those other days that ran together, this one stood out. She would walk the rest of the way to her first appointment; she was glad she had left the subway. She walked rapidly, happily. She would get there and take the elevator up to the apartment she was showing, and she would see the sky from out each window. Radiant pieces of sky.

   

  -

   

  Dale stayed the whole time it took to bring Fred down from the silo. He was alive, but barely. Dehydration. When he was down on the stretcher, she could see that his mouth was moving, and she heard faint sounds of singing. He was losing his voice, though; she couldn’t tell what he was singing. They thought he’d been up there for less than a day. Dale called the nearest neighbors, who came to take care of the cows while Fred was hospitalized. Fred’s dog stayed near the silo.

   

  “It’s the feed,” the neighbor, Ken Tuttle, said. “Something’s been wrong with the cows since we started the new feed the government gave us. I’m sure of it. We were getting together for a meeting. You from Ag?”

   

  She explained how she was redoing the testing for mycotoxins.

   

  The man tsked to Fred’s dog, who didn’t move. His hands were in his pockets and his body was stiff. He had trouble looking at Dale, as if she was forcing him into something. “You know, there’s others,” he said abruptly.

   

  “No, I don’t know. What do you mean?” She felt drained and not up to the conversation.

   

  “Two people fell off their roofs last week,” he said. “Supposedly repairing it.  Someone was found electrocuted, at the bottom of a telephone pole. That was over in Pennsylvania, not here. But he must have been up in the
wires and no one knows why. Mike at Boonton Acres went hiking a few days ago and didn’t come back. We’re told he’s camping. His wife had to hire some kids to do the milking.”

   

  “What do you think it is?” Dale whispered.

   

  He shifted on his feet and his eyes darted away and then back. “I think it’s aliens,” he said. “Slurping our souls out like soup.”

   

  Dale took samples from the old feed and samples from the bags of new feed, and then brought them to the Extension office. Danny Beemer was her boss and she trusted his opinion.

   

  “I don’t know what’s up,” he said, shrugging. “It’s something, obviously. That feed they’re talking about – well, there’s a lot of speculation that there was bioengineered corn in it. Nothing’s supposed to have it in unless it’s labeled that way. Problem is, even if the corn is bioengineered, the mycotoxins are the same old, same old. We’ve seen it before, we’ll see it again. So what’s different? Does that corn do something new to the cow’s immune system? I mean, we keep testing for the toxin that we know, but what if it’s one we don’t know?

   

  “For instance,” he said. He sat back in his swivel chair and put his hands behind his head, a typical gesture when he was going off on a tangent. “The Salem witch hunts. You know what the current theory is? Ergot. It’s a mold on rye that can cause hallucinations. Let’s say a whole harvest of rye gets infested with ergot. The rye gets ground, the people eat the bread, and one by one they see devils, they see witches, they see fornication and trickery. Not just one person, but everyone who eats the bread. Now, if you were there, how would you think to check the rye? You’re hallucinating too, and you see what they see. And once that store of rye is gone, then the witches are gone too. It took hundreds of years for people to even start thinking that there may have been an actual physical reason for the witch hunts.

   

  “So I wouldn’t rule anything out. It could be something usual, it could be something unusual. Where do you start looking?” He shook his head.

   

  “This can’t be Mad Cow, can it?” she asked cautiously. “Someone brought that up.”

   

  “We did some tests for that,” he said. “That was automatic. I don’t exactly know what’s going on in Iowa, but I don’t think that’s spongiform either. They’re just saying ‘neurological symptoms of uncertain origin.’ That isn’t helpful. I think they just needed a name, and everyone knows about Mad Cow.”

   

  “Maybe it’s a combination of things?” Dale asked helpfully.

   

  “Sure. Which combination?”

   

  She shut up.