HYPNAGOGIA
by William Pauley III
There’s radiation in the walls of our apartment building, at least that’s what Buzz tells me. Buzz has been around these parts since the sixties, longer than I’ve even been alive. He lives in a section of the building called “The Cliff.” He says everyone calls it that because there have been so many murders and suicides on his floor over the years. The Cliff, like the end...the edge, and all the people who have gone over. Really there’ve been murders and suicides all up and down this building, just The Cliff’s are more memorable, I guess. Someone blows themselves or someone else away every couple of weeks here. It’s just that kind of place. That’s why Buzz swears there’s radiation in the walls, making everyone crazy.
Our building sits in a part of town where there aren’t even streetlights. The people who live in the buildings surrounding us, they pretend we don’t exist. Out of sight out of mind. We’re scum to them, the armpit of town, surrounded by darkness. That’s fine with us. We know our role and play the part just fine. The people on the outside call us “the trolls of Eighth Block,” Eighth Block being the section of town we live in. But see, that’s where they’re wrong. We’re not trolls by any definition of the word, no sir. See, people like us, the people of Eighth Block Tower, we don’t exist in the same sense that everyone outside exists. We live by our own code, our own laws, and even have our own God [Sheeak, our God, has skin the color of Neptune. She feasts on dark matter. Dark matter is abundant in our universe, but not so much here on Earth. That’s where Buzz and I come in. We’re the ones that feed her, but I’ll get to that in a minute].
The people here rarely ever leave the building, even just to get fresh air, or exercise, or a change of scenery, nothing. A lot of ‘em just sit on their couches and watch the color bars illuminating from their TV screens, all slack-jawed and comfy, or listen to the faint low hum that projects from the television speakers. The hum pleases us, calms us. Can’t say what it is, but something about it is just so soothing. Like a baby listening to his mother’s heartbeat, it lulls us. On any given day, and at any given time of the day, anyone could walk into these apartments here and I guaran-damn-tee a television set is on, humming. People here in Eighth Block don’t have jobs in the same sense that outsiders have jobs neither. All the jobs around here are more like chores than anything. We’ve all got something to do around here, something to pull our own weight. Charlie is usually the one that goes out and gets the mail, Sansa goes and gets the booze and chips [seems like that’s all anyone ever eats around here, potato chips], and Samantha makes sure the shit pipes don’t back up. Charlie and Sansa are the only two in the building who actually leave on a regular basis. I heard when they go out, people are afraid of them. The outsiders know a resident of Eighth Block without even having to hear them speak. There’s a certain glow we all have that gives it away. Buzz says the glow comes from the radiation in the walls. Buzz is always taking about the radiation in the walls.
Eighth Block has been around close to a full century now. Ever since the day it was built it’s been a home for the weird, the odd, and the mutated. Buzz swears that the Madsen family, who originally lived here in one of the apartments on The Cliff many, many years ago, weren’t mutants when they first moved in. He says the radiation got ‘em. Everyone on the outside says us mutants have all been banished, forced to live within the walls of this tower, but honestly, I don’t pay them no mind. I don’t, because nobody from the outside ever moves into the apartments here in Eighth Block. No one from the outside ever comes in, and except for a handful of us running errands, we never really leave the building neither. So how is it we’ve been banished here? This isn’t a prison cell, it’s our home. Our families have all been here for several generations now. I try not to get too worked up when I hear someone accusing me of being a mutant. If being a mutant is a crime, then I am guilty as sin. If Eighth Block is my punishment, then I hope I rot in here. I love it. There’s nothing out there on the outside but fuck, and I don’t need fuck [at least not in this sense of the word]. I got everything I need right here in this building. Buzz and I only leave when we go “fishing,” and even then, we don’t actually leave.
Once a week Buzz and I stand on the rooftop of Eighth Block Tower, have us a few beers, and fire up the shop vac. We screw all the hose extension accessories to each other and take turns holding the end of the hose as far as we can up into the night sky. We hold it up for hours on end some nights, waiting for the vac bag to fill up with dark matter. Sometimes it only takes us forty-five minutes or so to get a full bag, but most nights it takes hours. We call this process “fishing,” not because it’s anything like fishing really, but just because we have to call it something and “fishing” just sort of works. Buzz says we call it fishing because our brains are warped from the radiation in the walls. We don’t know any better.
When we’ve filled the vac bag full of dark matter, we finish what’s left of our beers and head back into the building. Usually I’m the one that has to lug around the vac, down the long hallways and the many sets of staircases that lead to Sheeak’s room. Buzz always offers to help, but also reminds me that his arms are too mutated from the radiation in the walls to really be of any use. Which is true. Buzz’s arms look just like tree branches, but leafless, of course. He can’t bend his elbows and his fingers are long and twiggy.
Once we get down to Sheeak’s room to feed her, we always find her lying on the floor, deflating, close to death. Buzz and I attach the hose of the shop vac to her intake valve and throw the machine into reverse, blowin’ all the dark matter out of the bag and into her body. She begins to plump up again. Once she’s eaten all she can handle. Buzz and I toss the vac aside, crawl on top of her, and sleep the rest of the night away, cuddled on top of our God. Buzz says that Sheeak isn’t really a God, just an inflatable mattress. He says we only think she’s a God because of all the radiation in the walls. When he says stuff like that I secretly pray to Sheeak, begging her not to annihilate him as we sleep. I try explaining to her that Buzz is a little crazy because of all the radiation in the walls. I’m not sure that she hears my prayers, but so far she hasn’t annihilated anyone, so that has to mean something.
One time, Buzz and I were fishing on the roof, got too drunk, and accidentally woke up God from His deep slumber. Not our God, Sheeak, but the God. The creator of the universe. See, I’d warned Buzz about they way he was holding the shop vac hose that he wasn’t going to get any dark matter at the angle he had it pointed. Buzz grew cross and started complaining about how much holding the hose was hurting his shoulders, as if his shoulders were mutated too. I called him out on it. He said that if he had elbows then it would help alleviate some of the stress put on his shoulders. Always full of excuses. If it isn’t the radiation getting him down, it’s his mutation, and his mutation was caused by the radiation, and he always tells me, reminds me, pounds it into my head that it is all but his fault. Buzz is a great guy and all, but sometimes I’m not in the mood to hear him complain. Plus I was drinking a lot that night, so that probably added to my frustration a bit too.
Anyway, so there Buzz was, holding the shop vac like a crazy sunuvabitch, pointing it every which way but up.
