Phil Tifesys
Phil sat down in the chair behind his desk with a sigh. The classroom was empty, the echo of lost potential ringing in the silence broken only by the ticking of the over sized wall clock. The class had not gone well. The kids had not misbehaved really they had just decided that they were not going to learn anything. The sat through out the whole semester mashing away at their mobiles under their desks. The school had ruled two years ago that teachers could not confiscate mobile devices. That was that, the kids just tuned out.
Phil had tried to find a way the incorporate the mobiles into his class, but the kids would just block him. At one time Phil really liked his job, he was a young teacher with a slightly radical bent. He had tried to stay current with the pop-culture; he genuinely tried to reach the kids. Some how a long the way things had changed. After this class it would have been easy to blame the current generation. But Phil knew that was a bit of a cop out. He walked out to his car trying to separate the taste of frustration from the taste of guilt.
He merged with traffic out of the staff parking lot, and set the autopilot. Instead of brewing on the class, Phil when over all the things that he had to be happy about, the class was over no use thinking any more about it. He closed his eyes and opened them as his car pulled in to the driveway. Coming home never failed to cheer him up. The house was huge with eight bedrooms and almost as many bathrooms, closets and hidden nooks. With a large front AND backyards. What was not to love?
Opening the door Phil was buffeted with sound. Three children ran past so fast that Phil was unable identify weather they were his or not. Chuck, one of the other husbands that lived in the house, following the fleeing children slapped Phil on the shoulder.
“Congrats on the start of your vacation!”
Then he was out the door. Phil started to walk towards the kitchen, where the majority of the clatter and chatter was coming from. Halfway through the entryway he was hit from the side.
“Daddy!”
Marley slammed in to Phil’s leg and latched on. Slowly he lifted up his foot and took a step, she giggled. Another step, more giggles. It was in a cloud of giggles, and a few chortles that Phil walked in to his kitchen. Penny, his wife stood in a kitchen that was completely trashed. Flower coated every surface. Every surface had dough draped across it straight from Salvador Dali’s melting clocks. In one corner a dog was lapping up tomato sauce. The cause of the mess was clear, two girls and a boy were franticly throwing balls of dough in to the air. The some of these balls were spreading out to become disks, the others not so much. But all three UFOs were sending flower and a few chunks of dough in every direction.
In a flash, and without missing a giggle, Marley was separated from Phil’s leg and throwing dough with reckless abandon. Among it all stood Penny, lovely Penny, covered in flour. Her smile was radiant as she overlooked the chaos that was going to be dinner.
“Hello dear how was your last class?” Penny asked as she turned that beautiful smile, topped with two shining eyes, towards Phil.
“I’m glad it’s done,” Phil signed, Penny took two big steps and hugged him.
“Did the big bad teenagers beat up on you,” she said in a sing-songy voice.
“No nothing like that. This whole semester they have been…I don’t know, tuned out. These last two weeks have been the worse. The whole semester was bad, but recently they would only talk about this Nutrua, whatever that is. I mean, they wrote all the papers I assigned, all their work was turned in on time. But all I needed to do was go online and run a search for the topic and I could find the website that they plagiarized from. They would change some of the words and move some of the sentences around; the only work they really did the whole time was to alter their papers so I couldn’t bust them for plagiarism. Which if I wanted to I totally could if I wanted to bust my entire class.”
“Well look on the bright side, they did learn how to find the information online, they know how to find it when they need it. Just think how much info there is at all these kids fingertips.”
“Yeah maybe your right, maybe that’s what I should focus on, not so much the info but how to find and use it, and when you need it.”
“Marley don’t put that in your mouth, its not cooked yet,” Penny turned towards the children in the kitchen, “Honey I have to oversee topping these pies then see them into the oven, dinner should be ready in about a half an hour.”
“I don’t think that I’ll be here for dinner, I want to go visit Ben tonight.”
Theresa, Chuck’s better half walked into the room. “Theresa could you help the kids get the dinner in the oven?” Asked Penny, “I have to discuss something with my foolish husband.”
With that she took Phil’s hand and led him from the room. “Why are you looking for your brother for? I hate when you go down there. Plus he’s a terrible human being. You remember what he did.”
“I know but he is my brother, what he did, and I understand how it impacted us, but really he is a different person since he has gone Below. It was the power and attention, that changes a man.”
“Whatever, don’t make excuses for that jerk. He was a pimp, then he ruined my career.”
“A pimp is a bit strong don’t you think.”
“No I don’t think!” Penny’s voice had started to climb; she took a deep breath, and then continued in a softer tone. “Honey he was using young girls who came to him for help, and had them sleep with politicians for ‘gifts’ and contracts. Worse he used me to arrest anyone who tried to compete with him, and when one of his girls said she was going to go to the news he tried to have me kill her. Don’t you remember I used to do real police work, not this behind a desk CRAP!?”
Once again Penny’s voice had risen in pitch. Phil held up his hands in a sign of surrender. “You’re right of course. What the guy did was inexcusable I wont defend his actions. But I keep hearing these reports of the disenfranchised that live below are disappearing. Ben was writing me letters at least twice a week I haven’t received a letter from him in over a month. I’m starting to get concerned, more then concerned I’m starting to freak out.”
“Fine, you should go find him, and when you do, tell him no more letters. You want him out of our life. But you should make sure that he is all right. Just don’t stay overnight, I hate when you sleep down there.”
Phil pulled his wife to him and kissed her. He tried to step away but she grabbed his arms and pulled him in for a longer more intense kiss. “Just be safe, ok?”
Phil went upstairs and changed, off came his clean school cloths. He pulled on an old set of torn jeans, and a stained button down flannel shirt. Over that he put on the cameo-jacket that came from a wilder time from his past. He finished off the look by rubbing a little bit of shoe polish on the backs of his hands and on his cheeks. He looked in the mirror and appraised his outfit, it was not perfect and to really fit in where he was going he should smell worse, but it would do. Anyways where he was going nobody paid attention to who you were or what you were wearing.
He then dove for about a half and hour. The sprawl that had grown to be called The City was massive and with a multiplicity of levels, to many to count. As a rule the higher the tier the more money there was. The lower levels the more poverty. Nobody had a clear idea of how many tiers there were, everyone knew that there was a lowest level. A level so low that it was just called The Below, this level was reserved for those who dropped out of society. Some had dropped out by choice others had been forced out, like Josh. The insane and the forgotten all found their way down to The Below. Ben had “found” his way after the massive scandal rocked his life.
Phil and his family unit lived in Cluster0o460v3. The serial number may mean something to someone, but Phil couldn’t image who. They certainly didn’t mean anything to him also serial numbers that began with zero sort of creeped him out. The City was one massive sprawl known as Bosaltami, and covered what at one time had been the eastern seaboard of the United States, an archaic government which had suffered a cataclysmic collapse a few generations ago. Cluster0o460v3 was a community of around six hundred homes. Though the community was very ethnically diverse the income range was quite narrow, almost all home having a larger number of parents and breadwinners then the traditional mom and dad household. The community had all the important parts of a community; five or six restaurants, dry cleaning, a bar or three, the school where Phil taught, and the Foods Mart where he was parking.
The Foods Mart was a very important part of the community, supplying the most import utility, food. The Food Mart in Cluster0o460v3 was quite nice it had an open park with a café. It also had one of the few parking lots in the cluster. Phil slowly drove to the very back of the parking lot, parking near the wall of the cluster. He got out of the car and took a backpack out of the trunk. Pulling the backpack on he walked to the corner of the lot where the wall of the cluster arched up in the rest of the city. Here where the parking lot met the wall there was a door with a sign. The sign said ‘Service’ but someone had written in graffiti “Skin of the world” over it. This door allowed access to the vast super structure of the city, the skin and body that gave it form. It was this super structure that contained all the levels and clusters and protected the City from threats both internal and external. This structure had evolved over many years, as the city grew vertically. As it had grown up it had also grown out and then merged with the other cities becoming the massive entity it was now.
Once his eyes had adjusted to the change of light Phil could see a roughly painted B in a circle with an arrow pointing down a flight of stairs. At the bottom of the stairs he saw another sign, following these signs took Phil through a series of stairs, catwalks and doors always heading down. Some times they were really clear and easy to find, others not so much but find them he most and otherwise finding he Below would be impossible.
Phil was walking down a narrow ally between two tall walls or supports for some part of the City when he came upon the gates to the Below. The gates had been built up over time; the prime material was scraps and bits of this and that. The nature of the building materials were such that pieces were always falling apart, and different people were always finding new things and ways to keep structural integrity. The effect was gothic with two towers of trash growing upwards till they pass some point and gravity begins to make its presence known. The towers now lean against each other, creating an arch one needed to pass through. Various scaffolds had grown up to allow the constant upkeep necessary, this added to the momentous feel of the arch. This structure had so much work and so many architects that it felt organic, like it was grown not built. It was, Phil thought as he walked through it, a new wonder of the world. A wonder that so few would ever know of let alone see.
The ach opened up into a market place in the ribs of the city above. Here commerce had a different meaning, no form of money was recognized, trade and barter ruled here. In the past it was a lively place full of noise, the good all scrounged from the city, the market feed from a zillion transactions and not a few thefts. It was a true trickled down market, the commodities of credit and debit, filtering down to this market of pure trade. Goods accumulated here from every type of loss and devaluation. This process also could be said about the people in the below. No one really knew how things or people ended here but to say that they were no longer wanted was an over simplification.
Today Phil was greeted with a more subdued tone, it hushed as he entered, then after a few minutes the sound picked up, hushed negotiations and the hue and cry of disappointment or victory resumed, Josh had called that “the call of the bulls and the bears”. Messengers scuttled through the shadows, moving always at the periphery of sight. Phil had visited Ben down here a few times. Well to be more accurate, Ben had come to Phil’s house, Phil had gone to the Below as a way to keep the peace. Today the shadows seemed more prominent and there were defiantly fewer people. The market place smelled of unwashed people and trash. Underneath, like a bass line in a song the scent of grease and oil. Today he noticed something else, something sour. The other smells though unpleasant at first one could learn to at least ignore them. This new smell was very light; Phil only noticed it when he wasn’t thinking about it. Like having a name or a word at the tip of your tongue.
This market had many vices for sale and one could find them all in the shadowed caverns that were formed in the ribs and supports of the City overhead. In the past there were always a few folks from the City here either out of curiosity or just to get something that they may not be able to find or afford elsewhere. Here a pair of socks or a copy of SI’s swimsuit edition could get you a new large screen TV or the latest designer drug. If looking to fulfill a darker, more base physical desire, that was here too. Every taboo up above was bought and sold, a true market where the invisible hand ruled.
As much as the shadows held one type of commerce the rest of the market sold every imaginable good from clothes to industrial cleaners. Another type of merchant that proliferated the market was the food vender. As long as you didn’t ask too many questions of where it came from you could find many delectable snacks and meal. There were carts and stalls that served burritos and taco, others offered various fried vegetables and other fried things, remember don’t ask. But by far the most common were the meat-on-a-stick venders, it was to one of these that Phil was looking for.
Ratz-Ratz claimed to be the first true food vender in the Below market. Though he fell under the meat-on-a-stick label, he would become enraged if he heard you call him that. What he served was not some mystery meat; it was a whole rat on a stick roasted to perfection. Ben had introduced Phil to Ratz-Ratz on one of his first visits, not only did Josh think that Ratz-Ratz offered the best food in the market he also had a pulse on all the news and gossip in the market, it was his secondary source for income. Ben had a thriving business of gathering and selling bits of info, and Ratz-Ratz had been one of is most reliable sources. If any one knew where Ben was it would be Ratz-Ratz.
As one of the originals in the market place Ratz-Ratz ‘restaurant’, if you will, held a prominent spot between to post near the geographic center of the market place. Phil could smell it before could see it. The rich smell of roasting meat made his mouth water, as the knowledge that it was rat made his stomach ache. Ratz-Ratz himself was a wrinkled old man who very much looked like the animal he served, he was short but very skinny with a bent back his shoulders hunched up almost to his ears. His face was elongated with a very large toothy grin. He wore some many layers of clothing all so old they had more holes then material, the grin and the tattered look of his garments were responsible for the nickname.
“Rats, I got some fresh roasted rats, you want some rat?” Ratz-Ratz went right into his pitch as soon as he saw Phil.
“Hi Ratz, do you remember me, Ben introduced us a little while ago?”
“Maybe if you get a rat then I’ll remember, yeah then I’ll remember.” Ratz-Ratz had gotten his nickname because he had a habit of repeating himself.
“OK Ratz, I guess I’ll have one rat, skinned please.”
“Comin’ right up, what you got to trade? I could use some new under rues. Or maybe you have some batteries, I can always use some new batteries, yeah I always need new batteries.” Ratz-Ratz rubbed his hands together as he contemplated his wish list.
Phil took off the backpack in which he had a collection of items he intended to trade knowing that his credit had no value. It made no difference that he had a 730, 690 and 710 rating, his plastic card would only be good as a small, rectangular Frisbee. He had a small stock pill in the bag and if he needed to Phil was also prepared to trade the backpack. All in all he thought it was much more then he would need for a rat on a stick and a little information.
“Ok Ratz, I got some batteries here and what about a couple socks?” Phil pulled the bundled socks out of his bag.
“Those are ok, maybe worth half a rat, just a half rat. What size are the batteries, you know I only need some sizes?” The socks disappeared into the old mans tattered cameo jacket.
“Ok, lets see. I got six triple As and ten doubles. Ok here is another pair of double As and here are four Cs. that should be good for a half rat and some info.” Phil had never really battered before, he had read about it in history books but wasn’t really sure what it should sound like. He tried anyway, “All these batteries should find anyone in the Below, it should be enough for you to make me a map, then ignoring the map, bring me to where ever it was that he lived.”
“I’m not real sure what that means mister, mister no idea what that means. But those batteries will get you the rest of your rat. Here you go,” Ratz-Ratz reached back into his hovel and pulled the rat from a rack that was rotating over a small smoldering fire.
“All the good flavor comes from the fuel for the fire, that right the fuel for the fire.” He said when he saw Phil watching. “I will also provide you with some info about your brother. He is missing, has been for sometime, yeah sometime. Must be almost a month, I really haven’t seen him for a month.”
“A month? Where could he have gone?”
“That info will cost you some more, Its gonna cost you. What you don’t like the rat, the rat? You haven’t taken one bite, not one bite.” Ratz-Ratz looked at Phil with one eyebrow raised with expectation.
Phil lifted the rat to his mouth. “Its just meat,” he said hyping himself up. He took a deep breath, and with Ratz-Ratz laughter ringing in his ear, he took a small bite. The skin crackled under his teeth, not unlike fried chicken. The meat was kind of tough, stringy almost and the bones were so thin, that other then the spine he was able to take a full bite. The flavor was not bad, salty. Some grease ran down his chin. Phil stopped eating and used his sleeve to wipe a way the slimy trail. About half the rat had been consumed, then he was very sick. Sick on the ground, while Ratz-Ratz unable to contain his glee, laughed till tears ran down his face.
“Here take it all.” Phil said with some venom, dumping the contents of the backpack into Ratz-Ratz hands. “Just tell what you know about Ben’s disappearance, everything. If you tell me everything and you bring me to where he slept, I will let you keep the bag too.”
“Oooo, a bag, a bag. What have we here, what is in this bag here? Oh good some more socks, Socks!” Ratz-Ratz took a big sniff of the socks, then a second huff.
“Clean!” he said with glee then digging back into the bag he pulled out two cartons of cigarettes and six magazines. Each item was greeted with a chortle or snort of joy. The magazines were received particularly well; three of them were targeted to women and advertised the secrets of keeping you man completely satisfied, or the steps needed to look good enough to keep him happy. The others were lingerie catalogs these where quickly flipped through with silent reverence. Then he looked Phil straight in the eye.
“Things are bad down here. It may not look it but people are scared. They’re scared cause folks are disappearin. At first they would just be gone. One day they’ed be there, like right there,” pointing at an empty shop. “Or there,” an arm sweeping out to include the whole market, “They would leave to go to sleep and just never come back. Just gone. It was just a few people at first, one person a week maybe two. But its getten worse, yesterday they took two. Someone most like is already gone today.”
“Who? Who are they?”
“Don’t know, no one has seen them. Maybe they don’t even exist. Maybe they are just leaving the Below. But I think someone, some thing is taking them. Hunting them, hunting me and all my people, we came here to be safe and now, they, are coming after us. They took Ben maybe a month ago. He was in the market, gossiping and telling people it was news. Ha, then he would ask for money like the rumor was valuable. You know sometime it was, and sometimes people paid him, everybody liked your brother. Don’t know who he was in the City, were’ll some kinda broken when we end up here.” Ratz-Ratz paused his talking with a vacant look and ran his hand through the tuft of hair that he had left on his head.
“That day,” he continued, “Ben was up to his old game, talking, that Ben could talk. I think that he was trying to get people to talk bout the disappearance. Maybe not though, memories not so good anymore and maybe I just want to think that he knew what was coming. But, whatever happened he left like always, a wave here a nod here, he would always stop by and try to get a free rat. I always told him that there’s nothing free in this world, certainly no free rat! Then he left to go to his spot, where he slept. That’s it, no more, I haven’t seen him since, nor none of the rest, maybe thirty now.”
“What?” Phil interrupted, “Did you just say that thirty people have been abducted?”
“Well, if abdoocted means, taken, whatchta say, ‘napped. Then yeah, that what I said. It’s probably more, I don’t know everybody here, some people don’t really get known here, don’t want to be known. Maybe fifty, I wouldn’t be surprised if they took fifty.”
“I had no idea.” Phil was shocked. He had no idea what to do, thirty people, fifty people, that was a lot of people. If it had just been Ben maybe he could have done something. I should go to the police, they would care if it was fifty people. Then on second thought they wouldn’t care, not here in the Below.
As if reading his mind Ratz-Ratz piped up again breaking into Phil’s chain of thought. “Don’t bring the cops here, we’ve no love for them pigs, and they certainly don’t give a good god damn about us. This is a Below problem, these are Below people. Josh was a Below person, leave him to us we’ll take care of him. You wont, or cant I don’t judge, but just go back to your life. Josh belongs in the Below and if he disappears down here then maybe that is what happens to all of us, he is one of us now.” By the end of this Ratz-Ratz face was getting red and his hands were clenched, in front of him. “Just go, go now before they get you.”
Phil tried to say something, but Ratz-Ratz closed the flap that covered the window/door/opening, effectively slamming the door in his face. So he turned and headed back the way he came. As he walked back through the market towards the gate he felt very conflicted. In many ways he felt that he was failing his brother, leaving or abandoning him. However like Ratz-Ratz had said there were other people who cared for Ben now and they wanted the responsibility of trying to save him, something Phil could see no way he could do anyways. Also he felt some deep release, Ben was no longer his problem, it was done. This thought made him feel even worse, he was a terrible brother. Sally will know what to do, or at least she’ll help, she will know what to say.
With that thought Phil passed beneath the gates, now he needed to find the arrows that had lead him down here. He found the first one, then the second. It was easier going back, he was able to let his mind wonder has he worked his way back the way he had come. The more he thought about it, he realized that most likely Ben was dead. This concept hit him like a ton of bricks, knocking him out of his reprieve. He stopped walking and looked around, this area didn’t look familiar. He could see the arrow that he followed here, but where was the next one. Now his breath was speeding up and he could feel his hands sweating, suddenly the room he was in was very warm. Phil took a deep breath. Trying to calm down, he knew that if he panicked he would never find he way out. He needed to be calm. Calm.
In the quite, in his calm, he heard them. The shuffle of steps, footsteps of someone, NO someoneS creeping up on him. Phil spun around to face the sound, to see who was behind him. A light was turned on right in his eye. Having been in the dark for long time his eyes had become adjusted, the bright light completely dazzled them, leaving multi colored circles that blocked his vision completely. The circles stayed when he closed his eyes against the brilliant light that was violating his pupils.
Hands grabbed his left arm; he spun towards his attacker and slammed into a different body rushing towards him. The sudden movement must have surprised the rushing attacker because he had smashed his own face into Phil’s chest, bounced back and fell down. Phil tried to jump the downed body and open his eyes, only to be blinded again by the light. What may have been an amazing escape attempt, failed as he miss calculated how close the downed attacker was. First he kicked him in his side then he tripped and fell on him. Whoever was holding his left hand fell on top of them pushing Phil onto the ground with his left arm behind his back. Phil struggled but was pined; the man under him was trying to hold his right arm. As he struggled the man on top of him was trying to put something over his face. He really could do nothing to stop the man from forcing the device over his mouth and nose. He tried not to breath, but he had been struggling, and he was so scared. He breathed in, it-tasted minty, the world faded away.
