Eastern Standard Tribe

Traffic was early-morning light and the cabbie drove like a madman. Art kept flinching away from the oncoming traffic, already unaccustomed to driving on the wrong side of the road. England seemed filthy and gray and shabby to him now, tiny little cars with tiny, anal-retentive drivers filled with self-loathing, vegetarian meat-substitutes and bad dentistry. In his rooms in Camden Town, Art took a hasty and vengeful census of his stupid belongings, sagging rental furniture and bad art prints hanging askew (not any more, not after he smashed them to the floor). Bad English clothes (toss 'em onto the floor, looking for one thing he'd be caught dead wearing in NYC, and guess what, not a single thing). Stupid keepsakes from the Camden market, funny novelty lighters, retro rave flyers preserved in glassine envelopes.

He was about to overturn his ugly little pressboard coffee table when he realized that there was something on it.

A small, leather-worked box with a simple brass catch. Inside, the axe-head. Two hundred thousand years old. Heavy with the weight of the ages. He hefted it in his hand. It felt ancient and lethal. He dropped it into his jacket pocket, instantly deforming the jacket into a stroke-y left-hanging slant. He kicked the coffee table over.

Time to go see Fede.

27.

I have wished for a comm a hundred thousand times an hour since they stuck me in this shithole, and now that I have one, I don't know who to call. Not smart. Not happy.

I run my fingers over the keypad, think about all the stupid, terrible decisions that I made on the way to this place in my life. I feel like I could burst into tears, like I could tear the hair out of my head, like I could pound my fists bloody on the floor. My fingers, splayed over the keypad, tap out the old nervous rhythms of the phone numbers I've know all my life, my first house, my Mom's comm, Gran's place.

Gran. I tap out her number and hit the commit button. I put the phone to my head.

"Gran?"

"Arthur?"

"Oh, Gran!"

"Arthur, I'm so worried about you. I spoke to your cousins yesterday, they tell me you're not doing so good there."

"No, no I'm not." The stitches in my jaw throb in counterpoint with my back.

"I tried to explain it all to Father Ferlenghetti, but I didn't have the details right. He said it didn't make any sense."

"It doesn't. They don't care. They've just put me here."

"He said that they should have let you put your own experts up when you had your hearing."

"Well, of course they should have."

"No, he said that they had to, that it was the law in Massachusetts. He used to live there, you know."

"I didn't know."

"Oh yes, he had a congregation in Newton. That was before he moved to Toronto. He seemed very sure of it."

"Why was he living in Newton?"

"Oh, he moved there after university. He's a Harvard man, you know."

"I think you've got that wrong. Harvard doesn't have a divinity school."

"No, this was after divinity school. He was doing a psychiatry degree at Harvard."

Oh, my.

"Oh, my."

"What is it, Arthur?"

"Do you have Father Ferlenghetti's number, Gran?"

28.

Tonaishah's Kubrick-figure facepaint distorted into wild grimaces when Art banged into O'Malley House, raccoon-eyed with sleepdep, airline crud crusted at the corners of his lips, whole person quivering with righteous smitefulness. He commed the door savagely and yanked it so hard that the gas-lift snapped with a popping sound like a metal ruler being whacked on a desk. The door caromed back into his heel and nearly sent him sprawling, but he converted its momentum into a jog through the halls to his miniature office-the last three times he'd spoken to Fede, the bastard had been working out of his office-stealing his papers, no doubt, though that hadn't occurred to Art until his plane was somewhere over Ireland.

Fede was halfway out of Art's chair when Art bounded into the office. Fede's face was gratifyingly pale, his eyes thoroughly wide and scared. Art didn't bother to slow down, just slammed into Fede, bashing foreheads with him. Art smelled a puff of his own travel sweat and Fede's spicy Lilac Vegetal, saw blood welling from Fede's eyebrow.

"Hi, pal!" he said, kicking the door shut with a crash that resounded through the paper-thin walls.

"Art! Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell is wrong with you?" Fede backed away to the far corner of the office, sending Art's chair over backwards, wheels spinning, ergonomic adjustment knobs and rods sticking up in the air like the legs of an overturned beetle.

"TunePay, Inc.?" Art said, booting the chair into Fede's shins. "Is that the best fucking name you could come up with? Or did Toby and Linda cook it up?"

Fede held his hands out, palms first. "What are you talking about, buddy? What's wrong with you?"

Art shook his head slowly. "Come on, Fede, it's time to stop blowing smoke up my cock."

"I honestly have no idea-"