Get hold of yourself. Just get hold, or its for nothing.
He leaned back against the caked side of the tank, dragging in deep gasps of air through his mouth, but that was almost as bad. Just above him was a large pearl of oval light. The toilet hole he had, in his madness, wriggled through. He retched again. To his own ears he sounded like a bad-tempered dog on a hot day, trying to bark while half-strangled by a too-tight collar.
What if I cant stop? What if I cant stop doing that? Ill have a seizure.
He was too frightened and overwhelmed to think, so his body thought for him. He turned on his knees, which was hardthe side wall of the holding tank, which was now the floor, was slipperybut just possible. He applied his mouth to the split in the floor of the tank and breathed through it. As he did, a memory of some story hed heard or read in grammar school came back to him: Indians hiding from their enemies by lying on the bottom of a shallow pond. Lying there and breathing through hollow reeds. You could do that. You could do that if you remained calm.
He closed his eyes. He breathed, and the air coming in through the split was blessedly sweet. Little by little, his runaway heartbeat began to slow.
You can go back up. If you can go one way, you can go the other. And going back up will be easier, because now youre
Now Im greasy, he said, and managed a shaky laugh even though the dull, closed-in sound of his own voice frightened him all over again.
When he felt he had some control, he opened his eyes. They had adjusted to the deeper gloom of the tank. He could see his shit-caked arms, and a matted ribbon of paper hanging from his right hand. He plucked it off and dropped it. He supposed he was getting used to such things. He supposed people could get used to anything, if they had to. This wasnt a particularly comforting thought.
He looked at the split. He looked at it for some time, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. It was like a split along the seam of a badly sewn garment. Because there was a seam here. The tank was plastic after alla plastic shellbut it wasnt a single piece; it was two. It was held together by a line of screws that glimmered in the dark. They glimmered because they were white. Curtis tried to remember if he had ever seen white screws before. He couldnt. Several of them at the lowest point of the tank had broken off, creating that split. Waste and wastewater must have been dribbling out and onto the ground beneath for some time.
If the EPA knew about this. Motherfucker, youd have them on your back, too, Curtis thought. He touched one of the screws still holding, the one just to the left of where the split ended. He couldnt be sure, but he thought it was hard plastic rather than metal. The same kind of plastic the toilet-ring flanges were made of, probably.
So. Two-piece construction. The tanks put together on some portable-toilet assembly line in Defiance, Missouri, Magic City, Idaho, orwho knew?What Cheer, Iowa. Screwed together with hard plastic screws, the seam running across the bottom and up the sides like a big old smile. The screws tightened with some special long-barreled screwdriver, probably air-driven, like the gadget they used in garages to loosen the lug-nuts holding on your tires. And why put these screwheads on the inside? That was easy. So some merry prankster couldnt come along with his own screwdriver and open a full tank from the outside, of course.
The screws were placed about two inches apart along the seam, and the split was about six inches long, causing Curtis to deduce that three of the plastic screws had snapped. Bad materials, or bad design? Who gave a shit?
To coin a phrase, he said, and laughed again.
The screws still holding to the left and right of the split were sticking up a little way, but he could neither unscrew them nor snap them off as he had the toilet seat. He couldnt get enough purchase. The one on the right was a little loose, and he supposed that if he worked at it, he might be able to get it started and then unscrew it the rest of the way. It would take hours, and his fingers would probably be bleeding by the time he managed the job, but it could probably be done. And what would he gain? Another two inches of breathing space through the seam. No more than that.
The screws beyond the ones bordering the split in the seam were firm and tight.
Curtis could stay up on his knees no longer; the muscles in his thighs were burning. He sat down against the curved side of the tank, forearms on his knees, filthy hands dangling. He looked at the brightening oval of the toilet hole. That was the overworld, he supposed, only his share of it had grown very small. It smelled better, though, and when his legs felt a little stronger, he supposed he would clamber back through the hole. He wasnt going to stay in here, sitting in shit, if there was nothing to be gained by it. And it seemed there was not.
A jumbo cockroach, made bold by Curtiss new stillness, scuttled up his filthy pant leg. He flapped a hand at it and it was gone. Thats right, he said, run. Why dont you squeeze out through the hole? Youd probably fit. He brushed his hair out of his eyes, knowing he was smearing his forehead, not caring. Nah, you like it in here. You probably think you died and went to cockroach heaven.
He would rest, let his throbbing legs calm a little, then climb out of Wonderland and back into his phone-booth-sized piece of the overworld. Just a short rest; he wasnt staying down here any longer than he had to, that was for sure.
Curtis closed his eyes and tried to center himself.
He saw numbers scrolling up on a computer screen. The stock market wouldnt be open yet in New York, so these numbers must be from overseas. Probably the Nikkei. Most of the numbers were green. That was good.
Metals and industrials, he said. And Takeda Pharmaceuticalthats a buy. Anyone can see
Curled against the wall in what was almost a fetal position, his drawn face streaked with brown warpaint, his butt sunk almost to the hips in muck, his filth-caked hands still dangling from his drawn-up knees, Curtis slept. And dreamed.
Betsy was alive and Curtis was in his living room. She was lying on her side in her accustomed place between the coffee table and the TV, snoozing with her latest half-chewed tennis ball near to hand. Or paw, in Betsys case.
Bets! he said. Wake up and fetch the idiot stick!
She struggled to her feetof course she struggled, she was old nowand as she did, the tags on her collar jingled.
The tags jingled.
The tags.
He woke up gasping, listing to the left as he leaned against the holding tanks greasy bottom, one hand outstretched, either to take the TV controller or to touch his dead dog.
He lowered his hand to his knee. He wasnt surprised to find he was crying. Had probably started even before the dream began to unravel. Betsy was dead and he was sitting in shit. If that wasnt reason enough to cry, he didnt know what was.
He looked again at the oval light across from and slightly above him, and saw it was quite a lot brighter. Hard to believe hed been asleep for any length of time, but it seemed he had been. An hour at least. God knew how much poison he was breathing, but
Dont worry, I can deal with poison air, he said. After all, Im a witch.
And, bad air or no bad air, the dream had been very sweet. Very vivid. The jingling of those tags
Fuck, he whispered, and his hand flew to his pocket. He was terribly sure he must have lost the Vespa key in his tumble and would have to feel around for it down here, sifting through the shit with nothing but the scant light coming in through the split seam and the toilet hole to help him, but the key was still there. So was his money, but money would do him no good down here and the clip wouldnt, either. It was gold, and valuable, but too thick to qualify as an escape aid. So was the key to the Vespa. But there was something else on the keyring. Something that made him feel simultaneously bad and good every time he looked at it, or heard it jingle. It was Betsys ID tag.