Fleabite

I lay prone in the warmup room. Grit and cold tile.

Alec tugged me to my feet and put a hand on my shoulder, held me steady.

His eyes swam red.

“The naturalists observe: a flea / Has smaller fleas on him that prey.”

The words stood tall in the room, commanded an answer. He was looking into me, his face a breath from mine. My mouth opened without my asking. Felt sticky like I hadn’t spoken in a while.

“Thus every poet in his kind / Is bit by him that comes behind.”

What had I just said?

Alec cupped my face in one hand and I could smell it on him, the piss smell, the slowness, but he was looking at me like a friend, all gentle like a friend who’d have to be leaving soon.

“Love you, brother,” he said and I could hear the slur in it. But he’d meant it.

She came in, Lise, towing a duffel and a Tazer, looked windblown. A wall of sound followed her in, the sloppy chatter of an afterparty crowd and an angry bass line trying to crack the concrete.

“Ok, who’s who,” she said.

“Me is I,” said Alec and laughed.

I couldn’t blame her - even I couldn’t tell myself apart from Alec sometimes. He was older by eighty-eight seconds and said it made a difference, but sometimes I think even he caught himself staring at me, wondering if our brains were in phase alignment, or if it only looked that way.

She dropped the duffel and tossed something to Alec. Something small.

“They’re gonna kick us out,” she said. “The kid? Jodi? He told me.”

“Told you what?”

“They’re gonna disqualify our asses.”

“Why?”

“They found somebody with deeper pockets.”

“Get Luc in here.”

“They’re fuckers, Alec, I told you.”

“Get Luc and get Jodi.”

“They’re down there looking through the rulebook for a way to—”

“Well let’s talk to them.”

“They’re fucking us.”

Alec was putting a chain around his neck, the thing she’d thrown him, something shaped like a heart. Had I seen it before?

“Let’s go see,” he said.

Eyes to mine.

“You good?”

I nodded. He slapped my cheek. “Let’s go find Jodi.”

Lise picked up her Tazer and we followed her to the door. Alec laughed. “You gonna zap him?”

Lise led us down a dim green hallway. Velvet wallpaper. Bouncing fluorescents. Alec left his hand on my shoulder. I didn’t mind.

They were yelling something as we came out the other end, the crowd, chanting something in unison, must have been two thousand people on their feet, ringed to the ceiling, and we’d come up in the middle of it.

I marked the faces.

Twisted by smoke, soured by alcohol, quickened by spectacle, full of fear, anger and life. I wondered what they were chanting. But it was in French. I didn’t speak French.

I looked where they were looking.

At first I didn’t see the tiger. He was circling the rim of the cage, head low, shoulders up. The automaton moved gently to follow, eased its weight back onto its rubber left ped.

Somebody bumped my shoulder.

“Êtes-vous son sosie?” You the double?

The sweaty guy waiting for my answer must be Luc. Lise was a few feet away with Jodi, the tweaker kid.

Alec interrupted. “He doesn’t speak French.”

“Nous sommes jumeaux,” I said. We’re twins.

Had I said that? Or had Alec?

Alec was looking at me, uneasy.

The tiger tried to slip behind the automaton, but the automaton stepped back gracefully.

Luc looked from me to Alec.

“You guys weirdos?”

Alec shook his head.

“You gonna fuck with me?”

“No.”

“I let you in there, you gonna play games?”

“No.”

The tiger circled back the other way, tail swishing.

Luc filled the syringe with bright pink proofing dye, put it in me. Photographed me with a full-spectrum camera. Waved the placard to oxidize it.

He seemed satisfied. Turned to me. “Who’s your beneficiary?”

“Mon frère,” I said. My brother.

Luc laughed. Looked from me to Alec. “You two better not be fucking with me.”

He gave me a pen. Made me write Alec’s name, address, and date of birth. I signed. Alec hugged me.

The tiger lunged.

It was hard to see exactly what happened. It looked as though the automaton had blinked in place, like it was there, not-there, and there again. The tiger’s head separated from its shoulders. Its body slid on its own momentum and drew a red comma. The crowd cheered.

“Love you, brother,” Alec said.

He kissed my forehead.

The locket clinked against his chest.

The gate closed behind me.

It was hot in the ring. Steam rose where they’d just mopped the floor. Dust motes glistened. Somebody said something over the PA but it bounced off me and went pinging around the room. None of it made sense.

The automaton knelt purring, head bowed, left hand resting on a white tile pad, slowly drawing a few amps.

It was covered head to toe in flecks of the tiger’s blood, like it’d been painted with a bad spray can. Its right arm, the cutting arm, a smooth edge broken only by the elbow joint, was drenched in red.

I knelt cross-legged.

They’d hung a countdown clock over our heads but it didn’t mean anything.

I’d move when my opponent moved.

The automaton made self-diagnostic shivers. Looked at me.

It started raining.

The trees whipped each other.

I wiped my eyes.

My head smacked the thatch that lined the pit. I tasted ash. Spat blood. Pulled my opponent’s plexi shiv out of my calf.

Alec and Lise were there. Looking down. Alec closed the locket in his hand, let it fall against his chest.

Snap.

Someone smacked the chain link next to my head and the rain shut off like a tap. The lights beat down.

I blinked back tinnitus. Had I gone somewhere else?

The automaton was on its feet now.

The crowd roared.

I leaned on the long piece of pipe they’d given me, my only weapon, used it to lever myself to my feet. The automaton towered over me. Must have been two and a half meters tall.

Something was wrong.

I turned and searched the arena for Alec and Lise, but they’d vanished away behind the spotlights. Had they left?

Something was wrong. I couldn’t see the rain but I could feel it, could feel my hair lying slick down my back.

I saw a tuning crew prepping their own automaton to challenge my opponent. They’d laid it facedown on a gurney and were running sensor tests with a probe. This would be the real fight. Machine against machine. This was what everyone had come to see.

A tone sounded.

I turned.

The clock read zero.

The automaton stood watching me.

I noticed the crowd had gone quiet.

I took a step.

Its head turned with me.

I stepped the other way. It followed.

It was familiar, this way of moving. An old rhythm. Comfortable. My breathing slowed. The wrongness ebbed.

I brought the pipe forward a little. The automaton instantly clocked this and crouched, a slight flexing of its knees.

I began to walk the edge of the ring. Its head turned with me. Motors ticked in its joints, kept it rigid. I walked back the way I’d come. It watched.

I stopped.

Let my arms drop a little.

The strike began in the automaton’s hips. A twist, a shrieking of servos, the back foot digging into the canvas, drawing a black rubber skidmark across the white.

There was a sound like a gunshot.

In a camera shutter blink, the automaton had crossed the space between us.

But in the same space of time, I’d brought up the pipe.

Its cutting arm had bitten at least an inch into the metal and stopped dead. The sound of the impact rang off every surface in the room. And now we were face to face, myself and the machine. I could feel the heat pouring off the metal.

The crowd went dead quiet. Whatever they’d expected, it hadn’t been this.

I kicked the automaton in the chest. It spun across the ring, caught itself. Straightened. Looked at me.

An eternal half second came and went.

The automaton crouched. And now it began circling.

I smiled.

The lights dimmed.

A breeze swept in and blew the crowd away somewhere. The rain fell and I was grateful. I could hear it pinging and hissing off my hot steel opponent, slapping against the canvas, rattling the chain link.

I turned the pipe over in my hands.

The automaton watched.

My toes curled, tried to find purchase in the thatched bamboo. Mud came slapping into the pit. I closed my eyes.

Snap.

There was a strange sound. Like an animal in pain. But there was a loop in it somewhere, a rhythm.

I opened my eyes.

The automaton slumped against me, its chin impaled by the end of my steel pipe. Its limbs twitched, a screeching servomotor chorus. Its eyes furiously tried to find focus.

I twisted the pipe and let the wreck fall sideways. Its shoulder slammed into the canvas and dented the plywood underneath.

The crowd seemed excited, but they were a long way off.

I wiped the water from my eyes.

Something was wrong.

Snap.

Alec threw his arms around me. Lise was screaming happily in French.

Snap.

Alec and I sat in the bed of Lise’s truck. I held the roof rack as we hit a pothole and swerved to miss a lightbike. Alec leaned across the bed, put a hand on my knee.

Snap.

Alec sat perched on the back of the couch with his knees under his chin. Lise was in the dining room, pushing stacks of bills into a counting machine. She giggled like a kid. I sat crosslegged on the floor.

Alec looked into me.

“Something happened tonight,” he said.

I met his eyes.

“You went somewhere.”

I nodded.

“The pit?”

I nodded.

Alec stepped off the couch and sat with me. “Were you down in the pit? Or standing looking on?”

I looked at him.

My confusion seemed to be all the answer he needed.

“Ok,” he said. “That’s nothing.”

He cupped my cheek in one hand. I could smell it on him, the piss smell. But his hands were gentle.

“You’re my brother,” he said. “No matter what you think. No matter what anyone says.”

He hugged me again. Pressed his cheek against mine. And whispered: “The naturalists observe: a flea / Has smaller fleas on him that prey.”

I was ready this time. I whispered back: “Thus every poet in his kind / Is bit by him that comes behind.”

He pulled away. “Do you understand what that means?”

I shook my head.

He smiled. “Are you ready to rest?”

I nodded.

“Do you trust me?”

I nodded.

“Look.”

He carefully unhooked the chain and took it off his neck.

Snap.

The locket opened.

I looked.

There was a scrap of paper inside with something printed on it. Black squares, scattered like a mosaic. I squinted. Random. Meaningless. Something tugged me into the dark.

My eyes closed on their own.

Alec caught me by the shoulder as I tipped to one side. He laid me down gently.

I heard Lise jump out of her chair and shout something, a number.

I slept.