RETRIBUTION

by Matt Tunno

I.

...the moment of darkness, when it all comes together feels like it all falls apart and then ascends the ladders of consciousness to avoid rehabilatory protocol. there's nothing more deviant than cheating the systemic process of regaining control but the commute this morning is unbearable like a heavy blanket soaked in mineral spirits suffocating breath. turn the knob to get the news, turn the news to get the facts, turn the facts to fit with what i already know has occurred. there is never a time when the skin fits, when the monotonous drone of contentment authorizes torturous thinking to cease. i put pen to paper and commit sacred treason upon private reflection, to betray the nature of introspection and make permanent that which is fleeting. so i do, here, now, i write. write while i wait, while i sit while i hate while i write what i think.

if i had, if there were, a beginning, i could begin there. but distance from an origin originates in a vacuum; you wake up there in a blurry present with a hazy past and an uncertain future, and the next day its the same thing in the same place but a new dis-ease, a blundering, almost homicidal will to eradicate all three tenses, and the subject as well. the car smokes; it must be the radiator.

if i ate breakfast, and i'm not sure that i did, i ate shitfood, something that contaminated my digestive system, because i hurt and i hate and i know that my hateful hurt stems from an unerring unwillingness to eat well and feel well and do well and think well. in the paper today they told me that there was in fact no way out, that no bombs would fall here and that nothing important is happening at all anywhere, and i wasn't relieved or surprised or upset or unnerved, but i was removed, assigned to the realm of abstraction and multiplicity, completely and thoroughly without concern. and you must, you have to, say to yourself at this point in the narrative that we must, that we have to, be expecting an existential monologue of the driest flavor, utterly devoid of real meaning and accentuating the futility of extending any effort towards anything in particular. but you are, as usual, wrong. i write a mystery of sorts, and there is an end, and there was a beginning, i invoke author's license to reveal these to you at my leisure, and not at yours, and as such you may go fuck yourself at any time during your encounter with this text if you seek to categorize or orchestrate or structure my style and my story. this, i mean.

sitting here, in traffic, the hostility rises in my throat like hot semen, like i've swallowed god's cum and am choking on its bland viscosity. i want to know that this hatred stems from an abstract feeling of dread, something related to the pointlessness of existence or perhaps manic depression, but i know that that's not the case. the case is that the hate is real, not projected outward due to some internal conflict, but rather basic recognition that each pathetic and worthless individual that i come in contact with every fucking day is completely worthy of my pure unadulterated and focused disgust.

i soon decide that there are precious few reasons for me to even attempt to go to work today, to sustain the drudgery and to act like i care about X's portfolio or Y's mutual funds or Z's trust account set up to provide higher levels of education to his spoiled, dimwitted and completely uninteresting offspring. the light at 4th and Chestnut is a pivotal stop on the tour, presenting a conundrum that i face every day. to make the left is to head uptown toward the business district, to follow the plan, to concede to the eight or nine hours of unanimated showcasing that is the composite of my occupation. to make the right is to proceed toward what amounts to temporary comfort, the daily haunts of fat bartenders and fifty dollar hookers and crack dealers and crack addicts and homeless mothers and gun toting punks and aging hippies and the unemployed and the walking dead. and the golf courses- in the middle of the fucking desert, the golf courses. without wasting the limited commodity of conscious thought, i turn right...

the character that i play in this pathetic drama is called Ed. Ed is at home in his universe, equally confident at the office or the bar. Ed has no real friends and no real enemies. his life is completely authorized by freedom of choice; Ed has no god, and is highly skeptical of all things metaphysical. part realist, part materialist, Ed comports himself in a state of pure presence; he separates choice from consequence in order to exist in a realm of banal desires. the id has completely usurped the superego.

Ed sits quietly at the bar, observing the human condition or whatever, while i wait patiently for him to make a decision. deliberate, yet fully manic, he reaches for his old field and stream black leather wallet with gold ribbing for proper decoration and moves a twenty from the interior of the wallet to the walnut surface of the cold bar. the tender reacts, moving smoothly in Ed's direction, offering a polite greeting followed quickly by a what-can-i-get-ya and Ed just points, statically, at the bottle of ten high whiskey on lowest shelf of the mirrored platform. all this is fluid, happens very naturally, as it should.

II.

Paul and Stacey Pongratz were hiking about six miles north-west of Flagstaff, in the Coconino National Forest, when they noticed the canyon. They knew these woods well- for years they had spent their free time mountain climbing, hiking, archery hunting in this seemingly ageless stand of Ponderosa Pine trees. Seemingly; the Forest Service had gone to great lengths to construct a synthetic forest regime that would mimic those found in our historical archives. This canyon was new- and it was deep. Hundreds of feet deep. But only several yards wide. This was not only unnerving to the Pongratz's, but extremely interesting to Paul, who was a geology professor at Northern Arizona University. The canyon was about a half mile long on the forest floor, but at each end it seemed to sink beneath the ground and continue. It ran North-South. And it was new.

Deborah looked up at the cloudless sky, the blazing Phoenix sun, and stood undecidedly by the pool. Fucking pool boy. He looked great in tight shorts with no shirt, but he couldn't keep a swimming pool clean for love or money. Obviously for money- the Steinbachs paid him way too much for such a simple task. But pool boys were in shorter supply than air conditioner repairmen in this town, so you never let go of one, even a mediocre one, once you'd acquired his services. She reached down and pulled three leaves out from the shallow end, obviously blown off the Maple trees that shaded their expansive casa from the sun for most of the day, took two ten milligram valiums she'd been holding in her right hand with a large gulp of red wine that she'd been holding in her left, and dove into the pool. Fucking pool boy.

III.

i watch uninterested as Ed pays a trashy hooker $35 for a blow job in the men's room at crazy pete's, then returns to the bar and points lazily at the whiskey bottle only four feet away. a quick another-sir from pete and disinterested nod from Ed indicate that this is going to be a long day, so i watch the room as Ed drinks himself to near comatose state. two boys underage playing pool in the back under a flickering fluorescent light and no one cares and a couple looking very intent but very poor as they glance occasionally over the tops of their glasses at each other and no one cares and the hookers on the clock winking and trying desperately to find johns without actually leaving the bar and exposing themselves to the mid-day heat and no one cares and pete lazily washing glasses that look like they've already been washed three or four times that day and no one cares and wealthy housewives passing by outside the tinted glass of the front window with packages under their arms attempting to hail taxis and NO ONE CARES...

IV.

July 14th, a Saturday, and Paul Pongratz had half the NAU geology department out in the woods with him. The underground canyon was expanding rapidly in both directions north towards the reservation and the Utah border, and south towards Sedona; they'd yet to achieve an accurate depth assessment. But it was deep- almost unfathomably deep. By now, geologists from all over the region were gathering in hopes of cashing in on what promised to be a unique geologic find and undoubtedly multiple publications in esoteric journals. But it didn't give them any seismic readings- as it spread, it didn't move the earth, like a quake, the earth really just disappeared. Like no one was supposed to know it was happening. Like no one was supposed to predict its purpose. Like anyone could have, anyway.

Deborah picked up the phone. Steinbach residence, she said with her usual benodiazepine-influenced drawl. Yeah, hon, I'm on the golf course with some clients and they want to go another nine...late for dinner tonight, but I'll take you anywhere you want to go when I get home. He waited six seconds for her response. Whatever, she said, and hung up the phone.

Deborah didn't really give a shit. She honestly wondered why he bothered calling at all- he was never home on time. Maybe an affair, but she'd had her share of those as well, and really didn't care about that either. In fact, Deborah really didn't care about anything.

July 15th was hot as hell, even at 7,000 feet. But unnatural phenomena take precedence over the creature comforts, and Paul was out there again, not really taking any geographical info, but just musing at this cavern with one of his closest friends, a Navajo called Ronald. There were unconfirmed reports that another cavern had exposed itself, just outside of Tuba City on the rez. What was it doing? Paul had begun to refer to the thing like he would a life form- largely due to the fact that it really couldn't fall under any form of geographical taxonomy. What do you think? Paul asked. Retribution, replied Ronald, with an immediacy and a certainty that sent an icy shiver through the entirety of Paul's being.

V.

Lake Powell, on the Arizona/Utah border, has over 185 miles of shoreline. This immense lake is held in place by Glen Canyon Dam, a structure so vast that just to gaze upon it, from above or below, is to experience a sense of technological wonder so intense that one really can't surmise the feeling with the written or spoken word. The Colorado River that drains from the base of this hydropower facility, nearly 300 feet below the surface of the lake, is a chilly 46 degrees Fahrenheit year-round, and provides an exceptional trout fishery where once there was only muddy desert water. Trout Unlimited and various other organizations have done an exceptional job of making the public aware of the benefits of such a structure for the resident fishery, just as they have done a tremendous job of making the public aware of the dangers of similar structures in the Pacific Northwest for both migrant and resident fisheries. Priorities change as you move further North.

Just shy of 80 miles downstream from the dam, the Colorado meets the Grand Canyon, where millions come annually to enjoy this spectacle that nature has presented for us. This huge river looks like a small brook from atop the crest of canyon, from which 90% of all visitors see it. Only the hearty venture down the rugged terrain to meet the bottom of the Canyon, or to see the mighty Colorado carving its way, in wildly chaotic substrate rhythms, ever deeper into the soft sandstone river bottom.

On July 16, 2004, visitors at the canyon, just waking up from their luxurious slumber in one of the many four star hotels that grace the southern face of one of the wonders of the natural world, were astonished to note that not all was proceeding well; the river seemingly ageless and always churning at the bottom of the canyon had disappeared.

VI.

not a lot left to say- astute readers will have already realized the inevitable. Ed and i leave the bar because Ed decides that he needs to leave the city and avoid the flood and get some fresh air and maybe blow his head off with the double barrel remington that he has in the trunk. A thirty minute drive takes us out of the city to the top of mesa where Ed had lost his virginity so long ago and it has become kind of a spiritual place for him now for lack of a better word. we kill two prairie dogs with the shotgun and blow a few holes in a cactus while finishing off a bottle of jack daniels and smoking some piss-poor meth that Ed picked up in the bar earlier that day. The sun is hot and we both watch with a listless anticipation as ronald's prediction and deborah's worst nightmare occurs. Ed and i don't know these people, but in a sense we know everyone who lives and works and golfs and plays and fucks in the desert.

a small mountain located between i-17 and glendale literally explodes, and a fifty foot wall of water engulfs phoenix, scottsdale and tempe. The entirety of lake powell and the colorado river had sought its revenge, with a blissfully ironic demolition of a mass development that never should have existed in the first place. interesting bit of trivia: the aquifer below phoenix is over 2500 feet down.

Ed and i never read if there were any survivors, but the lake and the dam are gone, and the river now flows due south, carving out a channel just west of tucson. there's nothing more deviant than cheating the systemic process of regaining control- but no cheating occurred here. lake mead and lake havasu are gone, and vegas is quickly turning into an empty, desolate wasteland of empty casinos and boarded up whorehouses. i think hoover dam is still standing, a silly monolith that has become nothing more than a shrine to our stupidity. flagstaff was spared, as was sedona (only god knows why), and Ed and i will head north to maybe colorado and visit the mountains and see boulder, where dozens of two-stories and a-frames sit precariously perched on mountainsides far too unstable to withstand the erosion caused by roadbuilding and driveways, while below an artificial city sits bursting with $10 martini bars and wealthy retirees and drunk college students and stoned aging hippies. oh, and the hotels and casinos that sprung up almost overnight. it's as if boulder thinks it's vegas now that colorado has been issued a gambling license by the feds on account of the immediate downsurge in tourist revenue that the west experienced with the demise of the city that never sleeps. It sure as fuck is sleeping now. Ed seems to know when interesting things are going to happen; i think i'll head north with him. if nothing happens, we still have the shotgun...

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