Haunted Air

"You don't need the meat. I do."

"Says who?"

"I do. And I thought you were trying to lower your cholesterol."

"You're trying to lower my cholesterol."

True enough, Jack admitted. But only because the guy was riding the heart attack express, and Jack wanted him around for a lot more years-as many as possible.

"And even if I was," Abe said, "I should get a second-class breakfast on a Saturday morning?" He stuck out a hand. "Give. Just a bisel. A biseleh."

"Once you get into shape, I'll go out and buy you a whole-"

"What?" He patted his belly. "A sphere is not a shape?"

"Okay then, how about I buy you a sausage McMuffin when you can touch your toes?"

"If God wanted us to touch our toes he'd have put them on our knees."

There was no reasoning with this man. "Forget exercise. Forget cholesterol. I get the sausage because I have a special need."

"And that would be?"

"Last night we went to a party. But before the party we went out to eat, so to speak, at Zen Palate."

Abe made a face. "Nebachl Where they serve tofu in the shape of a turkey?"

"I don't remember seeing that."

"Stop by on Thanksgiving. Gia's idea, I assume."

"Yeah, well, she's off meat, you know."

"Still?"

"Yeah, and she wanted to try it."

"Nu? What kind of tofu did you have?"

"Fried."

"Fried is best. At least you're sure it's dead."

"Even worse: they don't serve alcohol. Had to pop out to the deli on the corner to get some beer."

"Should have grabbed a pastrami on rye while you were there."

Jack remembered the dirty looks he'd gotten from the couple at the next table when he'd popped the top on a forty of Schlitz. Imagine if he'd unwrapped a pastrami, or a cheesesteak. The horror.

"Tell me about it. I've been obsessing on meat ever since. So when I passed McDonald's this morning I couldn't resist."

"In that case I won't insist on a share. Eat. You deserve it after suffering through Zen Palate."

Jack wolfed down the sandwich without looking at Abe. Out of consideration he should have finished it before stepping through the door. Next time...

"Look at this," he said around a mouthful as he tried to move the conversation away from food. "A major fault runs right up the East River."

"So? There are a number of major faults on the local school board."

"No, seriously." Jack traced the fault line with his fingertip. "Says here it's called Cameron's Line. Supposedly it's where the continental plate of Africa bumped the North American plate."

"Nobody tells me anything. When did this happen?"

"About 320 million years ago. You were just a kid then. Says the fault line runs from Staten Island up into Co

"Psychic's house?" Abe said. "You're not-"

"Not a chance," Jack sad. "It was a lark of sorts."

He recounted Junie Moon's quest for her lost bracelet.

Abe shook his head. "The dumbing of America: government-accredited schools of astrology, school boards deciding to teach creationism in science, classes people paying hundreds of dollars for vials of water because someone labeled it 'Vitamin O,' the return of homeopathic cures-most of which are no more than Vitamin O-magic crystals, feng shui... Oy Jack, I'm losing hope."

"Well, you were never exactly Little Mary Sunshine to begin with."

Abe had been predicting-and was well prepared for-a civil and economic holocaust since Jack had known him.

"But one should be able to hope. I'd always thought that as the breadth and depth of human knowledge increased, people would gradually emerge from the darkness into the light. A lot of us prefer the shadows, it seems."

Jack said, "It's the whole New Age thing. Somehow it got mainstreamed. A bonanza for the bunko artists. But what I want to know is, why now? We were climbing out of all that mystical crap, but ever since the seventies it seems we've been sliding back. What turned us around?"

Abe shrugged. "Maybe science is the cause."

"I'd think science would be the solution."

"Maybe I should say it's a reaction to science. We're all looking for transcendence-"

"Transcendence."

"A life beyond this one. A noncorporeal existence. In other words, we want we should go on. You believe in transcendence, Jack?"

"Wish I could. I mean, I'd love to think that some spark in me was going to go on and on, but..."

"What? You don't have enough ego to believe you're eternal?"

"To tell the truth, I don't think about it much. Either way, I can't see how it would change my day-to-day life. I know only one way to live. But what's this got to do with science?"

"Tons. The more science pushes back the unknown, the more uncertain transcendence seems. So people overreact. The rational gives them no comfort, so they toss it out and cling to the irrational, no matter how potty."

Jack looked at Abe. "We both know there are things in this world that don't have an easy explanation."

"You mean like the rakoshi."

"Right. They didn't exactly yield to the scientific method."

"But they were real. Don't forget, I was down there at the Battery when that one came out of the harbor. I saw it with my own eyes, saw it slice up your chest. You go through something like that, who needs belief? And you, you still have the scars. You know."

Jack's hand instinctively moved to his chest and fingered the rubbery ridges through the fabric of his T-shirt.

"But a rakosh doesn't fit with what we know of the world."

"True. But the key word there is 'know.' I can't explain it, but maybe someone else can. A maven with special knowledge perhaps. I contend that everything is explicable-everything, that is, except human behavior-if you have sufficient knowledge. The knowledge part is critical. You and I both have some of that knowledge-you more than I because you've seen more of it. We know there's a dark force at work in this world-"

"The Otherness," Jack said, thinking about how it had intruded on his life over the past year. "But that's just a name somebody gave it."

"From what you've told me, it's not a thing; more like a state of being. The word 'Otherness' doesn't tell us much about it. Whatever it is, at this point it's unknowable. We do know that it can't be warded off by crystals and charms and it won't be summoned by incantations and sacrifices. So all the mumbo-jumbo these New Agers and the End of Days folk and the UFO culusts and all their fellow travelers immerse themselves in is useless. The real darkness in this world doesn't reveal itself; it abides by its own laws and follows its own agenda."

Jack found himself thinking about his sister. He blamed her death on the Otherness.

"I never told you what Kate said to me just before she died. Something about 'the dark' coming. She said the virus in her head was letting her see it. She said the 'dark is waiting but it will be coming soon.' Said it was going to roll over everything."

"With all due respect to your sister-and I should maybe never forgive you for not bringing that fine woman to meet me-she was in extremis. She probably didn't know what she was saying."

"I think she did, Abe. I think she was talking about the Otherness getting the upper hand here. It sort of fits with scraps I've been picking up since the spring. The events after that conspiracy convention, hints from the guy ru