The One Percenters Read online

  The bus pulled away from the curb amid a cloud of blue smoke, chugging along with its 40-odd passengers until I finally reached home.

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  I went inside and slept. This might come as a surprise, but I slept deeply and restfully. I was at peace.

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  Chapter Fourteen

  “Killer” bees were introduced purposefully. An accident gave them their opportunity to wreak havoc upon the natural order in the western hemisphere, but their initial introduction into South America was very much planned. The problem in this case was control. The idea was to breed a bee that would provide increased honey production—a clear benefit for the human harvester. But as often happens when people attempt to manipulate their environment, something happened.

  The bees inevitably got loose, worked their way out of Brazil and through Latin America, and eventually crossed the border into the American Southwest. Now, don’t let the media buzz mislead you.

  This is the same media who portray sharks as evil man-killers who take lives for sheer joy. This is a media without a soul. Still, there is a clear story here.

  The bees themselves aren’t much to look at, but well over one hundred people have died as a result of human tampering in this case alone. Over and over, the natural world has cast its hard, gray eyes in our direction and stated in a stern voice, “Don’t fuck with me.” Clearly, we should have learned by now. But we all need to make our own mistakes.

  Following this theme, I remember vividly that it was at this point in time—just after dumping the pickup—that I got the idea, an idea that would forever change my status in the world. I cannot fully explain the reasoning behind it now. I can only give you sound bites. Frankly, you lack the capacity to understand in total. This might sound a bit presumptuous, or even arrogant, but I mean no ill will. Truth is, that’s just the way it is. More than likely, you are a 98-percenter. All I can tell you is that it made sense at the time. My idea was based in fact, though I admit I might have gone about it in the wrong fashion.

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  Time is short now; there is no room for further diversion. In the interest of future generations, let’s begin. Oh, one thing. Before it gets involved, I recommend you get a soda, Doctor. Soda is sweet and satisfying and taken for granted, and it might well be your last. Use a straw. Feel free to dribble its goodness down your chin. And for God’s sake, cherish every sip.

  I left the body and ditched the truck. Now I was asleep. It was during this serene period of unconscious bliss that I achieved the next level. And like so many good and revolutionary ideas in this lifetime, it all began with a dream.

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  Chapter Fifteen

  Evolution is a driving force. From what I’m told, it works in two ways. Two beautifully designed (?) and awesomely simple ways. If you are familiar with these methods, skip ahead. It is, after all, in your best interest to conserve time. Life is short. For the dummies in the audience—yourself included—I’ll continue.

  The first of the two ways is methodical to the point that it almost appears planned. Religious folk among you might argue that it is planned, and I’m not about to tell you that you’re wrong. Who am I to argue the God issue? You might say, for instance, that God, or some such, planted fossils and other evidence as temptation to ditch your faith. But whether this is the case or not, such evidence of evolution does exist, and that fact is damn hard to argue. Natural selection is beyond the control of humans. I’ll let it do its thing. It’s the other changing force that I’m concerned with.

  Mutation.

  It’s natural selection’s wittier, faster moving, more devious brother. It robs Peter to pay Paul. It’s the friend that stabs you in the back. It’s the recessive gene on cocaine. It’s the knockout, shit-kicking, earthshaking force that’s impossible to contend with. It acts swiftly and changes everything. Mutation makes for change in a hurry, often too fast to be counteracted efficiently.

  This is when whole species die off, when they can’t find a way to combat change.

  Albinism is a mutation. Now, I’m not mocking albino people, snakes, or woodland creatures. They have as much right to live as the rest of us. But when placed alone, out on the prairie, out in the wild, albinism in and of itself is a dreadful survival disadvantage. It leaves you without camouflage, without resistance to the rays of the afternoon sun. And it’s just one example.

  Now, sometimes mutations make for a disadvantage, such as in the case of albinism. But sometimes not. .

  and that’s the problem.

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  We’ve come too far too fast. I, for one, will not sit back and see mutation—evolution’s dishwater—work to strip away our progress. Language, agriculture, industry. Much as I hate my fellow man, these are brilliant advances. I’d like to see them furthered. And that’s why I was born—me and my fellow one-percenters.

  To reestablish natural selection without compromising human progress.

  Ninety-eight percent of you mean nothing. You were born to live long enough to fuck, to breed, to pass your genes. What you learn in your lifetime might be significant to you, but it means nothing to the world at large. One percent of you—or thereabouts. .scientists still argue about the numbers—are mutators. You bring rapid change. Your genes are special. Don’t go out celebrating yet. Change isn’t always good.

  At least your lives have true meaning though.

  Most people are as crucial to the fate of the world as paper doilies.

  Then there’s the remaining one percent. We’re nature’s goalies. I’d name you some people who were on this list, but I fear it’s too dangerous. They were people who were ahead of their time. Most of them you would despise because their ideas weren’t quite right. At least not from a sociological, let’s-all-get-along mentality.

  Biologically speaking, though, their ideas were genius. They were structured to eliminate harmful elements. The changes they created came either passively, as a result of biological mutation (the old standard), or through ideas, which are essentially as biological as genes themselves. Ideas are what make people people. I will tell you one thing: the person you’re thinking of, he wasn’t a one-percenter.

  Mutation drives diversity, which is good. If a creature gets too comfortable in its makeup, nature will catch up to it. Diversity means resistance to disease, decay, and destruction. Generally. The real trouble is when mutation takes an ugly wrong turn.

  That’s where we one-percenters come in. We clean up the mess when nature “makes a mistake.” We put out the fire. Nature’s relief pitchers. I realized this Page 74

  after Cristen’s unfortunate demise.

  Until I hit the pillow at home, I wondered how my mind could have frozen as it did. How could I have allowed myself to take the life of a good friend and lover? The dream provided the answer. I was working for a greater good than myself. I was working for the human race as a whole. Representing, as the young folk say. And it was time now for me to fulfill my destiny and discover the true meaning of life.

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  Chapter Sixteen

  Cristen was essentially a good person. She was fun and intelligent and caring. But she had bad genes.

  I guess I figured this out the same way those bastards sense my submissiveness when they head toward me on the sidewalk. It’s not logical or rational. My foreknowledge concerning Cristen’s future effect on the world came instinctually. She was the first; she took the longest to figure out. The others wouldn’t fool me so well. I hung on with Cristen for a long time because I resisted and because I had been in love. I vowed not to make that mistake again. I didn’t want to admit my place in the world, but the dream was far too strong to fight. Business has to come first when you’re a savior.

  And let there be no mistaking it, that’s exactly what I am. I felt confident. I had fate on my side. I was careful, though, especially in the beginning. I could not be certain that the fact that I was a force of good necessarily made me less expendable. Even at
only one percent of the population, there was still a hell of a lot of us, going purely by numbers. I didn’t know how far nature would go to protect me. What I had learned now, finally, was the reason behind my superb intelligence. I would never own the world, but I would help define the parameters of its existence.

  The best part was that there were others out there who felt just like me. I wondered how to meet them. I wondered if I would now recognize my coworkers by sight. My dream was a revelation, and I couldn’t be sure what else had changed in my life or in my capacity for power. Suddenly I felt immune to the smaller issues and tribulations that worry normal people. Liquor could no longer hold me hostage. Cigarettes could not cancer me. Why would nature waste resources to kill one of its own? The only thing I had to fear was my own kind, and possibly my own mind should I not keep it together. The alcohol helped there, too.

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  I needed to look the part. Someone in my prominent position should not look like a businessman.

  I wanted to look like an agent of nature. It was necessary for me to become objective, transient, and unnoticeable. I traded the loafers for sandals. I cut my hair very short. I took to standard blue button-down tee-shirts. It was no time for pride in one’s self. My own ego had to take a back seat to the welfare of society at large. We had grown too big for our britches, and I was the atom bomb that never was. I was part of the P

  pièce de résistance in a changing and mysterious world.

  To whom did I owe this great honor? Is this why I suffered as an ugly and unpopular kid and then as an ugly and unpopular man? Was it all just to create a sense of discipline and objectivity within me? I felt sure of it. Suddenly I felt terribly empowered. Everything began to make sense. I stayed in the apartment for two days, and then I packed a bag.

  Normal possessions were useless and irrelevant to me now. The rules had changed, and items such as photos, knickknacks and thingamajigs would only weigh me down. I spent one full night cradling my most precious and longest-owned possessions. I needed to get it out of my system. Finally I packed my bag with the items that would serve me and my objective: booze and cigarettes. I needed to stay calm, and—short of prescription drugs—smokes and booze are the best tranqs you can get. I first packed a large duffel bag, but I felt this would slow me down too much. There might be people after me. Some might not understand. There are a lot of naive fucks in the world—the same people who are locking normal people in asylums and buying thirty-dollar underwear.

  The bees are now in Arizona, and they sound eerily familiar.

  I also packed a gun. It wasn’t mine, as you might have surmised by now. Jill insisted we keep one in the house, just as her father had kept one in the McIntyre residence. Jill’s mother had been attacked in the home before the children were born, while her husband was away. After that time, a firearm was the rule. I had Page 77

  only seen Jill hold the gun during the moving process, and I’m not even sure she could shoot straight. But it made her feel comfortable. I must say, though, it’s truly surreal mentioning a pure dove such as Jill in the same sentence as a means of violent death.

  I took the gun along because I also had to be able to protect myself, especially now. It was about time that a young man learned to fire when fired upon. Talk about a rite of passage. Still, the weapon felt alien in my grip.

  People like Jeffrey Simons do the rest of us a terrible injustice. These bastards do things for kicks, and suddenly all the world’s people are labeled liars, crooks, or killers. Murder is only murder when it robs the world of innocence. These are all very fine lines.

  The difference between sex and rape, after all, is both nothing and everything in the world. The penetration is there, but. .the intent is not. And it all comes down to intent. Simons had selfish, evil intent. The work my brothers and I do is done to weed out the sick, the weak-gened, the ill-minded. We are here to act in nature’s stead now that the political, over-structured world has tied its hands.

  We are the panacea, and we are not to be denied.

  Not by you or your laws or your military. You can’t scare us off with weapons, and you can’t weird us out with poetry slams. We will not be intimidated by women’s groups or animal rights activists or vigilante justice.

  Move aside, citizen, lest ye become an innocent victim.

  Do not step in the crossfire, Samaritan, for there will always be another bullet. The apocalypse is upon us, and heaven knows we are your only defense. Fuck Jeffrey Simons and his self-minded fanaticism.

  Jill would understand this. She understood everything. She was a force of good in a way that I could never dream. She was out planting flowers, damn it. Where’s the harm in that? But she could only do so much, and that is truly the ironic part. Try as she might, she could never change the world. Her good deeds caused smiles; they didn’t save lives. Goodness is pansy power. Real power lies in science. Never mind what people tell you; penicillin still cures more Page 78

  people than love.

  Love soothes the soul, but leaves the body flat.

  I remember when she would cry. She didn’t do it often, which might come as a surprise. She was all things feminine, but she didn’t cry often. I think it’s because she never held back her emotion to begin with, she never bottled up. Thus, there was no need for this great release from time to time. Crying, after all, is just a physical defense, and maybe a form of communication, though I doubt that very much. I saw Jill cry at funerals and during two mushy movies. Other than that, I can’t recall. Maybe I’ve already mentioned another instance.

  Hell if I remember. I have been writing for an awfully long time now, and I’m still waiting patiently.

  There is nothing that tears at a man quite like seeing a woman cry. It is draining and frustrating and leaves you feeling helpless. When Jill did cry, it was truly a sight to behold. Her iridescent eyes would wince, and her nose would tweak like that of a rabbit.

  It hurts to see a woman cry, but the beauty contained in the shine of her eyes and the curl of her lips would almost make you wish she’d cry more often; it was that moving a sight.

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  Chapter Seventeen

  I took to the woods, for two reasons. First, I felt sure that they would soon discover Cristen’s body. Some snot-nosed brat would be out with his snot-nosed friend. They’d be hunting or fishing or shooting up at the lake. By that, I mean they’d be “shooting” up at the lake, not “shooting up” at the lake. English sucks. One of the lads would have the misfortune of tripping over her fish-bitten corpse. It’s always the same. Joe and Jack Dumbfuck are out on an innocent hike when they happen to come across a decaying body. They ponder the situation (i.e. search the body for money and jewelry) before finally placing an anonymous call to the police.

  It’s funny what we do anonymously. It’s the ultimate cop-out, but it does a lot of good for the world.

  It would happen soon, I was sure of it. Those woods were heavily used, and wasn’t like I’d made any extra effort to conceal what I had done. We only conceal that which we are ashamed of, like little dogs who piss the carpet.

  The second reason for my escape into the woods was equally practical. I was now a force of nature, and I thought it only right that I be closer to my benefactor.

  I no longer wanted to subject myself to the influence of my global society—a society that has practiced genocide and held slaves. Think about that for a moment. Fewer than 200 years ago, slavery was a state-sanctioned institution. It was the norm. How can I ever take seriously the moral statements of any people who would hold their own as captives? It perplexes me to consider the fact that some folks consider humans to be basically good creatures. I spit in those people’s faces.

  So I took my bag of treats and I ran far, far away.

  It was time to get down and dirty. It was time to do my duty.

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  Chapter Eighteen

  I can’t say that the decision was an easy one. My first thought was of Mrs. Edward
s, the wife of that asshole teacher I was telling you about. Like I said, she deserved it. I went as far as to ascertain her last known address, or at least the last known address I had the ability to get my hands on.

  Two things stopped me. For the first part, there was a good chance she’d be dead by now. And even if she wasn’t, she’d surely be old, frail, and feeble-minded.

  There’s no challenge in that. She’d probably be offering me cookies even as I slipped the noose around her wrinkly, crusty neck. I shudder at the thought of old peoples’ necks.

  Secondly, and ultimately more important, was the integrity of my new position. There is a certain amount of honor which needs to be maintained when one is given a measure of responsibility. I wasn’t about to take such a position for granted by striking down some balding idiot just because he cut me off at a green arrow. No, more thought would be necessary. For a while, I considered random acts of terror. Perhaps allowing fate to decide things with a simple flip through the phone book. Somehow, that didn’t suit me. I’d have as good a chance of knocking off a strong, glowing force as I would have of taking out some lowlife, parasitic bloodworm.

  The narcissism factor was admittedly a challenge.

  I had always been ugly, weak, slow-minded. Here was an opportunity for cold revenge, the dream of every small boy ever to be picked last in a gym-class roundup.

  I even came up with a fantasy. I imagined eyeing a well-built, smart-looking man at the grocery store. .

  some slug who would no doubt have garnered favor in the locker room. I’d follow him and his waspish, one-too-many-times-under-the-knife, dye-streaked wife back to their million-dollar home and hold them both Page 81

  at gunpoint. At that time I’d force the wife to strip, and have relations with her while the strapping beau stood by, watching impotent and red-faced. Yeah, I’d get her all turned on, too, you bet I would.