Fish in a Barrel Page 2

  So while old Kropik continued to frown, grunt and burble to himself, Aoyagi went to a different cabinet and opened a drawer. But when he reached in for a file something went wrong. For the first time in his long career, something stopped him from touching anything. Something very strong and final. You can't come in here, it said. Period.

  "You can't go in there." The boy said behind him.

  Empty-headed, empty of anything after the shocks of the last few minutes, Aoyagi simply turned and looked at the boy. "Why?"

  "Because he already has my file in his hand. It's the correct one."

  They both looked at old Kropik who was crying now – huge fat tears streamed down his cheeks.

  There was no expression on the boy's face, nothing in his facial cast-no pity, curiosity, not even derision when he said, "He saw the color of my hair. He heard my name. You'd think those would tell him."

  Aoyagi remembered something. Once he was in the men's room next to Kropik as they did their standing business together at the urinals. For some reason he had unthinkingly looked down at Kropik's dick when he was finished and shaking himself off. The other man had absolutely carrot-colored pubic hair. Aoyagi had never seen such colorful pubic hair on anyone. It was one of the only interesting things he had ever discovered about Kropik but he sure as hell never mentioned it.

  Now like a hammer blow, the memory of that color came back when he heard the boy calmly say, "He still doesn't know it's me. Look at him!"

  Old Kropik was talking to the paper. His eyes pleaded, his lips said words with many syllables. He was asking for forgiveness, he was trying to convince. Who knows what he was saying but he was certainly enthusiastic.

  Aoyagi didn't want to say it but did. "You're him, aren't you? And he's looking at his own memories."

  The boy nodded, pleased to be recognized. "Finally someone here gets it."

  "But Jules had no CHOICE, Mother!" Old Kropik shouted to a longdead woman who had never liked him very much, truth be told.

  "How could it happen? How could you not know yourself?" Aoyagi said it more to himself than to the boy.

  "He's been here too long. He forgot what it's like to be human, doing this job. That's why they sent me. It's his last day."

  A good deal of Aoyagi's carefully dyed hair stood up. "That's how it ends? That's what'll happen to me? They'll send ME down here to get me?"

  The kid shrugged. "Could be. When you were little, didn't you always want to know what you'd be when you got older? So maybe when you grow up you're not supposed to forget that little kid. Isn't that what this job is all about anyway? Remembering what it was like?"

  Aoyagi was able to stand long enough to see the boy lead old Kropik out of the room. He had watched so many human wrecks leave here. One day it would be him, led by a younger him he wouldn't even recognize when he entered the room. This room, this office where people came to reclaim what they thought they had lost, but which had only been waiting for the right moment to get them. Get them good.

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: 6c1df6f5-5991-4d26-a42c-b466cfc1a54c

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 2005-10-24

  Created using: FB Tools software

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  Source URLs :

  http://lavka.lib.ru/lavka/carroll.htm

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