Cold (Non)Feet

           Why don’t you get a job, man: the words from the man in the business suit bounced back and forth in Gerardo Bishop’s incrementally sobering head. Why don’t you get a job, man?
           “Did you catch that part?” said the too-white doctor with the too-white teeth in the too-white room.
           “Huh?” Gerardo squinted, reshaping the world before him in the room on the fifth floor of BioSynk in the heart of Detroit.
           “I said, if we’re going to go through with this treatment, we’re going to have to put you under. It’s part of the procedure.”
           “I certainly hope so.”
           A smile. “I’m not talking about anesthetics, per se, Mr. Bishop. See, you have to understand how rare it is to find a truly willing participant. There are many individuals with a limb difference—”
           “Limb what?” Gerardo croaked out. The words muddied the world again, making the room look like a sludge of bleak grays, abyssal blacks, and analgesic whites.
          Smiling wider, briefly, then becoming suddenly stern. “Amputees. As I was saying, there are many of you—amputees—that may think they’re willing, but then perhaps they find a lover, then grow a family; so the fatality risks of this procedure involving the regrowing of a limb—or, in your case, limbs—alas, no longer seems like a great tradeoff. Plus, the morbidity and mortality risk of amputees exponentially skyrocket compared to someone without such condition, which brings me to my next point—”
           “Listen, Doc. I don’t care if you do a head transplant as long as I get the money after I sign—and before the procedure.”
           The doctor looked taken aback but subtly pleased. “First, I want you to understand the compromises; what you may be leaving behind; sacrificing.”
           “Look at me.” Gerardo wheeled himself away from Dr. Graham’s desk. The wheels squealed like a gaggle of pigs (the 10-year-old wheelchair probably needed a “tune up” or whatever) as he spun himself in a circle—one hand pushing, the other hand pulling—which caused his flask of “medicine” to fall out of his oversized, brown-faded-grayish coat pocket and tumble across the too-polished tiled floor. Gerardo cursed and went to reach for it; his liver felt like it was about to burst the way his side pressed into the armrest. But he still couldn’t . . . quite . . . reach it. Giving up now, panting. “I served for eight Goddamn years in the Marines; my wife of fifteen Goddamn years left me, told me I was married to my pain and nurtured the ghosts in my head instead of my daughter, which she took away; and even this fuckin’ flask just abandoned me—so what do I have to lose, Doc?” He tried once more to grasp it in his calloused fingers, but the assistant—a young blonde with too-blue eyes whom he’d forgotten was even there as she seemed to blend into the corner, jotting down notes—picked it up, shook it, smelled it, and looked to the doctor for some kind of permission. “Hey, lady!” Gerardo squalled, then lowered his voice. Measured himself. “If this procedure is so dangerous, and I might die, at least give me my medicine.”
           The doctor sighed and gestured with a head nod to return the “medicine” to the owner.
           As the assistant handed it over, she kept her distance like Gerardo was somehow a threatening foe—a freak in a sideshow—a menace to society—the scummiest scum of the earth—and perhaps he was all of the above. Perhaps he was so much more and so much worse.
           Why don’t you get a job, man.
           “I need this job. Need the money for my daughter.” Now, wheeling himself back to the desk and tucking the flask into his coat (but wanting very badly to take a swig). “The Iranian missile took my legs, not my hands. Tell me where to—”
           Last night, he was jolted awake by an involuntary stream of alcohol-imbued vomit through his nose and mouth, and right now—which was equally as unpredicted, and just as involuntary—he tried to choke back a sob. He couldn’t, and it came out like a dog bark. Not a normal, clean dog, not a “good boy”; no—a rabid beast, a diseased, foul thing; something
           (two legs)
           less than human, on the cusp of needing to be euthanized. Only difference was this dog was going to get paid a pretty penny before either seeing Rainbow Bridge, an Abyss of Brimstone and Gnashing of Teeth, or Nothing at All Thank You Very Much—or—at the very least, and as advertised—two brand new legs.
           He coughed, composed himself. Wiped away spillage from his eyes. “Tell me where to sign, for Chrissake. I need this job.”
          Why don’t you get a job, man.
           I already had one: fighting for your right to be an asshole, he should have said.
           Why don’t you—“just show me where to sign.”
           A sparkle of too-white teeth from the doctor and a flicker of too-blue eyes from the assistant as they exchanged glances: a transaction of a secret knowledge.
           The assistant grabbed a form, then a pen, handed it to Dr. Graham. Or Dr. Grant. Something.
           “Not so fast. As I was saying,” the doctor was saying. “Once you sign, we’ll pay you immediately; you’ll have up to two days to get your ducks in a row, but we can start the process earlier, if desired; then you come back here, we’ll put you in a cryotank—”
           “You’re gonna freeze me?”
           “Preserve you, yes. That’s what I meant by putting you under—and for a while. That’s why I want you to understand what this means, Mr. Bishop. This form”—and he placed it on the table but kept his hand on it—“explains that if we don’t start the process in 10 years, we will wake you.”
           “Ten years?”
           “The technology is not quite there—yet. But let me assure you by saying it’s real close. I can’t imagine you being frozen for more than”—he did the math on his hands—“I don’t know, maybe five. And the timeframe is a glass half full. What I mean is, you won’t be the first one, sure, so it’ll take longer to get to you, but—well, understand this, Mr. Bishop—but that also means we’ll more likely work out any . . . complications.”
           “Then why don’t I come back in 10 years?”
           “Because of what I was explaining to you earlier, Mr. Bishop. The exponential increase of morbidity factors and . . . death. Death from disease, death from”—a nod at Gerardo’s midsection—“liver disease, suicide . . . or, like I said, getting married, starting a family, deciding the risk isn’t worth it—like Valery Spiridonov.”
           “Valery who?”
           “A Russian computer scientist with Werdnig-Hoffmann disease who volunteered for a head transplant who later changed his mind later when life, well . . . when life got better for him. A few others have also volunteered and backed out—”
           “—so freezing me disallows my getting cold feet is what you’re saying, Doc,” said Gerardo.
           “Yes. Along with the other reasons I addressed.”
           A smile even broke across the face of the too-good-to-make-contact-with-the-mangy-war-vet assistant.
           “Well, good thing I don’t have feet.”
           More laughter. Miraculously, even the assistant laughed.
           “Maybe I should just become a legless comedian.”
           “Pardon?”
           Why don’t you get a job, man.
           “Nothing. C’mon, Doc.” Gerard made a scribbling motion with his hand. “Let’s set this in stone.”
           The doctor finally handed it over, and Gerardo signed here and there, asked for the date and, immediately forgetting what the doctor said, scrawled something that might’ve looked like numbers.
           “I get paid now?”
           Doctor Gray or Gary or whatever and the lady exchanged glances.
           “Do you even have a bank account?” the lady asked. Fair question to a homeless, legless vet—he didn’t hold it against her. Then, to augment her question with something within the species of professionalism or sympathy, she added, “Mr. Bishop.”
           “Maybe I do, or maybe I don’t, but—c’mon. As you can see by my limb difference, making a trip to the bank is a time-consuming business. Help me save a trip, save some time—and, who knows, maybe if I make the trip, I’ll get hit by a car or something. What I have in my pocket”—and reached in—“is my oldest daughter’s contact information. Could I trust you with setting her up with the payment?”
          Another silent look passed between the both of them. The doctor nodded to her, and the lady assistant said, “Yes, Mr. Bishop, I’ll make sure she gets the funding.”
           He nodded. Felt the tears coming again. Choked them back.
          She made to exit the room—or so he thought—before crossing behind him. He paid no mind to how she lingered in his blind spot for a beat too long, nor to the way the Doc’s too-white teeth were suddenly hidden by Botox lips, making him look strangely voracious and impatient. He barely noticed the nearly imperceptible nod, until something like a mosquito bit his neck. “Let’s get this—”
          —get a job, man, why don’t you?
                                                                                                     * * *

           Cold and dark, and a dream of walking, and from somewhere far away the Voice of God saying that humans have many dormant genes. And that by learning from animals—excavating deep into their DNA—in this case, the genes PAX7 and Sox9 of the Ambystoma mexicanum—we can perhaps learn how to activate them in a human. Switch them on.
           Then the
           (Void)
           Voice of God said we have high hopes that in five years’ time you will walk.
          Now going under . . .
           Might hurt . . . panic.
           Daughter . . . care of.
          For your service . . . country.
           Walk.
           Night.
                                                                                                     * * *
           A movement.
          Gerardo Bishop. Forty-five.
          A semi-frosted window.
          Breath on it, fogging it up; two yellow eyes, glowing; more fog and they’re gone, less fog and they’re there. Flashing lights, an alarm, a throaty voice: No. Chart says he’s missing—a wheeze—two legs—a wheeze—only one-twenty-five pounds. A wheeze. This one, over here—a real fatty.
          Wheeze.
          Frost unthawing, melting. Fog diminishing, fading. Eyes absconding, leaving.
          Only missing fingers.
          Wheeze.
          His liver’s mine this time, Larry.
          A movement of two nude men. One had black, glossy—no, slimy(?)—skin, and the other was pale, maybe translucent, and equally as slimy; and the both of them made their way to a silver cylinder across from his. A circular window, also frosted, equal in height to his own. A control panel to the left. Long blackened fingers pressing a series of buttons. And they had something trailing behind them, these two men, something long and glistening wetly each time the emergency light flashed. Glistening because of the water on the floor, Bishop observed. After the first nude man finished pressing buttons on the panel, the cylinder hissed out steam on both sides before a door yawned open. A half-thawed man in boxer briefs half-stood, half-lay before them, a network of tubes running in and out of him, his eyes fluttering; he put a hand up to shield his eyes, whose index and ring finger were missing.
          Meanwhile, Gerardo closed his eyes for what felt the briefest of moments, but when he opened them again—
                                                                                                     * * *
          —A man wearing a hodgepodge of clothes—layers upon layers, a bandana over his nose and mouth, long white hair down to his shoulders, aviator sunglasses—went out and came back in and shut and locked the door and unfolded the wheelchair he’d found and pressed a hand on the seat to test its durability. Nodded. “It’ll do.”
          “Has it been 10 years?” Gerardo said, who was on a medical bed, in a hospital gurney, and his vision was blurred by the deepest, darkest, coldest sleep of his life. His voice was groggy.
          “It was a success,” the man said muffledly. “Scientifically.”
          “But . . . my legs.” He nodded to his nubs.
          “Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.” Then he said something about taking him to, Gerardo swore he said, “The Salamander,” but it must’ve been a doctor with a foreign name, probably one with a thick accent (which was fine by Gerardo, because he found they were better than the homegrown American doctors). But why was the man dressed like this? Has it been so many years that the dress code has changed? Was “hobo-chic” the new fashion?
          “Forgive my French, but what the fuck’s going on?”
          “It’ll be okay. Come on. I’ll help you.”
          The man began crossing the room. He had a strange gait. Twisted-like, sidewinder-y.
          “Has it been 10 years?”
          Pausing and counting on his fingers. “Depends; when were you frozen?”
          It took a moment to remember. “2028.”
          The man counted on his fingers again, then sighed. “I’ve never been a numbers guy. Come on.”
          Then he said it again.
          “Time to see the Salamander.”
                                                                                                     * * *

          The walls of the hall were damp and covered in furred mold and graffiti. The letter S over and over again, like something religious.
          The wheels spun creakily, and he half-wondered if it was his own. It wasn’t. This one was newer—but also older—with a control panel on the side. But it was cracked, with a genesis of a spiderweb in its fractured and crumbled-away crevice, and some of the buttons were gouged out or the characters faded away. On the floor was about an inch of water, just like in his dream. The dull yellow-white fluorescent lights flickered about the ceiling.
          “What’s the S stand for? Salamander?”
          “Yes and no. It’s a homonym.”
          “A homawhat?”
          “It stands for ‘Salamander’; it also stands for our slogan: There’s only an S between our mortal shell and hell. So we meditate on it, on the S—the Salamander—for our literal, and maybe even ‘spiritual,’ salvation. Salvation also starts with an ‘S.’” He chuckled. “And so does ‘success.’”
          “Am I in hell?”
          It was a fair question, thought Gerardo, but the man laughed again.
          “You see, I messed up.”
          “You did?”
          “I’m covered up, Mr. Bishop—and I’m afraid even if I wasn’t covered up, you still wouldn’t recognize me. Not because I’m much older—I am—but because of another reason. And, well . . . I messed up. I thought it was all about activating the same genes in humans that cause regeneration in some salamanders, namely the axolotl”—some lanky, pale silhouette slinked across the upcoming intersection—“but whenever I flipped on those genetic markers in humans, they would just switch off again, or switch on for an extended period of time and something not quite a leg would grow from someone’s amputated area. Too unpredictable. Let’s just say you should be thankful you weren’t one of the first 15 subjects. Eventually, I realized that perhaps it’s because humans just can’t. Maybe our genes need a bit of augmentation. Then what I did next actually worked. However, there were certain drawbacks.”
          “What was the drawback, Doc?” Yes. Now, he was certain the man sporting hobo-chic was Dr. Gibson or Griffin.
          “The facility was quarantined; the funding was cut off; and since Michigan is now not carbon neutral anymore but carbon negative, the government—and I supposed we’re lucky, in this sense, since we are allowed to live—well, the government won’t allow the destruction of the facility with fire or explosives.”
          “What?”
          “Politically speaking, the right-wingers of the first quarter of the century had a point. What good is being carbon neutral when countries like China and India and many third-world countries are so aggressively carbon positive that our neutrality wouldn’t make a dent in climate change? To compensate, the U.S. government put in place the Emerald Act in I think it was 2042—no, ’43. Whenever it was. States who’ve initiated it currently receive incredible incentives. Michigan is one of 22 states. Let me tell you, Mr. Bishop, if this facility was in Texas, they’d’ve bombed the shit out of us. And we’d all be dead.
          “Of course, early on, there was talk of sending in the military to terminate the project’s success, but since it was election year, the mainstream narrative was already that it was an infectious toxin—thus, the quarantining of the facility as well as a quarter of a mile in every direction. So instead, they put a Band-Aid on the problem. I admit a good, sturdy one; a sticky one. And beneficial for everyone out there, everyone in here; it’s really a win-win, if you think about it. Don’t get any ideas that they would’ve killed the subjects and saved you—you’d’ve been a liability because the government funded this project. You’d’ve known too much, I’m afraid. So POP POP for you and thank you for your service.”
          The wheels go round and round, squeak and squeak, and elongated silhouettes in the flickering light shift and slither and splash and stare, then melt into unilluminated portions of the hall, into rooms.
          “I’m sorry—but if it was a success, why is this place quarantined? Why don’t I have legs? What year is it now? What the fuck is going on?”
          “Your daughter is married, I heard.” The changing of the subject worked, and Gerardo forgot about all the stuff growing on the walls, the stench of carrion, the strange phantasms.
          “She got the money?”
          “Used it for college. She became a doctor. Happily married. Three kids. I was ambitious, but I wasn’t a monster—I kept my word.”
          Gerardo couldn’t stop the waterworks that suddenly gushed from his eyes, but he successfully held back a guttural sob that pounded at his esophagus like an angry, beating fist.
          “It’s going to get dim. You’ll hear things but it’ll be fine.”
          “What things?”
          “It’ll be fine.”
                                                                                                     * * *

          Before it got dim, where the fluorescent panels were shut off and dancing candles on tables lining the wall took their place (and not very effectively), he glanced to his right and saw a door. Through the window lite—which was half obscured with opaque goop, a crosshatch of cobweb, and a psychotic frenzy of kaleidoscopic fungi—he saw half a corpse of a genderless, limbless person hanging on a meat hook.
          “Oh God.”
          The doctor turned and followed Gerardo’s eyes.
          “Oh, that. You weren’t supposed to see that. That’s the drawback of the drawback.”
          “The drawback?” His voice quivered.
          “The drawback of being quarantined and no longer receiving funding or supplies. Very early on, we had to decide, Mr. Bishop: to willingly die or to forcefully live—and we chose to live. Everything wants to live. The drawback of the drawback, Mr. Bishop, is that salamanders are carnivorous, and humans have a more palatable profile of amino acids and macro nutrients than our own kind.” After a beat, he said, “We have to eat.”
                                                                                                     * * *
          Shadows stirred in the candle-illuminated hallway.
          Slimy-sounding slithering.
          Sloshing of sea.
         Sulfuric stench.
          And even more strange circular eyes here, then there—on the ground, on the wall, the ceiling.
          Why don’t you get a job, man?
                                                                                                     * * *

          The cafeteria had been repurposed into what Dr. Graham called The Church of the Salamander (“well, more specifically, the axolotl since it’s the only animal on Earth that can grow back anything, even the brain, but that name didn’t stick—harder to say, I think”). Low-light lamps hummed on tables, on the ground. Candles everywhere. Foldout chairs set up like pews where long-bodied, slimy black- or pale-skinned effigies sat. Hands clasped in prayer or raised in worship. On one long table, near a strange, organic bulk, which his eyes had trouble processing (not because of the low light but because of the human brain being unfamiliar with such anatomy), were the remains of a gender-decimated person; nothing but skin and cracked-open bones and some hair; Gerardo couldn’t tell if their limb difference was pre- or postmortem.
          The strange bulk shifted, its oily, nude body glistening in the low light. Shadows danced across its face and gave exaggerated contour to its unblinking pale eyes. It sat up, this quasi-anthropomorphous bulk did, putting its weight on fat, alligator-like legs, its well-muscled arms dangling in front of it. Its external gills flaring out about its bulbous, slightly elongated head, making it look like some great and fiendish peacock.
         Why don’t you get a job, man?
         “Do you have cold feet now?”

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