Pret a Porter

“Pret a Porter”

By Jeffrey Van Dell

“Since the fall only animals can be naked and unashamed.”                        

A golden stream of horrible smelling urine came out of the orange and black stripped tiger and soaked into the set’s carpet, steaming.

“Remain in place! Don’t move.” Shouted the director.

I maintained my million-dollar smile so the crew could get their shot of me, the tiger, and the luxury sedan I’d been standing next to for three and a half hours. My neck was stiff.   My jaw ached. I wanted to go home.

            “Cut! That’s a wrap.” Said the director with a smile as the animal handlers moved in to take the tiger back to its cage.

            I let out a sigh of relief as the giant cat was led away from me. Its urine had splashed on my nylons so I tore them off right there and threw them to the floor waving Katie, my assistant, away as she bent to pick them up.

            “Tiger pee.” I said, rolling my eyes and taking my own clothes from her.

The studio cooled down rapidly now that the lights were off. My leopard skin patterned   swimsuit didn’t offer much in the way of insulation and I wanted to get outside where it was sunny and warm.

            “Do you want me to call the car now?” Katie asked as I pulled on an everyday pair of jeans and a white blouse.

            “Yes, we’re giving Stacey a ride, Upper East Side. We’re going out to dinner, want to come?” I asked.

            “No thanks, bible study tonight.” She said the last in a conspiratorial whisper.

            “Don’t be embarrassed it’s not the worst thing you could do. I used to go all the time.” I said.

            “You should come sometime.” She said.

            “Oh thanks, but Stacey told me Matt is going to be at the restaurant and I want to see what he’s up to.” I said, pulling a comb through my hair.

Matt was my friend and sometime lover who I suspected was seeing another model. We weren’t exclusive but I wanted to see whom he was meeting. I knew snooping on him was tacky at best. Katie’s mention of a bible study was a like a spark of guilt searing my conscience. I managed to extinguish it with a pleasant rationalization.

            “I’ll get your car. The group meets same time every week and the offer is open ended.” She gave my arm a squeeze and smiled.

            “Thanks, maybe next week.” I lied politely.

“Hypocrite!” Said an accusing voice in my head.

I thought about going to her bible study just to prove that I wasn’t one.

I wandered over to the area where the animals were waiting to be loaded for their rides back to whatever zoo they lived in when they weren’t “working”. It was quite a menagerie: two white swans, a dozen white doves, a hawk, eagle, and three massive gray wolves. Yellow warning tape cautioned me to stand at least three feet away from the bars of the cages. I bent down to look at the tiger and was tempted to pet him. Even at rest he exuded an aura of power, self-absorption, and danger, like Donald Trump or Bill Clinton. I’d met them both.

“Here kitty!” I said to the beast.

A voice from behind me said, “Do be careful not to get near the cages. Reginald is in an especially foul mood today. I don’t think he likes you.”

            “Don’t worry. Being near him without bars between us was terror enough for me. I don’t know how you guys can work around them all…Oh!” I turned my head and froze.

A giant mountain gorilla was sitting in front of the dove cages eating an apple from the buffet table. Gooseflesh broke out all over my body as I turned my head to look for the ape’s handler, wondering if I should stand my ground or run for it. Time stood still.

            “I have a warning for you Melissa.” Said the gorilla.

It spoke with a beautiful British accent, deep and resonant, like a professional announcer.

“You are all going to be exposed for what you are in the next few days. It will help some of you to move back to the path you’ve strayed from.” It said.

The gorilla put the entire core of the apple into its mouth and crunched down on the stem and seeds. Its toes were as long as my fingers.

“What are you?” I whispered.

“Merely a messenger. Do you know what’s wrong with you?” It asked.

“How are you…?” My mind shifted to the line of coke I did a week ago. Was this a residual effect? It talked again.

“Although you live in Babylon you’ve done your best to keep Babylon from living inside of you, most of the time. Your problem is you’re almost out of it. Don’t give up now. And remember, tomorrow you will all be exposed for what you are. I feel like a good chest thumping. I can’t help it!.” It said.

The gorilla stood up on its hind legs, thumping itself on the chest while it let out a roar like King Kong. I screamed and ran.

Of course no one believed me. By the time I got someone to look at the animals the handlers had re-materialized and the ape had vanished. Not only that but the handlers said there was no gorilla on the set. Neither of them had ever worked with primates and the studio had never had any monkeys on their property. The crew gave me curious looks. Stacey asked me if I’d done any drugs that day.

“No! I have not.” I said.

She offered some to me with a smile.

Embarrassed and still shaking I left for the restaurant and after a few stiff drinks forgot about the weird incident…almost. It could have been the drugs. I’d been trying to lay off because of that pesky voice in my head.

“Fornicator! Harlot!”

Matt wasn’t at the club and I was equal parts angry and elated. Stacey invited me and another girl to an all night party but I begged off and got a cab home.

That night I had a series of disturbing dreams, which I attributed to the two shots of Stoli I drank to help me sleep. In my dream I was flying over the east coast. I saw tidal waves destroying the New Jersey shore where I’d grown up, cruise ships capsizing and sinking, and a strange light in the sky that grew larger, burned like a star and exploded over the city. I woke up at two-thirty with tears in my eyes and was so disturbed that I called my parents.

Their tinny voices said, “This is Jim and Shirley. We’re not here to take your call but please leave a message. God bless you!”

I poured another shot of vodka but didn’t drink it. My old leather bound bible peeked out from under a magazine on the glass topped coffee table.

After an hour of peacefully reading the Gospel of Luke I simply said, “God, could you please help me? I’m really screwed up.” I fell asleep with the bible open on my chest and had no more dreams.

My shoot the next day was for sable and mink coats. Thankfully there were no live animals. Six of us reveled in the luxurious coats, we wore only lingere underneath them, and the morning went by without incident. After the shoot Katie called me on my cell. She’d sounded awful.

            “Are you, sick?” I asked when I called her at home.

            “I can’t find anything to wear! My clothes are gone.” She shrieked.

            “What do you mean? Were you robbed?” I asked.

            “All my clothes have disintegrated. It’s like moths got into every closet and drawer and ate all my clothes, even the things that don’t fit me! I’m standing here naked. It must have been a chemical spill or something. Anyway, all my clothes are ruined.”

            “Oh, well…what do you want me to do?” I asked a little annoyed that she should ask me for help. She was my assistant after all. “Selfish!” “Do you want me to find you some clothes and bring them over?” I blurted out.

            “Yes, could you please? I have nothing! It would be such a blessing” She said.

            “I’ll be there in an hour…no make it two.” I said.

            . Helping other people made your own problems seem petty and my mood brightened considerably after I decided to help her. I looked through the racks of clothes in my closets, the fruit of five years of modeling, and realized I’d worn most of the outfits only once.

            “What a waste.” I said, disgusted with myself but happy to give them some use.

            In the end I picked out eight complete outfits for her, including shoes. I stopped at a store and bought her underwear and two bras, stuffing them into the two suitcases. I got to her apartment and found her hysterical.

            “Oh Melissa thank God you’re here! I’m going nuts. All my clothes are shredded and…look at me.” She said.

Katie was wearing a flowered plastic shower curtain that was dragging behind her like some horrible mockery of a wedding gown. Her hair was a tangled mess and black streaks of mascara had run down her face from tears recently shed. For a moment I thought maybe she was having a nervous breakdown. I remembered her telling me once that she was on anti-depressants, but then who wasn’t these days? Did she destroy her own clothes just to get attention? No. That was out of character for her. I opened a suitcase.

“Here you go. I got lots of stuff that should fit you. You have the best hand-me-downs in town.” Katie grabbed a set of clothes, put them on then showed me the closet and drawers where the remnants of her clothes lay.

“There are wires and clasps from the bras and shoes, buttons and zippers, but the cloths are all gone…eaten? I don’t know what would eat rayon.” She held up a string of red buttons held together by a tether of gold wire. “See?”

“If it was bugs where are they now?” I wondered aloud, looking around nervously.

            “I don’t know. Can we get out of here? I need some food. I don’t know if I can come back here. This is so creepy.” Tears formed in the corner of her eyes.

            “Why don’t you wash you face? Then we’ll get some food and drinks.” I said.

            We ate at Rizzo’s Pizza down the street from my apartment. I didn’t have a job the next day so I indulged in three slices loaded down with green and red peppers, anchovies, and Italian sausage. Katie didn’t know it but I was going to invite her to stay at my place until she could go shopping or figure out what had eaten her clothes. A voice in the back of my mind asked again if she had faked the entire episode as a way of getting attention. In the two years that she’d been my assistant she had never shown any sign of anything but normal behavior. However I had know people who had gone nuts, seemingly overnight.

            “You know what’s weird? My friend Joe, the bible study leader, he called me with the same problem just before you came.” She wiped her mouth on a red napkin.

            “So all the Christian’s are going to go naked? That’s a sign of the apocalypse. ”I laghed at the thought of my parents and their church group all of a sudden naked.

            “What if the apocalypse isn’t what we thought it was going to be Melissa? I mean…I’ve read the book of Revelation, it’s all about the unmaking of the earth, a kind of anti-Genesis. Maybe these are the ‘beginning of the birth pangs?’ Who says it has to happen the way it’s portrayed in the movies?”

            “I don’t know Katie. God and I haven’t been talking much lately. My father and mother beat bible verses into my head when I was a little girl. I grew up in one of those ultra-conservative Pentecostal churches. My sister still goes but I couldn’t wait to get out, out of Jersey and out of that church. I don’t think I have the same kind of faith as you do.” I said. The incident with the gorilla bubbled up through my sub-conscience. Disturbing that.

            “Faith is faith. You only need a little, ‘as small as a mustard seed.’ You must have internalized something from your childhood faith because I’ve seen you pray before shoots.” She said.

            “How do you know I was praying? Maybe I was lusting after the photographer?” I smirked.

            “You move your lips when pray. I don’t know what you do when you lust. Besides all that most photographers are gay.” She said with a wink.

            “I do pray sometimes. Old habits die hard I guess.” I muttered.

            “I’m not preaching at you…you don’t have to conform to your parent’s idea of what a faith filled life should be. Just be honest with God, read the bible, and pray whatever’s on your heart. Other things usually fall into place.” She raised her glass of red wine to me and drank. “I will preach no more.”

I invited her to stay with me until she got her wardrobe, insect, or chemical problem solved.

We got back to Katie’s place only to find the clothes I’d brought her all disintegrated. Only plastic and metal clips and buttons were left.

            “This can’t be happening.” I said, looking around the apartment for an intruder or insects with my hand over my chest.

            “Maybe it really is the apocalypse.” She said.

            “You’re definitely coming home with me. Do you have the number of your landlord? Bring that. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.” She put her pillow and toiletries in a plastic garbage bag and we left.

            When we got home she called her landlord and asked, a little too politely in my opinion, if there were extermination going on in her building. He was no help of course, telling her to buy mothballs and not to leave food out. We stayed up late talking about life, the universe, and everything and drifted off to sleep around two.

Katie was up early and left for work while I was asleep. The morning’s news revealed that Katie was neither psychotic or attention starved. Thousands of people, all over New York, had had their clothes and linens disintegrated. A man wearing a cardboard box and a crazy smile was speaking to a reporter telling him that the world would soon end in fire. Another woman who claimed that the clothes melted because of all the pesticides we’d been using on cotton and wool. I thought she had a good point until I remembered that artificial fabrics wouldn’t have been affected.

            Katie called while I was thinking about that and told me I needed to come in and do an hour of re-shoots with the tiger and the car. I almost refused but knew I’d be in trouble with the agency if I did that. Sometimes I felt like a slave, a beautiful slave, but a slave none the less.

            “Ok.” I said. “I’ll be there. Did you buy more clothes?” I asked.

            “No, I’m going to go after work. Is it ok if I leave the things at your place? I don’t want to have them ruined. I’m going to stay with my brother and his wife until I can find a new apartment. Oh, got to go. The tiger’s here.” She hung up.

            The big cat was asleep next to the car when I arrived.

“Sarah, poke it in the ribs and wake it up. We’re paying for a walking cat.” Katie said.

“Not funny.” I said.

Fortunately the tiger was in its cage and would be for the whole shoot. I just had to stand next to it and smile. The incident with the gorilla was still fresh in my mind and I felt as though the crew were watching to see how I’d behave.

The animal handler said, “Do not to near the bars of the cage. Understand?”

 Did everyone think blonde models were idiots? Oops, don’t answer that.

“Yes sir.” I saluted.

            Before the shoot even began there was a problem with one bank of lights. Someone was getting yelled at for not bringing an extra bulb and we sat around cooling our heels for a thousand dollars an hour while an intern was sent to fetch one. The animal handler went to get some coffee and flirt with the models. I bent over and looked at the tiger in the cage next to me.

            “Hello…um Randy. Are you as bored as I am?” I said.

            “My name is Reginald, not Roger, my dear girl.” It said back to me in a hushed, throaty whisper that from a distance would have sounded like a purr.

            I sucked in an involuntary breath. My skin got very cold and I shivered. The air around me felt electrically charged. A wave of nausea washed over me.

            “Did you just talk? Can you understand me?” I whispered, looking around to make sure no one was looking.

            “Of course I can. The Master has given me a gift. I have a message for you. Are you ready?” It said.

            “Ready for what?” I asked.

The tiger had blood on its claws and whiskers. One of its claws was as long as my pinky finger.

            “For the end.” It said.

            “The end of what?” I asked.

            The tiger stood up, extended its bloody claws, and let out throaty growls that brought all the conversations in the room to a halt. I backed away from the cage and popped two Prozac I’d kept from a visit to a shrink last year. The tiger’s words ran in a continuous loop through my head. Paranoia crept in. I was sure everyone was looking at me. The shoot went on without incident after the light bulb arrived and I spoke to the tiger surreptitiously when no one was looking my way. It didn’t seem to understand me or it was pretending it couldn’t. Katie and I left together, got dinner, then went shopping for clothes. I insisted that she stay another night at my place, more for my sake than hers. My dreams were of the ordinary variety, a nonsensical mixture of fact and fantasy, with one notable exception. In one section I was walking down Fifth Avenue completely naked, everyone around me was naked. I awoke before Katie did and made another attempt at reading the bible. The passage I opened to was from Revelation.

“You say,’ I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, blind and naked.”

“God, is this about me?” I asked, waiting for an answer. As with most questions I asked of God, there were no immediate answers. I drifted off to dreamless sleep. In the morning Katie modeled her new jeans and shirt for me.

            “I’m so fat. I need to take off about ten pounds, maybe twenty.” She said with a frown.

            I said, “It looks great on you. You picked out good outfits, they flatter you. You have a good eye for color. Maybe you should try designing? Didn’t you go to school for that? Hey look, there’s a little hole in the pants.” I pointed to her knee. You should return them. It’s only a little hole but…” I pointed out a dime-sized hole on her thigh. “…it’s growing.”

Indeed.

We looked down and watched hole expand before our eyes, exposing Katie’s white leg an inch at a time. She had a smooth white scar just above her knee.

            “Oh God…this can’t be happening.” She tore off the pants as they melted into nothingness.

            “What the hell is going on?” I asked. “Let’s try another pair of jeans.”

            As soon as we looked in the bag we were certain. All the clothes were melting away, leaving only metal clasps, zippers, and plastic buttons.

            “Why is this only happening to my clothes?” She asked.

            I had no answers but we had to get to work and she couldn’t go naked.

            “Put on one of my t-shirts and let’s see what happens.” I said.

            She did and it melted away in seconds.

I said, “It must have been something on your skin.”

Tears formed in the corner of her eyes.

            “I give up. This must be punishment from God. I’m just going to stay here until I figure out what it is.” She said. And with that she opened up her bible and lay on the couch, naked and weeping.

            “I don’t know what to do. I’ll call you later. Don’t do anything rash.”  I said as I locked the door behind me.

            On the ride to the shoot I called several of my friends and asked them if anything weird had happened to them recently. Katie’s plight was in my mind but the talking animals I’d encountered made me hope for a similar story. Constance, an Italian model who I worked with often, told me that a model from her agency had called her at three in the morning, hysterical because all her clothes had fallen apart. At the shoot I found out that Mindy the receptionist didn’t make it in to work that day because of a wardrobe problem. I called Mindy at home and told her to call Katie. They could commiserate about their nakedness. After work I called Katie and she sounded fine so I stopped to pick up dinner then went home.

            Katie was still naked and demonstrated why. She put on an old t-shirt and it melted away to nothing almost immediately. After we ate, and it was weird eating with a naked woman across from me, we watched the news and heard story after story about people whose clothes were following the beat of a different drummer.

            I got out the Scrabble game and played until we got silly and tired, giggling like schoolgirls over gross words we spelled out.

            Before we turned in for the night Katie said, “I need to ask your forgiveness.”

            “What…Why?” I asked. “Did you try on all my clothes?”

            “Because after I got done praying today I realized that I’ve sinned against you.” She said

            “ I don’t understand.” I said.

            “I’ve worked with you for a long time and been jealous of you, really jealous. You’re beautiful, guys always gawk at you. People give you things just because you’re beautiful. I’ve hated you because you get a lot of attention and I don’t. I’m plain, boring.” She had tears in the corner of her eyes.

            “I don’t know what to say. I never knew you felt that way.” I said, a little hurt. I couldn’t help how I looked, after all.

            “I know, that’s why I have to ask you to forgive me. I was reading and praying this morning and I knew that I had to tell you. It was wrong of me to hate you. It was a sin.” She was crying and blowing her nose.

            “Look Katie, don’t worry about it. You never hurt me. It’s all in your head.” I said.

 “No, my jealousy had consequences. There were lots of times when I should have said a kind word to you or invited you to church. I knew what you were going through with your boyfriend. I knew you wanted to go to church but didn’t because you felt guilty. I should have stepped in and said something but I didn’t ask you, partly because I was jealous of you and wanted you to suffer. It’s like I was getting off on thinking of myself as more righteous than you were. God help me.” She said.

I was stunned. She’d hit the nail on the head. There were lots of times I would have gone to church instead of staying out till all hours with Matt. If she’d asked I might have gone and saved myself a lot of heartache, but jealousy reared its ugly head.

“I forgive you. I wish you’d said something too because I could use what you have, God I mean. Lots of women hate me because I’m pretty. You’re the first to admit it though.” I said, chuckling to myself.

I put my hand on her arm and smiled. “At least you’re honest.”

“Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say. If you want me to leave I will.” She said.

“You’re the first honest person I’ve talked to in a long time. Anyway, you’re naked. You’d get molested or arrested if you went outside.” I said.

“I feel better.” She said. “It’s amazing what getting sin off your chest will do for you.”

“Yea, confession.” I said and wondered if confession would make me feel better. In the back of my mind a plan of confession and repentance was working through my layers of defenses.

I slipped into my pajamas and slid under the covers. I slept only a few minutes before awakening with an idea.

“Katie? Wake up! You have to try on another t-shirt.” I said.

“Ok.” She said with a yawn.

I helped her pull on a “Ramones” tee shirt and held my breath. It didn’t disintegrate. She put on a complete outfit.

“Confession rules!” Katie shouted with a smile. “I’m going to sleep in my clothes to make up for lost time.”

Even though it was the middle of the night she called all of her friends and told them what the magic cure was. Most of them had figured it out already. Although I never expressed it, I was worried that my clothes didn’t disintegrate. I was after all, a sinner too, and, I thought, a Christian. It made me feel the way I did when I’d done something really wrong and my parents knew about it, yet didn’t say anything. Their silence was more terrifying than any lecture they could have given to me. All of these feelings were flowing through me in a jumble and I had difficulty sorting them out.

The next day we were at a shoot for winter sportswear. It was eighty degrees in the studio and I was wearing two layers of ski clothing, sweating through them both. Katie pushed a water bottle into my hand during a break and told me the air conditioning was broken.

“No wardrobe malfunctions this morning?” I asked.

“Everything was fine. Lots of other people report things going back to normal after they um…got something off their chests.” She smiled at me.

“Too bad, you looked great in that shower curtain.” I said with a wink.

“Shhh! I’m thinking about making it my own special line of plastic clothing, ‘Katie Wear’ I’d call it. It’s so weird someone probably has done it already.” She sighed.

Someone called me back to the fake ski chalet and I posed with a stuffed Huskie dog while fake plastic “snow” fell around us. The German photographer was snapping photos and shouting orders at me.

 “Smile with greater enthusiasm!” He yelled.

 My jaw was aching. I wondered what he was doing during WWII. I adjusted my legs under me when in front of everyone my ski suit melted away. My sweaty skin began cooling immediately. I screamed and tried to hide my naked body behind the stuffed dog.

“Katie!” I yelled.

Everyone stopped and stared. Katie’s clothes did not disintegrate and she gave me the shirt off her back.

It disappeared.

She found me pants and underwear. They also dissipated. Katie offered to help me tear the Huskie off its stand so I could hold it in front of me. Everyone else on the set was naked but they didn’t seem concerned about it.

“Do you want me to find a box or something?” Katie asked, looking around in bewilderment.

“No thanks. I’m naked, so is everyone else, big deal. In for a penny, in for a pound right?”  I said, aware that everyone was looking at me and smirking. The German photographer had a rose tattoo where no needle should ever be stuck. “Call me a cab would you Katie? I’m going home.”

Before I left the studio I learned two things: Francine the hair stylist was really a Frank, and being naked was freeing. In the street traffic was barely moving. My fat cab driver kept staring at me in his rearview mirror and I asked him politely to not stare at me.

“But you’re naked!” He whined.

“So are you! Keep your eyes to yourself.” I said. His breasts were bigger than mine would ever be.

“You’re crazy!” He said.

People were filling the streets and like most New Yorkers, taking the nakedness in stride. As a matter of fact some of the people didn’t seem to care they were naked. One man reached out of habit for his wallet in a nonexistent pocket. Another woman stood in front of a store window, staring at the fully clothed mannequins. Her hands moved over her neck and chest and I wondered what she was doing. Maybe she thought she was still wearing a scarf and was adjusting it? As we made our way down Fifth Avenue two familiar people came into view.

“Stop the cab!” I shouted, pushing a fifty into the driver’s slot and jumping out.

“Mom, Dad!” I ran down the street after my parents. The pavement burned my soles and my knee hit a car fender that was sure to leave a big bruise.

“Hey wait, Mom!” My parents turned and gawked at me for a second then politely turned so that they didn’t have to look at my naked body. They were fully clothed.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Are you ok? Did something happen to Grace?”

“Oh Melissa!” My mother said, hugging me with tears in her eyes.

My father just stood there rocking on his heels, not looking directly at me. He had a bible in his hand and tears in his eyes.

“Daddy what’s wrong?” I asked.

“Grace is fine. Everyone’s fine. Honey, do you know what’s wrong with you?” He asked.

 I was momentarily frozen by his question until I realized what he meant.

“Daddy, I’m naked. Everyone’s naked. Our clothes are all melting, except you and Mom, and my assistant Katie and some other people. They were naked a few days ago.” I said. “Maybe it’s like a virus or something? Have you been watching he news?”

“Yes, your mother and sister and I…had that happen a few days ago too.” Said my father, his eyes avoiding mine.  

“But you do understand you’re not clothed?” My mom asked with concern etched on her face.

“Of course I do. Do you think I’m nuts or something?” I asked, standing naked on Fifth Avenue in front of everyone.

“No, but we’d better get you home before someone sees you.” Said my dad.

“Well everyone’s naked. What are they going to do, arrest me?” I said with a laugh.

My parents looked around nervously trying to block peoples’ view of me. Everyone was staring at me. I thought it was because of my body, which was in great condition. But other women, including another model I saw pass by, were in great shape and no one was staring at them.

A man walked by shielding his two young children from me and said, “Put something on would you?”

My parents ushered me into a cab and I continued to scan the streets as the car lurched into traffic. Naked people were everywhere. Most of them seemed oblivious to their condition. Once in a while a clothed person came into view: a young man carrying a pile of books was blushing and trying not to look at anyone, an old woman crying and holding her purse in front of her face. Our cab screeched to a halt and I almost hit my face on the plastic divider in front of me.

“Is this your first day or are you gawking at everything but the road. I could have broken my nose.” I said with irritation.

“You’re one of the lucky ones you know. Some vestige of decency must still be running through you.” The cab driver spoke from the front without looking back at us. He spoke with a familiar British accent. “Which is worse Melissa, to be walking naked down a New York street, or to be walking naked down a New York street and not know you’re naked?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

He said, “ But then, it’s not really about being naked is it my dear girl?”

I looked at the driver’s reflection in the rearview mirror. My heart nearly stopped because it was not human.

The gorilla spoke to me again. “You see dear girl it’s about being blind and naked and not knowing that you’re either. It’s a strong delusion the deluded are being allowed to have.”

I grabbed my father’s hand and stared at the gorilla’s face in the rear view mirror. My father put an arm around me and mumbled something about Baalam’s donkey.

Our cab lurched forward and we were thrown back into our seats.

“I have trouble staying on the pedals. How do you do all of these things at once?” Said the gorilla as we lurched forward, nearly hitting the cab in front of us.

“Is this the end of the world? Is it the last days?” I asked.

“It’s never how you expect it, is it? They didn’t expect it the first time the master came, did they? Noah preached for years, no one listened. The earth was scoured of life and forever changed, except the people. The people became weaker and lived such short lives that they may as well never have been born. Jonah preached and they listened, for a while, then they got bored and were destroyed anyway. Most of the prophets were murdered. Yes Melissa, this is the way it’s going to be. Your apocalypse is the last one, and you get to experience it, although it may kill you. You are very astute to even understand that much. Look at them.”

I looked out the window. I saw a punked out teenage girl put a ten dollar bill in the hands of a scraggly wino sleeping on the granite curb. She was clothed. Two overweight women pushed identical baby carriages down the sidewalk, laughing, sipping matching cups of coffee. An elderly couple held tightly to one another as they shuffled across the street; the white “walk” sign changed to a red “don’t walk” as they reached the other side. All blind, and naked.

My father sighed and said, “Look at us honey, no fur, claws, no special hunting or survival skills. We’re like tiny baby mice, naked, pink, and helpless. If anyone were to look at our world they would think we were the alien species. We need to pray more. Do you know how much we’ve been praying for you Melissa?”

The gorilla stopped in front of my building and said. “And now Melissa, the Master has a job for you.”

“A job? What am I going to do, model my tattoo?” I looked down at the tiny rose on my belly.

“You are to go to all of your friends, the ones who are blind, and tell them they’re naked and how to become clothed with righteousness. It isn’t difficult but I must warn you. Most of them will not listen.” Said the gorilla.

He turned back to look at me and his breath steamed up the plastic divider. I leaned away from him. “Do you understand?” He asked.

            “No, but I’ll do it.” I said.

“Look at that! Faith rears its ugly head. I knew you had a spark in you. Well there they are. You’d best get started. Try not to think too much. Just trust the Master to give you the words.” The Gorilla thumped his chest and snorted out his nose with excitement.

I looked at my building and saw Matt and Stacey out front smoking and laughing, waiting for someone.

“But, why should they listen to me?” I asked.

“There’s no reason they should or will. Yours is only to do the telling. I can drive your parents home. It will be expensive. Do you have enough cash?” He asked, holding balled up wads of cash in his hairy hands.

My mother opened the door and said, “We’ll be taking the train home thanks.” My father pushed a bible into my hands and gave me a peck on the cheek and they were gone as quickly as they came.

I sat in the cab, stalling. “What if they don’t listen?” I asked.

“Your warning to them is a grace. If they refuse grace then Reginald and his hungry friends lie in wait for them.” It pointed to a tiger crouching near my front door. I couldn’t be sure but it looked like the one who was at the photo shoot. A black bear was digging through a garbage can down the block and three wolves were marking their territory on car tires across the street. No one seemed to notice them.  I tipped the gorilla ten bucks and walked towards Matt and Stacey. I looked up at the beautiful blue sky and saw thousands of birds landing on light poles and buildings. They looked like Vultures.

TEN END