Application for Entrance

Life’s kinda fucked, ain’t it? I don’t mean it in a bad way, nah, just, like, an observation. Life, it isn’t what I pictured growing up. It’s sorta shit. See, I was always running about, partying hard, living fast, and so on and so forth. Growing up, I figured life would be a gradual descent into boredom and loneliness. But there ain’t nothing gradual ‘bout this. It’s a fucking cliff, ain’t it. One day, everything is sunshine and rainbows, cocaine and hookers, whatever you want to call it. The next, you get stuck in a fucking coffee shop selling capi-moch-iatos, to jackasses who always want to feel special by changing around shit about their orders. Couple months in, I was at the point where if I had to deal with one more bitch rolling up in here asking if I could give ‘em a locally sourced, vegan, soy caramel whatever the fuck, I was gonna murder someone. So, when the offer came in, sure as fuck I accepted.

See, I ain’t what you call a good person, in case you couldn’t tell. I’m fucking brilliant, but my last three girlfriends have all broken up with me because I am quote unquote the worst. It ain’t my fault people is hard to deal with. Have you met people? Ninety percent of ‘em are self-centered self-involved douche-bags, the other ten are assholes who make us self-centered douches feel bad ‘bout our lives. I got no problem accepting my selfishness, my own flaws and what not. Too many people out there don’t accept who they are. Honestly, I think that might be what’s wrong with the world, you know? Everyone tryina be who they ain’t.

Right, right, off-track. So, my boy comes to me with the offer, right. The guy, he’s a regular at the café. One of them without any weirdness to his order, but with a shitton of weirdness to his self. Always wearing some suit and tie, always on the phone and his computer, ordering the same thing, sitting in the same place. Real serial killer vibe, you know? But, that don’t bother me, because misunderstandings happen all the fucking time, right. Don’t judge a book by its cover and all that. Anyways, one day, I was doing my thang, picking up the trash and whatnot, when he walks over and says, “Dave, I have a proposition for you.”

Now than, he never spoke to me before, and I was in a corner near the bathroom, so I got super suspicious-like. “I ain’t do that sorta shit,” I told him.

He just laughed at me like I was the crazy person. “No, nothing so crude,” he said all calm and shit, “I think you are destined for greatness, and I wish to aid you in fulfilling that destiny.”

Now, I know that was a crock of shit, but it made me feel good, and more importantly, I didn’t have nothing better to do, so I figured, why the fuck not. “What’s the offer?” I asked him.

“My… daughter… is in need of subjects for experimentation. If you do that for me, you will be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams.”

“I don’t do sex stuff,” I told him, ‘cause that sounded even more sketch than before.

He shook his head. “No, nothing like that. She is a scientist, and she believes she’s found a breakthrough in her field. She simply needs people to test on.”

“No offense,” I said, “But you sound super sketch right now, okay?” I was gonna accept anyways, but I wanted to know I wasn’t agreeing to like, selling my organs or nothing. “Is I gonna die?”

He laughed. “I won’t lie to you: it probably will hurt some. But you’ll be fine and should come out stronger than before.”

“Aight,” I said, “I’m in.” Worst and best decision of my life, you know. But that’s getting ahead of myself. I didn’t know what I was getting into yet.

He smiled at me and, handing me a business card, said, “Be punctual, please. Nine-fifteen on Saturday.”

I looked at the card. It read, Alex and Isabel Smith, and had an address about four miles from the café. “By the by, Mister Smith, how you said daughter sounded weird.”

“I know. We have a somewhat strained relationship, due to her current taste in men. And please, call me Alex.” And with that enigmatic statement, the man walked out the door.

I was supposed to be off Friday but switched shifts with my man Julie so I could have Saturday off instead. She agreed because she had like a last-minute bachelorette party or some shit to do Thursday night. I spent the entire shift tryina figure out what went down the day before. I’d googled them, but nothing showed up other than their research firm. Even that only had its own website, no external info or nothing. Showed up on maps as the place it the card said, but the street view just looked like a fucking warehouse, which made me a tad worried. The more I thought about it, the more worried I got, and I had a whole goddamned day just thinking ‘bout it.

But, I didn’t have anything else going in my life, so Saturday morning I drove over to the sketchy-ass warehouse, certain they was fittin’a steal my kidneys. I arrived at Nine twelve, because there wasn’t any traffic on the way there. Hopping out of my falling apart sedan from the nineties, I knocked on the big metal doors. They swung open and the man in the suit, Alex, was there to greet me. “Hello again, Dave. Glad you made it on time. Here’s the paperwork for the trial, come this way please.” He handed me about seventy pages of fine print with tabs to tell mew here I had to sign, which didn’t help with the whole thinking they’re after my kidneys thing.

He led me into what looked and felt like a therapist’s office. Comfy chairs, a tv, infinitely less creepy than everything else thus far. For the first time this trip, I was less than seventy percent certain I would come out of this less alive than I came in. I read through the entire seventy-page fine print, because I’m a paranoid egomaniac, you know how we are. In any case, it was pretty standard don’t sue us stuff and don’t tell anybody about this. Evidently, they were afraid of short-term consequences like unending diarrhea and temporary unquenchable rage as well as the normal things like headaches and the like. So, I figured drug regimen, I can do experimental drug regimen. And, given Alex’s mysterious introduction, I figured, experimental steroids or HGH or something like that. Sounded like fun. I signed everything and he led me into a big shower area. I was thoroughly decontaminated and provide with a robe, and then the complex itself led me with glowing lights to meet the mind behind this whole thing, Isabel.

Isabel was a remarkably attractive young woman, couldn’t be more than a decade younger than Alex. Stepkid, maybe, I wondered, because I didn’t know shit back then. “Hi there,” she said, very cheery and very much not looking at me, “I’m Doctor Isabel Smith, you can call me Doctor or Doctor Isabel. Either way is fine. If you could please enter your room, feel free to request any sort of decorations, your comfort is important to us.” She was very clearly not giving a fuck about our comfort. She had that look in her eyes that made me assume she’d never learn my name, you know. Just refer to me as subject whatever number. That I was no different than the rats or the mice or the whatever she did prep work on. Maybe bats? I don’t know enough science to tell you about that.

Now, I can’t tell you what they did to me, because the NDA was real airtight, even going so far as preventing posthumous revelation of details. Now that I think about it, that should’ve been a tip off about what was to come, but, you know, I didn’t realize the stories and shit was real. Suffice it to say, Alex was right. It hurt a whole shitton. Like, worse than anything I could ever have experienced otherwise. But he was right about the other thing too. I came out of it a whole lot stronger and better looking than I came in. There was some minor hunger issues at the start of things, but I got a handle on it. You know how it is in the beginning, though, so I don’t gotta explain that to you. Anyways, the big problem was, coming out of that, I really lost my life and shit. I’d been in the experiment for around seven months, right, so I’d been fired from the café. And because of the situation, as much as Alex thought I was awesome, I wasn’t his family, you know. I was my own family. I had to deal with that shit. The experiment made us seven of a kind. The other three didn’t adapt well enough to what went down, and kinda have been in a rut tryina kill ‘emselves but not knowing how what with our condition. But the seven of us who wanted to thrive, who have that drive, we became a makeshift family of sorts. Or, tried to be for a while.

Soon enough after leaving, the ten of us was all situated in a nice house in the suburbs. Serena and Phil was doing real work, nightshifts at different 24-hour places, and we had Violet and Jose out there hustling like they used to, going so far as to teach Tim and Louise the ropes. I even tried becoming a bartender for a while and did it pretty solidly. We lived together in the house, which wasn’t quite as much space for us ten as before, but, you know, we dealt. We’d all lived with worse. But life’s got a way of kicking you in the balls for every time you feel good about your place in the world. For us, it was summer solstice, fifteen months after we got out of that experiment that changed our lives.

See, we lived in this small house in suburbia with three members of the makeshift family who were less than pleased with their condition. We mostly kept them alive and under control, playing games with them, helping them learn coping mechanisms, hiding meds and their food inside soups so that they didn’t feel weird drinking it up. But, one week, one of them wasn’t eating, and we didn’t notice it. Then on the morning of the solstice, that one lit the whole damn building on fire. Some of us managed to wake up in time and find our way to the relative safety of the basement, but not all of us. Now, there’s just the four of us. Me, Tim, Violet, and Serena.

Tim went real dark after his girl Louise died in the fire. Violet became an alcoholic. Which means me and Serena have got to pick up the slack. I chatted with Alex about it, and he recommended I talk to you. Said you like taking in strays, giving us work. Making us better and shit. So, I talked with Serena and Tim about moving over into your neck of the woods. Tim was good with it, but I figured he’d be. He ain’t gonna be much use to nobody, at least not until he gets his shit somewhat together. Serena, she ain’t want nothing to do with this shit, but she agreed that we gotta stick together in it, so she’s gonna be tryin’a find a real job ‘round your town. If you accept this application, of course.

Now, I know that this is kinda weird and definitely not what you wanted with this application. And I know you don’t actually know much about me. I understand that you probably fittin’a reject us after this, but when your video essay was to tell you what’s good about this life, I really couldn’t think of a single fucking thing. Not because this is so much worse than my old life, or because I hate my new condition. I love it. I don’t mind the obligatory hours, and the benefits are pretty awesome. But life, in general, is just terrible. And now not only do I got to deal with a huge change to it, but I’m ‘bout to have to deal with that forever? It’s not some’in that’s exactly pleasant to consider. So, yeah, I repeat my sentiment. Life’s kinda fucked, ain’t it? And if you disagree, well, you best tell me how it ain’t, so I can enjoy it more.