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FREEDOM IN DETROIT: A TRIPPY ROMANCE

Something had happened to him. She wasn't sure what. He was just as passive as ever, just as calm, yet now something burned within him that she had never seen before. Was it love for that person on the other side of the door, or hate for her?

The room had no food, no bed, and no bathroom. There was rock music playing on the floor above and it annoyed her. The moments passed with a torturous slowness. All the exits were blocked.

Sitting on a chair opposite him, the woman slowly crossed her legs. "I can wait this out just as long as you can."

***

In the bottom of Lake Erie there was a cave, deep in the dark depths of the water. No human had ever seen it, but people inhabited it nonetheless. A tribe of mermaids and mermen lived in the bottom of the lake. Two of their members lived in this cave. It was not large, but could fit the necessities of comfortable living. Andros had lived in it all his life. His new wife Mardia, only a few months.

Her pacific form floated on the bed near the back of the dwelling. She observed Andros preparing some fish he had speared for lunch. The fish would have looked good to her in other circumstances, but now it didn't. She knew her stomach wouldn't take it; it hadn't for the last two weeks. She had become painfully thin.

Eventually, she beckoned Andros to her side. He came, but only after some trepidation. He knew that she couldn't beat him anymore, but the fear lingered. "Don't you know what's causing this? What's killing me?"

Andros shook his head.

"It's the humans..." Mardia paused, took in her husband's look of shock, and continued, "I've seen the evidence. They do exist. And more than that, I think they're having more of an effect on us than we realize. The build 'factorukies' or something, spew bad chemical waste and stuff into our water. Every new disease our tribe has experienced for the last few decades has been the result of those… humans!" She was stopped by a fit of powerful coughing. Andros reached for some medicine and she gulped it down. "…now what was I saying?"

He pointed upward, toward the far away surface of the lake.

"Ah, that," she continued in her loud, grating voice. "I swear, they're ruining us one by one. Like me being sick and freakin' dying right now! And when you lost your voice to that illness a few years ago, I'll bet that was the humans' fault too." She laughed. "Can't blame them for that, though. You used to be quite a loudmouth. Ha! You know, if they hadn't done it with their chemicals, I would have done it with one of my spells. I love it when you wanna talk but can't - such exquisite pain!"

Andros couldn't look at her anymore. He did not want to hear this talk of death. He did not want her to see him smile.

"Look at me, you idiot! You won't get many other chances before I'm dead!" she cried.

He slowly moved back to her, as he always did, suffering in his permanent silence. Sitting on the bed, he curled his golden tail and hugged it against him. His eyes questioned her, arrested her in their stare. He shook his head, put his finger to his mouth, and mouthed something, a single word: "shh."

"Damnit, why am I dying? I don't know how it got to this," Mardia said, calm now. "For godsake, I used to be healthy! You used to respect me! Like a husband is supposed to respect his wife, even if it is an arranged marriage. But now you swim all over me because I'm weak and you still have your health!"

Feeling cheeky, Andros lightly kissed her, if only to quiet her.

Mardia feebly raised her hand against him. "Just going through the motions, aren't you? You are so pathetic."

Andros stopped at the realization. He thought he'd fooled her. Wasn't his impression of a caring lover good enough? Hadn't he fulfilled his marital duties?

"Yeah, you know it. I'll bet if it wasn't for someone arranging it, you wouldn't be married in the first place. You'd be with that male slut of yours… oh, I can see it now."

'No you can't,' Andros thought. 'You can't see beyond your own ego, let alone into someone else's. You don't know what I'd do without you. But wouldn't it be great?!'

Mardia struggled to prop herself up. Andros stopped her and shook his head. She was too weak and he reveled in this reversal of power.

"Fine!" she said. "Then you get it! I need my spellbook and some ointment. In the cabinet, above insulated jar of lava for cooking - oh, you know where I keep it!"

The spellbook was an artifact from the above world, landing on the lake's floor more than ten years earlier. Its glossy plastic-coated pages had withstood the ravages of water, but the glue that held them together had not fared so well. Only a few ties of string held it together. She took out a sheet from Everyman's Guide to Wicca and read it carefully. "Take this ointment, slather it all over your lower body. Yeah, the entire tail, don't miss a spot!"

Andros did as he was told. Mardia did some chants in what seemed to him gibberish. Then the ointment started glowing. And burning. And feeling quite painful. Andros tried to wipe it off but found that he couldn't even touch the scales without causing pain. The agony that originated in his lower body vibrated through the rest of him. If he wasn't mute, he would have deafened the entire village with his screams.

Then the sensation ended. He looked down. The tail wasn't there anymore. Instead he had legs, pale and odd things, like what he'd seen on a turtle once only hairy. It confused him. He tentatively flexed the muscles and moved a limb. The legs worked. He was controlling them. These were his legs. He suddenly felt very confused.

"Oh yes, here's what you're supposed to do for me," Mardia explained. "Those humans up there, they don't know what they're doing to me. They don't know the pain they're causing. And they should! So could you go to the surface and wreck a little havoc for me? Or is it for you too? Yeah, just go and avenge the entire village while you're at it."

'Ooo, last words. She's gonna die! Great!' Andros thought. It had been a fact before, but like many facts, they were not made real until moments like this. She was dying and this was why she sent him, because she knew she would need him no longer. If he left and returned a few days, a few hours, even a few minutes later, she would be gone. And she would be cursing the humans as she went.

***

"Hey, man, are you alright?"

Andros looked up. He was on land that was half grass and half mud, the water still on his feet. When his body moved, it jerked, not used to this lack of restraint. It was not moving in water anymore, fun as that had been for the last hour. The gravity he was used to had been reversed. He felt sluggish, though this might have also been the effects of breathing air. How did he pull that off, anyway? Or what about these legs? Or not stopping short of the surface when that was what he had done his entire life?

"Hey, are you okay? You look pretty trashed," the onlooker continued.

Slowly, Andros stood up. He stumbled to the person talking, fell down, got up again, and then used the person as a crutch. He leaned heavily against the man and looked into his eyes. His human, brown, almond-shaped eyes.

The human edged away. A drunken naked guy was getting a little too close to him.

"Do you need help?… Um yeah, wait here a second." The human left Andros to stumble down again and gave him a pair of shorts from the back of his car, parked on the gravel driveway behind the tree. "Put these on."

Andros looked at the clothing oddly. He looked at the human to see how he was wearing it. Each hole on the bottom seemed to be for each leg. He put them on backwards and felt a strange spasm of pain, a pain like when Mardia had thrown something heavy on the end of his tail in anger at the lava cooker not working. He took them off and reversed them. This caused no pain and seemed to please the human.

"Um, you have a name?" the human asked.

Andros shook his head.

"You live around here?"

While his home was not more than a couple of miles away, he knew he wouldn't be able to return until he'd done what he'd set out to do, so again he gave the negative.

"Err, need help?"

Andros waved him away. He didn't think he could use a human's help, especially when they were the people that he was supposed to harm in some vague way. 'How am I to avenge, anyway?' he wondered. 'Mardia didn't outline a very good plan. And it's not like I care what the humans do. She wants me to get them back for her death, but I'd rather thank them.'

Slowly, he started down the gravel road. The rocks hurt the bottoms of his feet, yet it was new sensation and did not fully register as pain. He quickly learned how to keep his balance and walk, replicating what it took months for human babies to learn. He started experimenting. He jumped. He ran. He did cartwheels and failed dismally. He danced to the music overheard from one of the houses he passed, "Oh Father" by Madonna:

"You can't hurt me now.
I got away from you, I never thought I would.
You can't make me cry, you once had the power.
I never felt so good about myself."

'Damn it's great to be alive!' Andros thought. He had no clue where he was going or what he was doing, but this new world seemed rather interesting. And Mardia was probably dead by now, wasn't she? He could feel the weight coming off his shoulders already.

It was in his euphoria, of course, that the scary man with the gun just had to approach him.

***

"Ah, so you're Billy, ain't you? Running around, telling the police on us? Don't try to say nothin', you match the description and that's that."

Andros felt his nerves shriek and quieted them with his will. He had been in worse situations than mistaken identity. His posture straightened and he wondered if the man would continue or kill him on the spot. He was hoping for the first one.

"Should I kill you?… Naw, you're too pretty for that, ain't ya? Maybe I will take ya back to the boss. Huh-huh! See how ya like dat! Maybe he'll be generous and just make you his slave. He's done it enough. He could use a few more servants."

'I just thought I stopped being somebody else's bitch. What the fuck?' Andros thought.

Then a black and white car drove appeared on the road, now concrete and more the civilization of fast food restaurants and strip malls. The man froze in his tracks. Andros felt a deep dread within him. This must be the boss's car.

A lanky redhead stepped out of the car and called, "This is the police. Come out with your hands up!"

The scary man dropped his gun and put his hands in the air. Andros followed suit, though he had no clue what the purpose was. Suddenly, he felt the redhead place his hands behind his back and bind them with cold metal.

"You're both being arrested for drug possession, theft, and the murder of ten innocent young boys. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law," the redhead recited.

Andros relaxed. He saw the hero and the villain quite clearly. The redhead was good, the black-haired scary man was bad. Simple. He didn't like being in the backseat of the car with the scary man, though.

The building they reached was old and concrete, with the words "Detroit Police Department" on it. Detroit, Andros had once heard, was the dirtiest city in the world. And it bordered Lake Erie? Well, no wonder Mardia had said what she did about pollution.

He and the scary man were led to a cell with another man in it, someone just as skanky looking as the scary man but thinner. A confused look came to the scary man's face.

"Hey," he asked, "what's going on? Both a' you look like Billy."

"Yeah, I'm him," Billy said. "You boss's man too?"

"Yeah. Why'd you rat on us?"

"I didn't rat on you! The boss's secretary did it. I think the boss wants to get rid of us. Whatdya think I am, crazy?"

"You accusin' me a' bein' a stupid?" the scary man shot back.

"I ain't accusin' you a' nothin! This is both our problems, man!"

The scary man, now without his gun, immediately aimed his fist at Billy's stomach. But Billy was prepared for such action and stuck the scary man faster than lightning. A fight broke out and Andros watched with amusement. Apparently mermaids weren't the only stupid creatures on Earth.

Two policeman came in and broke up the fight. The two skanky guys were led out of the room, leaving Andros alone. Without a chair or any piece of furniture in sight, he sat on the floor and waited for the next piece of entertainment. This was fun.

A couple hours later, the lanky redhead came in, looked at Andros with pity and curiosity. "You aren't Billy Shwartz, are you?"

Andros shook his head.

"You don't even know those two jokers, do you?"

Again, Andros nodded.

"I'm sorry. You're free to go."

Andros continued to watch him, his sky-blue eyes, the blue cloth of his shirt, the way he leaned on one leg and jutted out one hip as he stood against the wall The boy hesitated. His height suggested a full-grown man, yet his face could pass for something young and of either gender. The effect, Andros noted, was not altogether unattractive.

"Hey, really, I'm sorry. I wanna to make it up to you." The protector of the law with the harmless face hesitated again. "Well, if you're not Billy Shwartz, then who are you? By the way, I'm Danny. Danny Randolph." He extended his hand. Andros stood up and shook it. They were of equal height, though their builds were much different.

There was a moment of silence. Andros realized that he was expecting him to say something. It threw him off. Growing up in an isolated village, he wasn't used to meeting new people who knew nothing about him. He wasn't used to explaining things. Improvising, he found a notepad in Danny's shirt pocket and a pen next to it. It took him some time to figure out how to use the ballpoint, but eventually it put ink on paper. He scrawled a little on it and gave it to Danny.

"You can't talk…" Danny pondered. "Well, at least you aren't mad at me then. Well, I'll bet you're scared instead. I could put you in jail."

Andros handed him another note: Watching two people fight is funny, I think jail is fun. You don't scare me -- arouse, perhaps, but not scare.

Danny pondered the note for a moment, a smile coming to his face. "Wanna go to a club tonight?"

Andros looked at him quizzically.

"Club… music… dancing…?"

Dancing? That involved the legs. That sounded like fun. Andros couldn't believe his luck. He handed Danny another message: When?

"I get off work in twenty minutes."

***

By the time Andros awoke the next day, his legs were no longer sore, though he'd danced for hours on end. It was the first time he'd done anything of the sort, though he was sure that the experience would be repeated. It had to be. He couldn't see himself living without it.

He was in Danny's apartment, in the bedroom. He would have slept on the sofa, but Danny insisted. Checking himself out in the full-length mirror as he left the bed, he marveled at himself again, these human legs. Now he was naked. He'd learned that it was custom of humans to wear clothing and take it off for sleep in a never-ending cycle. It made no sense to him. Why bother with clothing in the first place?

"Hey, breakfast is ready!" Danny called from the kitchen. "Everything's nuked to high hell and if you don't get here fast I think even the sawsage is going to melt!"

Andros went to him, feeling giddier than ever. Yesterday he had been a slave to a woman he did not love. Today he was free to choose anyone he wanted, regardless of gender. Who could chastise him here? The Microwave?

As they ate, Andros pondered his future. He wasn't sure if he had one, but at least he was free, and that was the important part. As long as he and Danny had freedom, everything else would be fine.

***

They sat together on the sofa, watching football on television. Danny explained the game though most of it went over Andros' head. Time passed, repeated itself, stood still, passed again, and eventually became night. It had a way of doing that on Saturdays.

The doorbell rang. Danny reluctantly got out of his comfy position to answer it. A woman stood in front of him, with a face chiseled out of porcelain and carved with care. Her short black dress revealed practically all the length of the leg.

Andros saw the window ten feet to his left. This was the tenth floor, but he still felt like jumping out of it.

"Ah, I see you're getting revenge against the humans," Mardia remarked. "Good job. You're really beating him, aren't you?"

"Who are you?" Danny asked.

"I'm his wife."

"Oh yeah, he told me about you. Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"Well, after I gave him legs, I realized that not only could I do the same thing to myself, but I could also cure myself of a fatal illness while I was at it. It was stupid not to think of it earlier, but that's Murphy's Law for you. So I don't feel anger against the humans anymore. You haven't killed me after all… But Andros, do be a good boy and come home, won't you?"

Andros shook his head.

"Fine!" Mardia's voice dropped its charm. "Know what? I gave you these legs. And I can take them back!" She chanted in gibberish and snapped her fingers. Andros' legs became a golden fishlike tail again.

Danny gasped in shock.

Andros looked at him helplessly. 'Fuck', he thought.

Mardia's glare focused on Danny again. "He is merman, you are human. What were you two thinking? Isn't that bestial or something? Whatever, it would have never worked!"

"I doubt that," Danny responded, barely coherent in his confusion.

"Well, it's all irrelevant now. Andros, you're not fit for land now. You're fit for the water. Now you have to go back."

As Mardia tried to convince Andros to return, Danny walked around the room, staying against the walls. Eventually, they noticed that Danny wasn't there anymore.

His voice came from the other side of the main entrance door. "Hey, listen up! There are two doors out of that room you're in. One leads to the bathroom and bedroom and stuff. That's locked from the other side. There's also the entrance here, which can't be locked from the outside, but I've set a chair against it so it's closed too. You're both trapped."

"You bastard!" Mardia shot back. "Let me and my husband out of here!"

"Only if you give him back his legs and leave."

"I'm not leaving without my husband!" Mardia proclaimed.

"Well, that's not your choice, that's his. And frankly, I don't think he loves you that much," Danny responded.

"So what am I supposed to do?! Wait in this cramped little hole until one of us gives up?!"

"Basically."

"Gods!" Mardia stopped pacing.

She looked at Andros reclining on the sofa. The first thing that struck her about him was his expression. Something had happened to him. She wasn't sure what. He was just as passive as ever, just as calm, yet now something burned within him that she had never seen before. Was it love for that person on the other side of the door, or hate for her?

The room had no food, no bed, and no bathroom. There was rock music playing on the floor above and it annoyed her. The moments passed with a torturous slowness. All the exits were blocked.

Sitting on a chair opposite him, the woman slowly crossed her legs. "I can wait this out just as long as you can."