Mr. Enemy is flopped back on his jail bunk. His hands are folded behind his head. He\u2019s laughing.<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Evans,\u201d says Special Agent Melanie Cook.<\/p>\n
His laugh cuts short. Mr. Enemy sits up. His motion is smooth and even and he doesn\u2019t hit his head on the bunk above him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not Mr. Evans,\u201d says Mr. Enemy. \u201cThough I used to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not important what your enemy\u2019s name is,\u201d says Mr. Enemy. \u201cIt\u2019s not important what he does for a living. It\u2019s not important who he is, really. What\u2019s important is that he\u2019s your enemy. Jeremiah Clean scrubbed me clean. He scrubbed everything unimportant away. All the Linus. All the Friedman. All the Evans. So now I\u2019m just Mr. Enemy. His<\/em> enemy. If you know what I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n Melanie looks at her notes. \u201cYou\u2019re in jail for 1,427 counts of aggravated littering,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201c90% of all crimes go unsolved,\u201d says Mr. Enemy. \u201cIt should be 14,270 counts. But an adversarial legal system refuses me my due.\u201d<\/p>\n Melanie frowns at her notes. \u201cHow do you aggravate littering, anyway?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s my special talent,\u201d says Mr. Enemy. \u201cObserve.\u201d<\/p>\n He takes a cigarette butt out from under his pillow. He flicks it onto the ground in front of Melanie. The burnt end flares and begins to emit seventh-hand smoke\u2014sixty-four times deadlier than second-hand smoke! Melanie quickly stomps it out.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not afraid of getting lung cancer,\u201d she says, boldly.<\/p>\n He looks at her.<\/p>\n She looks away.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m<\/em> afraid of you getting lung cancer,\u201d says Mr. Enemy, after a moment. \u201cI\u2019m not your<\/em> enemy. But I have to be as messy as possible or I can\u2019t count it as a blow against Jeremiah Clean.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Enemy pulls half a sandwich out from under his pillow. It\u2019s covered in greasy saran wrap. It\u2019s a peanut butter sandwich, so it\u2019s not clear where the grease came from. He bites deep.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you need me for?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat does it mean to you,\u201d Melanie asks, \u201cthat you\u2019re Jeremiah Clean\u2019s enemy?\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Enemy gestures with the sandwich. Now there\u2019s peanut butter on the cell wall. It\u2019s a horribly artistic Rorschach smear.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s an obstacle in everyone\u2019s path,\u201d Mr. Enemy says. \u201cThere\u2019s a stumbling block. Someone or something who gets in the way. Someone who is the antithesis of what you believe in. Someone who means, just \u2019cause they exist, that you can\u2019t have what you want. That\u2019s what it means to be an enemy. That\u2019s what it means to be bad, you know, in someone else\u2019s world.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot everything has an enemy,\u201d Melanie says.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we didn\u2019t have enemies,\u201d says Mr. Enemy, \u201cwe\u2019d be as gods. Look.\u201d<\/p>\n He holds up the saran-wrapped sandwich.<\/p>\n \u201cThon-Gul X is the warlord of a distant star. He is the incarnate body of the wicked god of space, and he wants to destroy the world. He would do it, too. He\u2019d destroy everything<\/em>, if he had to, just to get at us. He would make himself into the <\/em>warlord, the beginning and the ending, wrapped around space and time. But \u2014<\/p>\n \u201cThere is saran wrap.<\/p>\n \u201cIt clings between Thon-Gul X and his plans. If he could destroy it, then he would be unlimited. But he cannot, because \u2014 well, ultimately, because saran wrap is another aspect of himself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was invented on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018If only it did not thus cling!\u2019\u201d Mr. Enemy quotes in satisfaction. \u201cBut it is clinging. Thus is the lament of Thon-Gul X.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI find your evidence uncompelling.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cName me something else, then,\u201d says Mr. Enemy. \u201cI\u2019ll tell you its enemy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPickles.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCucumbers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPardon?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPickles cannot triumph while cucumbers exist. Yet without cucumbers, there would be no pickles.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Enemy finishes his sandwich. He tucks the saran wrap in his pocket.<\/p>\n \u201cReason.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe insufficiency of reason.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy childhood imaginary friend Betty.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Enemy laughs.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re expecting me to say \u2018adulthood,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cBut it\u2019s not true. It could only have been the turtle-people.\u201d<\/p>\n Melanie fights to keep sudden tears from her eyes. She can still remember Betty\u2019s pleading eyes as the turtle-people tied her to the stake.<\/p>\n Mr. Enemy is staring at her. Then he looks down. \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d he says. \u201cI hadn\u2019t really \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n He trails off.<\/p>\n Melanie shakes her head to clear it.<\/p>\n \u201cSo why are you his enemy?\u201d Melanie asks.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I understand what he does not,\u201d says Mr. Enemy. \u201cI realize that there is no finality in cleanliness save the empty void. I understand that clean and simple order is the enemy of the small things, that it has no room for small things, and that, in the end, we are all of us small. That is why I must oppose him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBy keeping half-eaten sandwiches under your pillow?\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Enemy shrugs. \u201cThe philosophy of disorder has its own philosophical flaws which we need not explore at this time. Since, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s gross.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAgent Cook,\u201d says Mr. Enemy, \u201cLife is gross.\u201d<\/p>\n Melanie sighs. Then she opens his cell. She walks with him through several layers of security, out of the prison, to her car.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s nice to see the sky again,\u201d says Mr. Enemy.<\/p>\n He looks around.<\/p>\n Sometimes he thinks he might be indwelt by the Devil. Other times he thinks a transparent dog is there, panting, looking at him. He can\u2019t see it, so he doesn\u2019t know whether he blinks and it isn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot of things that could be wrong with him, really, but it\u2019s a gorgeous day, and that makes it better.<\/p>\n The sky is blue. There are no clouds.<\/p>\n There is no sun.<\/p>\n There is no moon.<\/p>\n There are no stars.<\/p>\n He can see his reflection in it \u2014 that\u2019s how shiny and clean the blue sky is!<\/p>\n It looks so goddamn beautiful that he\u2019d almost want to cry.<\/p>\n \u201cWe tried to arrest him,\u201d says Melanie, \u201cbut he just removed the unsightly federal agents with hot water and scrubbing bubbles.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI hope you\u2019re not thinking that I can do better,\u201d says Mr. Enemy. \u201cI\u2019ve never actually won against him, you know. Not even once.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut you\u2019re his enemy,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ll confront him,\u201d says Mr. Enemy. \u201cAnd he\u2019ll scrub us away, and that\u2019ll be the end of it. I expect he\u2019s already used Hell-B-Gone on whatever would have happened next.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI guess it\u2019s just hopeless, then,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n She gets in the car. They begin to drive.<\/p>\n Mr. Enemy looks around perkily for things to litter with. He finds a bagged and tagged corpse in the back seat, leftover from a deprioritized murder case, and heaves it out the window. It thumps and rolls down the road.<\/p>\n \u201cIf everybody did that,\u201d Melanie says critically, \u201cthe roads would be trashheaps.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEnh,\u201d says Mr. Enemy.<\/p>\n \u201cSo why are you willing to fight him,\u201d Melanie says, \u201cif he\u2019s just going to mop us up?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you?\u201d<\/p>\n She shrugs.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really more of the principle that he has an enemy than an actual enemy,\u201d Mr. Enemy admits. He finds a Styrofoam cup and tosses it out the window. It hits the ground behind them and explodes into a steaming pile of goop. \u201cSo that\u2019s why. He left me alive, but I\u2019ve been pretty awfully messy. I think this time, he\u2019ll wipe me completely away.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou want to die?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI figure, if he removes that principle,\u201d says Mr. Enemy, \u201cthen he\u2019ll have no way to externalize conflict. Since the division between cleanliness and untidiness is itself an untidy thing, I think that might doom him \u2014 that he might become<\/em> Mr. Enemy. That\u2019s pretty much all I got, as a plan.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf he becomes Mr. Enemy, won\u2019t that mean that you become him?\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Enemy spits his gum out the window. It gums together a spotted owl and a bald eagle, causing both to lose their aerodynamic qualities and plummet screaming to the ground.<\/p>\n \u201c. . . don\u2019t make me turn the car around,\u201d says Melanie.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d Mr. Enemy says. \u201cIt means I become him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re willing to become everything you loathe and oppose just to make him unhappy?\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Enemy looks away for a long moment.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d he says. \u201cYeah, I think I honestly am. I\u2019m very good<\/em> at being Mr. Enemy, Agent Cook.\u201d<\/p>\n She sighs. \u201cI hate working with martyrs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not a martyr,\u201d Mr. Enemy says. He tosses his saran wrap out the window. It flutters in the wind and sticks to a tree. \u201cI\u2019m an aggravated litterer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe mopped away the messy distinction between quantum mechanics and general relativity, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not surprised,\u201d says Mr. Enemy.<\/p>\n And they\u2019re driving on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mr. Enemy is flopped back on his jail bunk. His hands are folded behind his head. He\u2019s laughing. \u201cMr. Evans,\u201d says Special Agent Melanie Cook. His laugh cuts short. Mr. Enemy sits up. His motion is smooth and even and he doesn\u2019t hit his head on the bunk above him. \u201cI\u2019m not Mr. Evans,\u201d says […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"series":[50],"class_list":["post-7003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vidars-boot-chapter-25","series-vidars-boot"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/Icon_PBJ.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7004,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7003\/revisions\/7004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7003"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=7003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}