The Bunker
Quinn Adikes
I do not enjoy television. It’s all suffering and I consider myself an empath. But what happens is that I am assigned a cubicle near the watercooler. All day, I eavesdrop on conversations and try to find a way in. Everybody talks about The Bunker, a hidden camera show where the contestants think they’re going to die. Thursday at eight, Grandma and I sit and watch.
#
Contestants respond to a Craigslist ad looking for participants in a study. Only those with a weak disposition are selected. A helicopter whisks them deep into the Amazon, to The Bunker. The Bunker is equipped with steel doors, a generator, supplies, and fourteen hidden cameras. Actors leave to scout the area. Soon there are screams for help, gunshots, the JaguarMan’s roar. Cameras zoom in on the contestants’ terror-stricken faces. Mr. Sutton cries and the laugh track goes wild. Mrs. Jackson says that she’s going outside to investigate. Before she has a chance, an actor bursts through the door. The actor tells them he actually works for a company called FeroTech, where they cross humans with animals. He speaks of vivisections and the JaguarMan. He hints that there are more creatures like it. He reveals that the contestants were chosen to be FeroTech’s next experiment. Mr. Rood was going to be crossed with a boa constrictor. Ms. Lopez, with a toucan. The contestants are horrified, but of course they are never in real danger. The JaguarMan is a Brazilian gymnast in a latex costume. The costume has a speaker in its mouth which produces the trademark JaguarMan roar.
#
I am suddenly ravenous. I pour a can of spaghetti with clam sauce in a bowl and heat it up in the microwave. It’s all we have in the cabinets. The kitchen smells like seagulls, low tide. From the living room, Grandma says, “Smells yummy in there.” I split the pasta evenly between two plates and bring them into the living room. I slide a plate in front of Grandma. Grandma nibbles, her eyes locked on the screen.
#
The actor tells them he cannot live with what he has done. He produces a forty-five. He steps outside. He closes the door behind him and nobody follows. A minute goes by. Close-up on each contestant. Gunshot. Laugh track. The last man standing is going to win a million dollars.
#
Grandma claps her little hands. She says, “that was some primo shit.” I put her to bed. I sit on the porch. The air here is different. It goes down easy. My ex-therapist claimed being away from the city would do me good, but on my drives home from work the teenagers often spring from bushes, chuck rocks at my car, and call me Grandma Bitch.
#
A little backstory: Grandma is too old to drive. Meaning, no car in the driveway. Meaning, before I moved in, nobody knew whether she was home or not. Meaning, before I moved in, it was only a matter of time before somebody smashed her window and climbed in without realizing she was upstairs. Bob lives in a doublewide in the junkyard across the street and knocked for baking soda. He found the house torn apart and Grandma curled in the bathtub. We couldn’t get a straight answer out of her, but knew it was the teenagers. Mom insisted I go live with her after that. It was a thinly veiled excuse to get me out of the house, which was agreeable to me because Grandma should have never been on her own, especially in this day and age when teenage gangs maraud unchecked. Now, Grandma and I play Othello, bake pumpkin bread, dance to Benny Goodman. I was sick of my job at PlaxiCo. I had two dozen coworkers and a string of managers, but at the end of the day, everybody was in their own little world and none of those little worlds involved me.
#
Coworkers diddling around the watercooler. Coworkers discussing the fake suicide. Coworkers doubling over with laughter. Coworkers slapping each other on the back. Coworkers gasping for air.
#
Mr. Rood leaves the presumed safety of The Bunker in search of the actor’s corpse and that forty-five caliber pistol, but the JaguarMan leaps from behind a tree and a fifteen minute chase ensues. The JaguarMan corners Rood on the edge of a cliff and the audience track cheers as Rood begs for mercy. Tears and snot run down his face. The JaguarMan pulls off his mask. The camera crew rushes out. The laugh track goes wild. Still in shock, Rood is airlifted to a hotel in Manaus, where he is fed a steak dinner. Keys to a brand new Ford Eclipse are placed in his quivering hand.
#
Everybody gathers around the copy machine. One coworker jams the Start button. One shakes the machine. Another smacks it. Yet another shoves paper into its mouth. The machine groans and whirrs, coworkers grunt and pound, the machine clicks and sizzles. I yank open a compartment to expose the heart of the machine. A crumpled sheet of paper is stuck in the roller. Bit by bit, I tear the paper away and the machine wakes back to life.
#
I dip into my savings to buy Grandma a puzzle: a Baroque painting of three bullfighters skewering a bull. Grandma loves anything that displays the clash of nature and man. Those are her words, not mine. She finishes the puzzle in an hour. She frames and hangs it over the couch.
#
I’m at the mailbox and the teenagers whoop down the block. Rocks sail through the air before I can react. One hits me in the temple and knocks me out. I wake up on the ground. Bob stands over me. It is as if he is spinning.
“Just got home and saw you lying there. Figured you were relaxing, but I changed out of my overalls and you were still on the ground. Your head’s leaking.” Blood soaks my shirt and runs down the side of my face. Bob waves a first aid kit. “What happened?”
I can’t answer. Every cloud in the sky is an ax. A rifle. A dagger.
Bob continues, “I know what happened. Little bastards smash a windshield of mine every week. They love breaking glass. I guess it’s a thrill, the way it shatters.” He cleans the wound on my head and dresses it with Neosporin and a bandage. “I never call the cops. Don’t believe in it. Karma will get those teenagers. Or maybe it won’t.”
I rub the bandage. The pad squishes over my wound. Bob invites me over for a beer, which would require I follow him across the street, through the rusted cars and into his trailer. Inside of the trailer, rims are piled to the ceiling. A bedroom door is used for a coffee table. Strips of fly paper hang from the ceiling like party streamers. I do not wish to enter Bob’s trailer.
I say, “There’s this show Grandma and I watch. It starts in a few minutes.”
Bob says, “Haven’t had cable in years. Sounds fine with me.”
That was meant to be an excuse, not an offer. But Bob continues down the stone walkway into Grandma’s house.
“Hello Indiana,” Bob says. Grandma does not respond.
#
Mr. Stoffle, Ms. Lopez, and Mr. Burke are outside scavenging for food.
“If only I knew it was going to end like this, I would have tried a little harder with Jenny,” Ms. Lopez says.
“We’d all do things differently,” Mr. Stoffle says.
“Now we’re going to die.”
“Takes a lot for you to realize certain things.”
“I never liked you,” says Mr. Stoffle.
“You never liked anybody,” says Mr. Burke.
Ms. Lopez stomps about. “The worst part about all of this,” she yells. “The very worst part is that I’m going to die with all of you.”
#
Bob says, “The drama. The thrill! What did you think, Indiana?”
“It deserves an Oscar is what I think,” Grandma says.
“Oscars are for movies,” I say.
“It is quite the thrill, this bunker,” Grandma says.
I say, “Listen to me: Oscars are for movies. Emmys are for TV.”
“Such a fresh mouth,” Grandma says.
#
I ask Paulo the night janitor if he has seen The Bunker. He says that he works nights and has family in Brazil whom he sends money to and does not have time for reality television. I let him know that The Bunker takes place in Brazil. He is intrigued. He tells me that he once worked for a logging company. He tore down large swathes of the Amazon. Tomorrow morning, he will watch The Bunker on demand. Three days go by and I do not see him again. Then there is a new night janitor named Rooney. Rooney has gapped teeth and smells of patchouli. He tells me Paulo stopped showing up and nobody can get ahold of him. Rooney asks if I have seen The Bunker. I inform him that yes I have seen The Bunker. He says that The Bunker is perhaps the greatest piece of art ever created, rivaling the works of Euripides and Shakespeare.
#
I sit in the park and a yellow jacket lands next to me. This yellow jacket wrestles with a bloated fly. It eats the fly alive and tears off its legs and wings. I wonder if perhaps bugs can scream and if those screams are too faint for human ears.
But now watch:
Watch as the yellow jacket flies away. Watch as the remaining bits of fly scatter in the breeze.
Then listen:
Listen as a bicycle clicks and a teenager skids to a halt in front of me. He drinks soda pop from a glass bottle. I lift myself from the bench so as to not make a sudden movement, but he chucks the bottle at me and it hits me in the arm and shatters on the ground.
#
I start lending Bob a hand with his projects. He says that if I stick around for a year I’ll know how to fix anything. He says he wants to build me a hot rod like the one he had when he was my age. He tells me “That thing got me laid.” He chooses a 66 Malibu from the far corner of the junkyard. We push it into his detached garage. “This is as much for me as it is for you,” he pants.
Has anybody ever been kind to you? It’s wonderful. I’d give anything for it to happen again.
#
Mrs. Jackson announces that she will no longer put up with this JaguarMan business. She says, “All of these strong men and not a single one willing to handle this thing. We could all go home if it was dead, or at least exist in relative peace.” She flips over the kitchen table and twists off one of the legs. She finds electric tape and wraps it around one end of the leg. The audience track goes berzerk. She rushes out the front door and nobody tries to stop her. She marches through the jungle shouting the JaguarMan’s name. She wants the JaguarMan to die and she wants to return to her old life, but when the JaguarMan pops out in front of her and roars his signature roar she throws the club and falls to her knees and she tells the JaguarMan that she is so, so sorry.
#
Grandma: “She got what she deserved.”
Bob: “Don’t go looking for trouble and trouble won’t find you.”
Grandma: “If that were me I’d make somebody else do my bidding. I’d wave my pussy until one those big strong men went after the JaguarMan for me.”
Bob: “When you look for trouble, it’s going to find you.”
#
The watercooler is gone. We are thirsty. Office manager Peter walks out of his office looking to manage us. We corner him. He flounders. We take one collective step forward. He stutters through an explanation of how the watercooler obliterates productivity. Somebody throws an empty water container at him. He tries to catch the water container and it bounces off of his chest and rolls away. He chases after the water container. We follow him down the hallway. We issue stern warnings to keep us in water or else.
#
That night, I find Bob slumped over the Malibu. The windshield is smashed. A closer inspection reveals several rocks on the floor and a gash in the back of his head. I nudge him. He does not move.
I stop going to work. I am unsure if they notice. Nobody calls me. Emails pile in my inbox.
Bob’s junkyard has cameras, so the teenagers are arrested. Bob’s niece comes to make arrangements. She puts the lot up for sale and scraps all of the cars. She even sells the trailer. She cremates Bob and leaves me the ashes. She asks me to scatter them around the junkyard.
“It’s probably what he would have wanted,” she says. “But I don’t know. I’m open to suggestions. You tell me.”
I am not going to tell her anything.
Tow trucks arrive that night. I stand on the porch cradling Bob’s ashes and watch them push the unfinished Malibu out of the garage. In the living room, Grandma is already sitting in front of the television. Tonight is the season finale of The Bunker.
“Get me some coffee before I pass out,” Grandma yells.
I place Bob’s ashes on the table and run to the kitchen and microwave instant coffee. Grandma downs the coffee and whoops: “Kick his ass! Kick his ass!”
#
The finale is filmed live. Only three contestants are left. They are gathered around a table and drinking the last of the scotch. The only weapon between them is another table leg. Mr. Kim’s groans are accompanied by the laugh track. Actors pound on the front door. “This is it,” Mr. Kim says. Laugh track. Cheers. Applause. Mr. Burke picks up the table leg. Outside: a GeckoMan, a TarantulaMan, a RhinoMan, and of course the JaguarMan. The JaguarMan beats the front door with a rubber mallet. Mr. Stoffle creeps behind Mr. Burke and yanks the table leg and exits out the back door as the AnimalMen pour in through the front. Laugh track. Cheers. Applause. The AnimalMen tackle Mr. Kim but Mr. Burke escapes. Mr. Burke catches up to Mr. Stoffle by a river. “How could you?” Mr. Burke yells. “Have you no spine?” TarantulaMan and JaguarMan, dashing through the jungle. Cheers and applause. Mr. Stoffle lunges at Mr. Burke. There is a struggle. The table leg is wrestled away and, n one swift motion, Mr. Stoffle’s head is bashed. Mr. Burke swings and swings until the leg cracks in half. AnimalMen rush out of bushes at full sprint. Slow zoom on Mr. Stoffle’s lifeless body. “Buddy,” the JaguarMan says in his regular human voice. “Put that down.” The JaguarMan steps forward and the crew emerges from the foliage. Mr. Burke charges one of them, screams, winds back what is left of the table leg.
#
The screen goes black. Scrambles. Switches to a rerun of The King of Queens. Grandma moans. She kicks Bob’s urn across the room and his ashes spill on the carpet.
“If I don’t get an explanation I’m going to freaking lose it,” she says.
She hurls her mug and it shatters against the far wall. The coffee spills over Bob’s ashes. I stare at the muddy ash pile for the entirety of The King of Queens. They use the same laugh track, it turns out. I lift the remote. I am going to turn the television off. The mug pieces rattle and spin and float into the air and form back into a perfect mug. The coffee floats back into the mug. The ashes stay put.
A translucent figure descends from the ceiling.
“Bob!” Grandma says.
This thing is not Bob. It looks like Bob. It even has a gash in the back of its head. But it is not Bob because Bob is dead. The thing that looks like Bob but is not him places the mug on the table and scoops Bob’s ashes into the urn. Grandma claps and cheers it on. The gash on the thing that looks like Bob’s head oozes and blurs and turns to static. The laugh track intensifies and something bubbles in me and all of a sudden I am clapping with Grandma. We stand up and clap some more. The thing that looks like Bob glows. We clap harder, the thing glows brighter. Yes, I finally understand. The harder we clap, the brighter it glows.
Quinn Adikes' fiction has appeared in Lit Hub, Five Points, Epiphany, Fiction International, The Southampton Review, Shenandoah, and other journals. He is the recipient of the Joseph Kelly Prize for Writing and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Gotham Writers Workshop.