by Adam Felber
“Yes. I’ll be fine. Get goin’, now, so I can spend my sunset years with you.”
The President takes in his wife one more time, almost says something, doesn’t.
Five minutes later, he’s snaking his way across the damp grass in the darkness, moving away from the flashing red lights that line his country’s southern border.
Arlene drifted off to sleep slowly, wondering why she’d never really thought about sleeping with Johnny before tonight, and if this was in some crazy way a fitting tribute to Furble. She hoped so. Next to her in the rumpled bed, Johnny Felix Decaté smiled in his sleep.
Grant can’t sleep. He’s thinking. First about tonight, of course, about Deborah Johnstone and Johnny’s weirdness and the Square and Deborah Johnstone. And about Grant. He’s thinking and maybe starting to sleep, but not really, and his thoughts become kind of unconnected, so that every once in a while he startles a little and reviews his last thought and thinks, “How did I get there?”
Here are some of Grant’s last thoughts from tonight:
Somewhere, sometime back in human history, there had to be someone who actually spoke the first word. Had to be. Mathematical certainty. But here’s the thing…. When that first word was spoken, everyone else who was there to hear it had absolutely no idea what it meant. How could they? They’d never heard a word before, they probably didn’t even know that it was supposed to mean something. So the first word, whatever it was, was a total, 100 percent failure. So here’s the thing…. What made the guy who said the first word and totally failed decide that he was going to say it again and again and again, until someone understood? If it were me, would I have said it again and again and again? No, probably not. It would have to be someone like Johnny. Or Deborah. What color are Deborah’s nipples? Probably pink, light pink, but I bet they turn dark red when they get excited. I don’t think I could have sex with her just once. If we had sex once and she made it really clear that it was just a one-time thing, then I would know for sure that my life was over, that the best possible thing that could ever happen to me had already happened. At some point, everybody has the absolute best time that they’re ever going to have in their entire lives. How many people know it when it happens? Very few, I bet. Is it better to know or not to know? What was the first word? Or were there lots and lots of them, “first” words being invented over and over by different people, until someone had the gumption to just keep saying one until everyone got it? So what we’re really talking about here is the first word that stuck. The others don’t count. I probably woulda been the guy who invented like seven words and never got anyone to listen, until some guy like Johnny came along and broke the ice with something like “food.” Then, once words started to catch on, I’d have a whole bunch to teach people, and I’d have been really good at keeping track of what words we had and making up new ones, but Johnny would’ve been known as the guy who invented words, and that’s not really untrue when you get right down to it….
Okay, he’s asleep.
Shhhhhh …
Chapter 6
ARLENE WOKE, yawned, looked to her right side …
… and moments later promised herself that she’d never again sneer at what she’d thought were overblown reactions and double-takes in sitcoms. In some situations—like this one, for instance—Jack Tripper’s response would be subtle compared with her own:
She jumped out of the bed, taking with her a sheet that promptly got tangled in her legs. She wrestled it to the floor frantically, straightened up, realized she was naked, grabbed for the sheet, fell forward into the bed, and landed pretty much exactly where she’d been moments before, panting and staring wide-eyed at her still-sleeping bed partner.
She breathed, calming herself, and her mind lazily reminded her of the details, in no particular order:
It was not clear whose idea it had been.
They’d had safe sex, thank God.
And then they’d had unsafe sex.
And then safe again. Sort of.
Johnny’s pubic hair was blond.
There was a lot of laughing involved.
There was also what seemed like an unnatural amount of fluid.
She’d had at least two orgasms, but the first one only sort of counted, because it was a physical response but she was totally uncomfortable, so it wasn’t like it really counted.
Even though she’d never been with Johnny before, she could tell that there was definitely something wrong with him.
This last item was hard for her to admit to herself, but pretty incontrovertible. For one, she thought men were supposed to be the goal-oriented ones, and previous experience had borne that out. But Johnny didn’t even seem aware that there was a goal in the first place. Or even a guidepost, a few milestones, whatever. He kept getting distracted, taking side trips, suddenly becoming interested in an arm or a toe, whatever presented itself, regardless even of whether it was Arlene’s or his own. His erections came and went easily, depending on what he was focused on.
Eventually, Arlene figured out some pretty surefire ways to keep him focused for a few minutes in a row. She was all for a sensitive, nonpressuring, non-goal-oriented lover (of course, what girl wasn’t, at long last, chance of a lifetime, etc.), but after a while she began to see the merits of a more linear approach. Even the most sprawling novel leads to something, after all, builds up to a … thing. Or else it’s a bad novel. Johnny had to be made to see that, which had taken a lot of pressuring on her part—in fact, what became borderline badgering….
She stopped before she beat up on herself too much. After all, Johnny had really appreciated the results, like some infant who had to be shown how eating can make the stomachache go away.
It had been good, she decided. Weird, but good. And nothing to regret, of course …
… except for doing it on a night when her other friends were there, too. She realized this at the precise moment that she heard Deb’s voice addressing her from the doorway.
“Good morning, stud!”
As dawn breaks, utterly gray and non-rosy-fingered, the Rightful President of Montana is hurrying through a damp field, swiveling his head, keeping low. His military training, what he remembers of it, actually would demand that he crawl the next couple of miles. But the RPoM’s military training failed to take in contingencies like Arthritis, Assorted Pains, and Being Just Too Damn Old to Act Like a Goddamn Commando.
Besides, reasoned the President, there wasn’t much to fear out here. From what he remembered of Jebediah’s flock, back before they closed the gates, they weren’t gonna be around at this hour. Jebediah used to invite everyone in the county to his “Sunrise Seminars” (a stupid name that the President of Montana [Retired] was sure he’d seen on TV before), and those were endless, according to Zack’s father’s niece-in-law, who’d attended one. So it was a pretty safe bet that all the Jebedites would be gathered in the now-hidden church, way over there behind that carefully planted stand of poplars.
So, if that’s the case, thinks the PoM(R), is there any reason to be sneakin’ around at all? His mood brightens with the sunrise, and he straightens up, relief washing over him, the long hike ahead of him suddenly surmountable. He whistles (yes, “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah”), stretches, and strides out onto a rough path.
“It is a beautiful day, friend,” says a sympathetic voice behind him, along with that really familiar sound of a shotgun being pumped. “I’ll give you a couple of seconds to say goodbye to it an’ all.”
It is unthinkable. And it has happened. Within an infinitesimal margin of error, it’s nearly certain that last night, in our house, Dr. Schrödinger had sexual intercourse. Got himself “some action.” In a universe written by an infinite number of monkeys with an infinite number of typewriters, it would have to be one of the very last monkeys at the end of one of the very last rows that would ever construct a world wherein a man like Dr. Schrödinger managed to bed a young woman, but here we are. We make a quick mental note to hunt down that seedy l
ittle monkey at our earliest opportunity.
The good doctor and the girl (was it “Dori”?) are bustling about the kitchen, sharing a single set of pyjamas: he in the bottoms, she in the top. They’re making breakfast.
Correction: She’s making breakfast. He’s lecturing on it.
“… Of course, there’s very little natural selection at work in chickens anyway. We’ve been breeding them for centuries. But if these were the eggs of wild birds—ostriches, let’s say—you’ll note that there’d be very little in the way of ‘survival of the fittest’: The eggs are taken at random, and selection starts when the survivors are hatched and the creatures are at large, as it were.”
We pity her. She’s actually fairly fetching, and her patient eyes are heavy-lidded with sleep. It’s obvious that she hasn’t heard a word that Dr. Schrödinger has said. (And we have no idea why a physicist is suddenly waxing on about Darwin. Must be the aftereffects of … We shudder to think.) She stretches, yawning, the spatula lifting skyward, and turns toward the doctor.
“But, like, what about the egg that looks more like a rock, you know? Or the one that’s a little smaller and denser, so it ends up like closer to the bottom of the nest? You know, like, protected? That’s selection, right? So the egg is part of the creature, right?” She persists, “I mean, because of these incontrovertible survival ramifications, we actually have to consider the egg part of the extended phenotype.”
The doctor is flabbergasted, as are we. He because she’s right. We because she was listening to the old man in the first place. She playfully lifts his lower jaw back up with the spatula, tweaks him somewhere in his midsection that we’d prefer not to think about, and turns back to flip the eggs.
Ten minutes later, we are all sitting at the table, eating our breakfast. Dr. Schrödinger is trying to be his merry self, but he’s angry about something he can’t quite speak about. For our part, we’re delighted: If anyone besides us is going to get their drumstick battered in our home, it’s a little more tolerable if they get intellectually emasculated in the process.
Dear Diary,
I am very unhappy about being in Inman Square instead of near my usual haunts (boo! ha-ha!), but last night’s tug was a strong one. A real motherfucker. I had to go, though. At 4:35 A.M. exactly, I was behind a bar, storing my last jumbo farm-fresh egg in a crack between the Dumpster and the wall. It must have something to do with foiling the robots, but what doesn’t, I ask you, what doesn’t?
Another thing is I confronted another Man of Science! I was “looking for my purse” in the Dumpster behind the S&S deli when who walks out with a couple of grad students but Richard Lewontin! The neo-Darwinist, just like on his book jackets. I thought I’d actually have to hit the Harvard campus to get him. As soon as I saw my opportunity, my mind began to focus, you know, overdrive, bullet-time, whatever.
I walked behind them for a few paces, cleared my throat real loud, and when they turned, I was ready. “Hey, Richie! Dick!” I shouted. “How’d you like to punctuate this equilibrium?” Then I hoisted my skirt and gave him a good look at ol’ Lady Liberty. He headed off real quick, but I did manage to get one more shot in: “C’mon! This ain’t just a spandrel!”
I’m pretty sure one of his students laughed at that one, but of course that’s not the point. What’s important here is that Lewontin is number eighteen in my Men of Science project. I think we’ll be seeing some real results after twenty or so.
That’s it until dinnertime. I’ll be on patrol until then.
When “girl talk” happens, Grant is used to being discussed as though he’s not there. This, however, is not the kind of thing that he’s ever seen happen to Johnny. Johnny’s always been their leader in some ways—that’s only clear now that he’s not anymore. He hasn’t spoken a word all morning, so, though his presence is still commanding, it’s more in an objet-d’art kind of way, like one of those anime giant robots that nobody sees until they’re activated and start destroying the city. But for now, neither speaking nor playing music, he’s a well-crafted curiosity, a wicker duck (Grant curses himself for having that damn duck still traipsing around in his brain).
So, as Arlene and Deb pad around the kitchen making an endless breakfast (Johnny’s appetite remains prodigious—everyone else is getting only a bite or two in edgewise), there’s little to indicate that they’re aware of being listened to; Grant feels a bit like a large plush bunny at a girls’ tea party.
Arlene flips an egg. “Wow, I can’t believe that! I always figured you and Johnny had gotten together, you know, at least once.” Grant had always thought so, too. But if he says so here, nobody hears it anyway, and history won’t record it.
“No,” says Deb, standing in the best patch of sunlight, stretching. “Never seemed … necessary. But it is necessary to hear all about it. I mean everything, girlfriend. Spill.”
Well within the propriety-free zone that Deb generates, Arlene spills. Johnny chuckles occasionally, appreciating the recounting of his performance, flaws and all. Grant clears his throat repeatedly. The only reaction this gets is a sideways glance from Deb, who distractedly shovels more eggs onto the plush bunny’s plate as she guides her friend’s narrative. By the time Arlene gets to some of the more graphic details, Grant might as well be a stuffed animal from an appetite standpoint.
Grant’s odd mixture of suffering and titillation (Deb’s definitely not wearing a bra under that T-shirt, which is why Grant has requested scrambled eggs several times—oooh, that scrambling motion …) is interrupted when he feels Johnny’s eyes on him. Grant turns to see that increasingly familiar new liquid and beatific stare. Johnny makes sure he’s got Grant’s attention, and then speaks for the first time in many, many hours.
“Grant?”
“Present.”
“You’re my best friend.”
The President of Montana (Once and Future) cannot recall an odder conversation than this, standing in a field in the morning sunlight, a shotgun being leveled at his belly by a farm boy clad in a Cecil B. DeMille interpretation of Biblical robes. It would be more comfortable if the PoM(OaF) wasn’t pretty sure he’s about to die.
“You make some good points, but now I hafta kill you.”
“Wait a minute….”
“That’s the rule, sir. We sent you guys a couple of notes about that.”
“We stopped getting mail after we declared independence.”
“There’s a lot of signs posted at the property line.”
“I crossed over before dawn.”
“Shoulda brought a flashlight, I guess. Anyway, the warnings were a courtesy. Jebediah says that the uninitiated can never truly understand a warning, and their souls will pass on the same with or without it.”
The President takes this in. He’s already spent ten minutes debating with the Jebedite, and there seems to be no way to change his mind. Still, the fact that he’s willing to talk gives the President hope.
“Don’t think that there’s any hope just ‘cuz I’m willing to talk,” says the Jebedite.
“I don’t.”
“’The Truth shall be revealed even as the mind departs’—that’s the way we see it, that’s all.”
“Oh. You’re amazingly calm, I gotta say.”
“I’m not the one about to be killed. Makes it easier.”
“Good point … Say, maybe I could go back and get some better clothes—you know, go out with some dignity. I promise I’ll be back.”
“Oh, c’mon, I lost the rule book, but I haven’t lost my mind.” The kid levels his shotgun, sighting it at the President for the fifth time, but now clearly getting a little impatient. “You ready?”
“Wait—there was a rule book?”
“’Course. Didn’t think I was some kinda sicko who just wants to kill, didja? Is that what you thought?”
“No! But wait. You lost the rule book?”
“Misplaced it, yeah. But I can get another next week, when the new ones come in.”
“So
if there was some kind of loophole, some way for me to live through this …”
“… I wouldn’t know about it ’cuz I don’t have the book. Kinda ironic, isn’t it?” The kid’s smiling.
“Yeah!” blurts the President. “It’d be, whaddyacallit, sacrilege to you, wouldn’t it?”
“Calm down, mister, I was kiddin’ you—there are no loopholes in there.”
“Well, maybe you haven’t found one, but …”
“Trust me.”
“Well, I … what’s your name, son?”
“Oh, I know this one—you get to know me, I start thinking of you as a person, I’ll realize that you’re just like me, and then I won’t be able to pull the trigger, right?”
“Uh, right?” asks the President hopefully.
“Everyone tries that. Doesn’t happen.”
“Never?”
“Nope.”
“Great.” The President is starting to get tired, starting to think he’ll tell the kid to just pull the trigger and get it over with, but he fights that thought off. He’s already been told that not doing that and not moving from his spot are the only things that’re keeping him alive.
He tries another tack. “This Jebediah—he eats and sleeps like other men, doesn’t he?”
The kid’s face takes on a look of revelation. “Oh, why, I never thought of that—he’s not a god at all! You’ve freed me from my delusions! Now I have to let you live….”
“You’re being sarcastic.”
“Don’t you think I’ve heard that crap a few times before? Really, I’m tired of it. I know I’m not supposed to rush things here, but I’ve got a whole bunch of things to do this mornin’.” The kid levels the gun again. It’s the sixth time, but this time he means it.
“Wait! Hold on, damnit! You said you couldn’t do this until you’d answered all my questions! You said the ‘way of Jebediah’ demands that you educate the condemned! You’re gonna break your own holy rule?”