by Roger Elwood
He snapped shut his bag and stood. “I think you’re well on the road to recovery, Jacob. I won’t be dropping in again.”
He left the room and I lay back, exhausted, yearning fiercely for the world I had just left.
That night, Sara lay beside me, rippling the pages of a magazine. I stared into space, preoccupied. The flu was abating, and my strength was beginning to surge again. I had eaten a healthy supper this evening, and I knew that by the beginning of next week, I could return to work.
Sara lay the magazine aside and turned to me, the bed creaking as she did so. Outside the frosted window, the clatter of New York at Christmastime penetrated the walls. The steam clanked and made the apartment stifling. Sara moved to me and kissed my neck.
‘I'm sorry I was cross with you before." she said.
‘‘No apologies are needed.”
She must have sensed my coolness. “You have to understand, darling. It seemed so horrid to me. The way you thrashed in a coma and insisted you’d travelled in time. I thought you were delirious.”
“I can see why.”
She held my wrist with both her hands and I could feel the warmth of her body. “I don’t want to be gone from your life,” she said. “I sometimes feel as if I live with a stranger, but I love you all the same.”
I patted her hands. “I know. I love you too.”
“Do you, Jacob? I hope you do.”
“Of course I do.”
She arched her body and kissed me again. “I hate this flu bug,” she hissed.
I mumbled a reply. Already I was thinking of my strategy at work.
I was greeted heartily at work when I returned the following Monday, a brash, windy day. Clovis glared at me when I passed her desk and I forced a smile and said good morning.
“Well, you’re cheerful today,” she said frostily.
“I feel better. And you look very lovely.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Thank you.”
I stared at her and tried to superimpose the fascinating woman with the silver hair and the gold lipstick. It was the same woman, much transformed, but Clovis, this raggedy, pretty, pouting young girl. I felt an odd tingle, as if I were half in one world and half in the other.
Rheem came prancing from his office, his slender hand grasping a manila folder. He stopped and smiled silkily at me, brushing back his oiled hair.
“How do you feel, Jacob?” he asked.
“Better.”
“Good. That flu is a nasty thing.”
“Sure is, Walter.”
“Oh,” Rheem said. “I thought you’d want to know; I’ve officially killed the Anderson deal. Told them to go sing. I knew you’d be happy to hear it.”
He glanced significantly at Clovis, who turned away, frustrated. I took a deep breath, praying, and said, I'm sorry to hear that, Walter. It’s probably the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.”
He looked as if he’d been shot point blank. “What?” “You heard me. Clovis was absolutely right and I was an idiot to ignore it. You’re a slimy incompetent, getting along on your uncle’s misplaced good will, and you should be in the mail room. Clovis, if anyone, should be managing director, and probably will be, and I intend to be at her side.”
Clovis was goggling at me, her mouth open as if the hinge had snapped. Rheem turned bright red and blustered. “All right, Clemens,” he gargled when he finally found his voice. “I see how it stands. A pretty face counts for more than good sense. Very well. You and Clovis may enjoy yourselves. But I’m afraid it’s both of you who will be in the mail room when the dust clears.”
He turned on his elevated heel and flounced away while I stood shuddering. Clovis stood and laid a hand on my arm. “I don’t understand this,” she said softly. “But I’m grateful for the support.”
“Just good business,” I said hoarsely. “I honestly think you’ll be in a position of power someday, and I want to be there with you.”
She smiled dazzlingly. “Jacob, Ive been a little in love with you since I came here. If I achieve anything in my life, you'll be there with me. I promise you that.”
I gulped. I felt a new passion coursing through my blood, a romantic ardor that I'd lost with Sara. I heard myself ask Clovis to join me for lunch, and I heard her say yes.
“But you really shouldn’t be too close to me,” she said. “My brother has the French flu and I've been exposed. You might have a relapse.”
I smiled before I took her in my arms and stopped smiling as I kissed her. She was surprised, to say the least, but not unwilling.
I was in my study, as I said earlier, leafing through old novels when I heard the clatter: Three regal guards, in full uniform, and Clovis, and Dr. Zane. An old, white-tufted Dr. Zane, with translucent skin, his eyes still glittering. Somehow, I was not surprised to see him, and I was not lost.
“What's wrong?” I asked.
Clovis was crying, and it unnerved me. She'd always been so strong, so invulnerable. She shook her head. “I'm so sorry, Jacob. So terribly sorry.”
“It all checks out, Jacob,” Dr. Zane said. “You've travelled in time at least twice now.”
I stood, eager, angry at my corpulence. “Yes, I know. I just arrived back here now. I made love to Clovis—the young Clovis—when she'd been exposed to the flu. I caught it again and I fainted on the subway coming home. It must have just happened.”
Clovis smiled bravely. “I remember, Jacob. I remember the first time we made love. You were very strong.”
She looked queenly and unattainable as she turned away. “Yes,” Dr. Zane said, nodding. “It was the flu bug. We thought so. The French flu. That ancient disease. But it was the making of me, when I found the antidote, the cure, and from the cure evolved Compound 15. You know about Compound 15, don’t you Jacob?”
I felt uneasy, suddenly afraid. “Yes,” I said, surprised that I did know. “The contentment drug.”
“Exactly,” Dr. Zane agreed. “Introduced to water supplies, it induced passivity, destroyed resistance, individuality. We got to all the radicals, all the revolutionaries, because they all drank water, and the job was done before it was too late. It enabled you and Clovis to rise to power, enabled this day to dawn.”
“Brainwashing,” I said, suddenly, and with vehemence. “You brainwashed everybody. Even Sara—”
“Yes, of course,” Zane said petulantly. “She’s out there with the bovine masses. You never did like it, Jacob. You had that nasty streak of righteousness that only surfaced recently. Your ambition spent, you turned to history, to romanticism, and now you’re dangerous. Very dangerous.” “What can I do?” I said bitterly. “Un-brainwash them? I’m no mad scientist, Zane.”
“No,” he said, evenly. “But the French flu affected your body so oddly. It enabled you to travel in time.”
“Yes,” I said, placing my hands on the work book, looking at Clovis. “Yes, it enabled me to travel to the future, as you theorized, and to see this horror.”
Zane laughed, so oddly that I was forced to look at him. “Fool,” Zane snapped. “It’s impossible to travel to the future. The future hasn’t happened. I see you fell for my gobbledegook at your bedside. I was young and naive then. I had silly theories.”
He gestured to the guards, who approached me with guns drawn. The horror was already upon me. “You carried that bug in you for years,” Zane said. “It did nothing. Until now. Until it incubated and you began to travel in time. Not to the future, Jacob. To the past. Where you first caught the flu. You didn’t glimpse this future, Jacob, you remembered it. You’ll probably travel again, and you’ll remember even more. Until you remember all of it and you don’t follow the script. Is it clear now?”
They bound me and I struggled to comprehend, stared at Clovis. "You had to take the first trip,” Zane said slowly. "Because you remembered enough to change your tune with Clovis. To court her, to help her rise to power, with your talent. If you hadn’t taken the first trip, we would not be here now. You made this world, Jaco
b. Because of your little bug. We thank you for that. I was delighted when Clovis went for me, told me of your blackout in her office. It meant we were set. You’d gone back. You’d made the move.”
"But,” he said, as Clovis came to me. "We can’t allow you to go again, Jacob. Because of this righteousness, this dislike of our methods. If you remember too much, you’ll desert Clovis at a critical point, prevent this all from happening. We can’t allow that. We can’t let you depose us, because, you see, you do have that power. We have to kill you, Jacob. It’s the only way. I’m sorry.”
Clovis held my hand. I thought of Sara and what my ambition had done to me, to the world. And then I screamed.
I’m out of paper now, so this confession must end. It can’t do any good because, as far as I know, I’m the only one who was affected by the bug in this way. And now I can’t go back again. They’re watching me. They’ll kill me instantly if I begin to black out, rather than wait for the official execution and risk my changing the future. So it’s a lost cause.
Perhaps this will serve as instruction, then, after all. I said I was a recent student of history. Well, this is the most concise history of the modern world that you’ll ever read. And the most accurate.
Getting Around
K. M O'DONNELL
I
— I would very much like to have sex with you and think that we've reached that point of our relationship where it’s become inevitable.
—So do I.
—But before we begin, I’m afraid I have a confession to make and no getting around it. You see, I have no penis.
—Oh.
—Yes, I was born that way.
—Well, that’s nothing to be so terribly ashamed of. Medical science is doing wonderful things nowadays; progress is being made in many areas. Perhaps you could— —Oh, you’re right about medical science. Until three years ago I had no arms and legs, six months ago I had no vocal cords. They’re putting me together step by step as you can see. But they haven’t tackled the penis problem yet. They say I m not ready for that yet. Maybe in a little while. . . .
—Oh, I’m sure they will! Doctors are so wonderful!
—In the meantime, I can offer you oral sex, manual sex, polymorphous perverse sex . . . oh, many things. I hope that will be satisfactory.
—It sounds just right.
—I’m so glad that I told you this rather than having you discover it on your own.
—I’m glad too. You mean you were bom without arms, legs, and vocal cords?
—Yes.
—You must have had a very unhappy childhood.
—Oh no. You see, I didn’t have a brain either.
—Now I’m excited. I’m really excited.
—Let’s go to the bedroom.
II
Dear Lucinda: I know that this letter will do me no good and that writing you in this way is an infantile gesture and yet, somehow, I cannot control myself even though at this moment I hear your calm, reasonable voice saying as you look at me out of those penetrating eyes, “Herbert, you’re making a very bad mistake. Herbert, you’re an emotional fool,” and so I am, Lucinda, I am an emotional fool but nevertheless looking at you across the room at the Intermix again last night, seeing you in the arms of others, your body open and sprawling before them (as it had opened and sprawled before me at the Intermix before) I could not somehow, and this must be faced squarely so I will face it, could not somehow escape strong feelings of jealousy and desire because I wanted you very much Lucinda and was hurt to know that since I was not in your assigned group last night I could not have you.
I know better than you do the pointlessness of these feelings and how more than anything else they must work against the spirit of the Intermix which is liberation through exposition to various levels of contact and partner (I can quote this jargon even better than you might think being, as you know, a copywriter) but nevertheless I feel impelled to give you these feelings straight out because one of the other lessons of the Intermix is the freeness and openness between persons as a result of the experience and how can I be free and open with you, my beloved Lucinda, if I sit upon this well of feeling which was opened by seeing you held by others whose delight I could not share since I was not last night a member of your activity group?
Well, there is no way for you to answer this, Lucinda, no way whatsoever, what has to be faced as well (and even in my misery I counsel my own openness and hence will face it) is that you are not terribly bright my dear: an impulsive being who lives very close to your emotional surfaces and their immediate response you lack the capacity for pain which I feel Lucinda and doubtless have very little idea of what I am talking about.
But just this then, saying just this: looking at you across the room, held by another (I do not recall her name; a pleasant, heavy suffering girl who lives on the lower western section of the city I believe and who I have seen a few times at Intermix although never so intimately) I felt pain the dimensions of which I will not explain to you and the rising of an ancient, almost absent desire, something that I thought did not exist any more, it was the desire to have you exclusively for my own in some world where Intermix did not exist and where we could lie on fields, say, green fields inhabited by grass and sheep, we would hold one another and roll on that grass, overcome by the evil design of possession and in this world where Intermix did not exist I would not have to share you and in my unseemly need for you this image cajoled me over the edge and before I quite knew what had happened I had dumped into this pleasant, heavy girl a vast suffering load drawn from me not into her but into some image of you; I know that there is no hope for me, Lucinda, I know that there is no hope whatsoever but I found myself unable to stay away from this letter and if only I can gain the courage I will drop it through the delivery chute and what will you say, what will you say when you read it; no I cannot go on this way, “Herbert you are a fool,” I hear your admonition now and saying no more, knowing that I am indeed a fool I will only instead dispose of this and
III
NOTES FOR ORIENTATION LECTURE (copyright © 1981; unauthorized use or duplication strictly prohibited) : a) Post-technological era; shift of culture toward consumption-orientation.
b) Love ideal as culture lag; love ideal linked to preconsumption culture in which denial was celebrated.
c) Need for new ethic in post-technological consumption-oriented culture. More in tune with times.
d) Goal-oriented behaviorism. History, cf.: Skinner.
e) Historical roots of Intermix: Encounter, group sex as primitive efforts. Lack of systematization.
f) The need to systematize as the key to post-technological relationships and thinking.
g) Huber, 1975 and the Code of Intermix. The history of Huber, early defeats, misunderstandings, hostility as evidences of culture lag.
h) The heroism of Huber, fight against establishment, Skinnerian ideal versus Freudian cant. How it prevailed.
i) Establishment of the Institute, the acceptance of Intermix.
j) Early versions of Intermix: homosexuality, multiple sexual behavior, animal perversions. Superseded in the search for the heterosexual ethic.
k) The establishment of the heterosexual ethic.
l) Present success of Intermix, acceptance of the Institute, Intermix as goal-directed behavior, as healthful and supersession of neuroses. Etc.
m) Possible future of Intermix. Eastern cultures, pre-technological cultures, polygamous cultures, the adaptation of the code.
n) Intermix and religion.
IV
—I feel so terribly awkward.
—Just relax.
—You see, it’s my very first time here; previously I— —There must be a first time for everyone. Just relax.
—I was a monogamist for many years until my wife and I had a misunderstanding. . . .
—You had a wife? How amusing.
—That’s how I feel about it.
—What a strange sect! I knew you looked terrib
ly quaint when you came through the door.
—Well yes, yes. I make no excuses of course, it’s all completely my own fault.
—Come here you strange little man.
—I’m a little frightened and nervous. But I am responding. There! Can’t you see I’m responding?
—Of course you are. I always knew you would.
—I’m glad that they gave me a specialist for my first time.
—Well, of course. Yes you can do that. Ah! Do it more, more, more.
-—My wife always liked that too. She said .. .
—Don’t say anything about your wife! You must not mention your wife! Do you want to ruin everything?
—No, of course not.
—Then concentrate on the present. In Intermix you live in present time. Intermix destroys the past and future and uses the ingredients in the timeless present. That is the theory. There! You’re doing much better.
—Thank you.
—You’ll do even better than that if you’ll just close your eyes.
V
Dear Lucinda: Last night although it has been several weeks, perhaps I am thinking of months, since you switched from the group and I last saw you I found myself thinking of you again and try as I could to combat the image, that sudden, shrieking, poisonous image of you which rose before my eyes like a sheet, staring at me bland and expressionless, eyes dense with knowledge, try as I could to combat that image as I said I found myself hopelessly battering at it, moving my way as if on a staircase of feeling higher and higher against you and at the moment of climax with a partner I cannot even remember now (how dark glows my sin!) it was into you I came, into you blessed Lucinda and now I know truly that I am damned for after the session I did not as proper render full explanation and appreciation to my partner(s) but instead rushed from the Intermix in awkward haste and silence, stumbling down corridors, your face shrieking its way through my being as I came back to these rooms and even at this moment I cannot forget you, I cannot eliminate this feeling, I know now that it is too late for me and realizing that if I were to mail this letter (I have never mailed you any of my letters) sure destruction would result for the two of us I want you to know that I am destroying this and then will take the capsules that will end my life.