He walked and looked at the trees, on which green leaves moved faintly and predictably in a faint breeze. There was traffic, which moved soberly down one side of the street and up the other. The sky was an unchanging blue and had obviously been so for quite some time.
Dream? He pinched himself; a dream pinch? He did not awaken. He shouted; an imaginary shout? He did not waken.
He was in the familiar territory of his nightmare. But it had lasted far longer than any of the others. Ergo, it was no longer a dream. (A dream is the shorter life, a life is the longer dream.) Lanigan had made the transition; or the transition had made Lanigan. The impossible had happened by the simple expedient of happening.
The pavement never once yielded beneath his feet. Over there was the First National City Bank; it had been there yesterday, it would be there tomorrow. Grotesquely devoid of possibilities, it would never become a tomb, an aeroplane, or the bones of a prehistoric monster. Sullenly it would remain, a building of concrete and steel, madly persisting in its fixity until men with tools came and tediously tore it down.
Lanigan walked through this petrified world, under a blue sky that oozed a coy white around the edges, promising something it could never deliver. Traffic moved to the right, people crossed at crossings, clocks were within minutes of agreement.
Somewhere beyond the town lay the countryside; but Lanigan knew that the grass did not grow under one’s feet; it simply lay there, growing no doubt, but imperceptibly, unusable to the senses. And the mountains were still black and tall, but they were giants stopped in mid-stride, destined never to march against a golden (or purple or green) sky.
This was the frozen world. This was the slow-motion world of preordination, routine, habituation. This was the world in which the eerie quality of boredom” was not only possible; it was inevitable. This was the world in which change, that quicksilver substance, had been reduced to a sluggish and reluctant glue.
Because of this, the magic of the phenomenal world was no longer possible. And without magic, no one could live.
Lanigan screamed. He screamed while people gathered around and looked at him (but didn’t do anything or become anything), and then a policeman came, as he was supposed to (but the sun didn’t change shape once), and then an ambulance rushed down the invariable street (but without trumpets, minus strumpets, on four wheels instead of a pleasing three or twenty-five) and the ambulance men took him to a building which was exactly where they expected to find it, and there was a great deal of talk by people who stood, untransformed and untransformable, asking him questions in a room with relentlessly white walls.
They prescribed rest, quiet, sedation. This, horribly enough, was the very poison which Lanigan had been trying to throw out of his system. Naturally they gave him an overdose.
He didn’t die; it wasn’t that good a poison. Instead, he became completely insane. He was discharged three weeks later, a model patient and a model cure.
Now he walks around and believes that change is impossible. He has become a masochist; he revels in the insolent regularity of things. He has become a sadist; he preaches to others the divine mechanical order of things.
He has completely assimilated his insanity or the world’s, in all ways except one. He is not happy. Order and happiness are contradictions which the universe has not succeeded in reconciling as yet.
1969
CAN YOU FEEL ANYTHING WHEN I DO THIS?
what happens when the girl who (apparently) has everything gets the machine that (apparently) can do everything?
IT WAS a middle-class apartment in Forest Hills with all the standard stuff: slash-pine couch by Lady Yogina, strobe reading light over a big Uneasy Chair designed by Sri Somethingorother, bounce-sound projector playing Blood-Stream Patterns by Drs. Molidoff and Yuli. There was also the usual microbiotic-food console, set now at Fat Black Andy’s Soul-Food Composition Number Three—hog’s jowls and black-eyed peas. And there was a Murphy Bed of Nails, the Beautyrest Expert Ascetic model with 2000 chrome-plated self-sharpening number-four nails. In a sentence, the whole place was furnished in a pathetic attempt at last year’s moderne-spirituel fashion.
Inside this apartment, all alone and aching of anomie, was a semi-young housewife, Melisande Durr, who had just stepped out of the voluptuarium, the largest room in the home, with its king-size commode and its sadly ironic bronze lingam and yoni on the wall.
She was a pretty girl, with really good legs, sweet hips, pretty stand-up breasts, long soft shiny hair, delicate little face. Nice, very nice. A girl that any man would like to lock onto. Once. Maybe even twice. But definitely not as a regular thing.
Why not? Well, to give a recent example:
“Hey, Sandy, honey, was anything wrong?”
“No, Frank, it was marvelous; what made you think anything was wrong?”
“Well, I guess it was the way you were staring up with a funny look on your face, almost frowning . . .”
“Was I really? Oh, yes, I remember; I was trying to decide whether to buy one of those cute trompe-l’oeil things that they just got in at Saks, to put on the ceiling.”
“You were thinking about that? Then?”
“Oh, Frank, you mustn’t worry, it was great, Frank, you were great, I loved it, and I really mean that.”
Frank was Melisande’s husband. He plays no part in this story and very little part in her life.
So there she was, standing in her OK apartment, all beautiful outside and unborn inside, a lovely potential who had never been potentiated, a genuine US untouchable . . . when the doorbell rang.
Melisande looked startled, then uncertain. She waited. The doorbell rang again. She thought: Someone must have the wrong apartment.
Nevertheless, she walked over, set the Door-Gard Entrance Obliterator to demolish any rapist or burglar or wise guy who might try to push his way in, then opened the door a crack and asked. “Who is there, please?”
A man’s voice replied, “Acme Delivery Service, got a mumble here for Missus Mumble-mumble.”
“I can’t understand, you’ll have to speak up.”
“Acme Delivery, got a mumble for mumble-mumble and I can’t stand here all mumble.”
“I cannot understand you!”
“I SAID I GOT A PACKAGE HERE FOR MISSUS MELISANDE DURR, DAMN IT!”
She opened the door all the way. Outside, there was a deliveryman with a big crate, almost as big as he was, say, five feet nine inches tall. It had her name and address on it. She signed for it, as the deliveryman pushed it inside the door and left, still mumbling. Melisande stood in her living room and looked at the crate.
She thought: Who would send me a gift out of the blue for no reason at all? Not Frank, not Harry, not Aunt Emmie or Ellie, not Mom, not Dad (of course not, silly, he’s five years dead, poor son of a bitch) or anyone I can think of. But maybe it’s not a gift; it could be a mean hoax, or a bomb intended for somebody else and sent wrong (or meant for me and sent right), or just a simple mistake.
She read the various labels on the outside of the crate. The article had been sent from Stern’s department store. Melisande bent down and pulled out the cotter pin (cracking the tip of a fingernail) that immobilized the Saftee-Lok, removed that, and pushed the lever to OPEN.
The crate blossomed like a flower, opening into twelve equal segments, each of which began to fold back on itself.
“Wow,” Melisande said.
The crate opened to its fullest extent and the folded segments curled inward and consumed themselves, leaving a double handful of cold fine gray ash.
“They still haven’t licked that ash problem,” Melisande muttered. “However.”
She looked with curiosity at the object that had resided within the crate. At first glance, it was a cylinder of metal painted orange and red. A machine? Yes, definitely a machine; air vents in the base for its motor, four rubber-clad wheels, and various attachments—longitudinal extensors, prehensile extractors, all sorts of things. And there were connect
ing points to allow a variety of mixed-function operations, and a standard house-type plug at the end of a springloaded reel-fed power line, with a plaque beneath it that read: PLUG INTO ANY 110–115-VOLT WALL OUTLET.
Melisande’s face tightened in anger. “It’s a goddamned vacuum cleaner! For God’s sake, I’ve already got a vacuum cleaner. Who in the hell would send me another?”
She paced up and down the room, bright legs flashing, tension evident in her heart-shaped face. “I mean,” she said, “I was expecting that after all my expecting, I’d get something pretty and nice, or at least fun, maybe even interesting. Like—oh God I don’t even know like what unless maybe an orange-and-red pinball machine, a big one, big enough so I could get inside all curled up and someone would start the game and I’d go bumping along all the bumpers while the lights flashed and bells rang and I’d bump a thousand goddamned bumpers and when I finally rolled down to the end I’d God yes that pinball machine would register a TOP MILLION MILLION and that’s what I’d really like!”
So—the entire unspeakable fantasy was out in the open at last. And how bleak and remote it felt, yet still shameful and desirable.
“But anyhow,” she said, canceling the previous image and folding, spindling, and mutilating it for good measure, “anyhow, what I get is a lousy goddamned vacuum cleaner when I already have one less than three years old so who needs this one and who sent me the damned thing anyway and why?”
She looked to see if there was a card. No card. Not a clue. And then she thought, Sandy, you are really a goop! Of course, there’s no card; the machine has doubtless been programmed to recite some message or other.
She was interested now, in a mild, something-to-do kind of way. She unreeled the power line and plugged it into a wall outlet.
Click! A green light flashed on, a blue light glittered ALL SYSTEMS GO, a motor purred, hidden servos made tapping noises; and then the mechanopathic regulator registered BALANCE and a gentle pink light beamed a steady ALL MODES READY.
“All right,” Melisande said. “Who sent you?”
Snap crackle pop. Experimental rumble from the thoracic voice box. Then the voice: “I am Rom, number 121376 of GE’s new Q-series Home-rizers. The following is a paid commercial announcement: Ahem, General Electric is proud to present the latest and most triumphant development of our Total Finger-Tip Control of Every Aspect of the Home for Better Living concept. I, Rom, am the latest and finest model in the GE omni-cleaner series. I am the Home-rizer Extraordinary, factory programmed like all Home-rizers for fast, unobtrusive multitotalfunction, but additionally, I am designed for easy, instant reprogramming to suit your home’s individual needs. My abilities are many. I——”
“Can we skip this?” Melisande asked. “That’s what my other vacuum cleaner said.”
“—Will remove all dust and grime from all surfaces,” the Rom went on, “wash dishes and pots and pans, exterminate cockroaches and rodents, dry-clean and hand-launder, sew buttons, build shelves, paint walls, cook, clean rugs, and dispose of all garbage and trash including my own modest waste products. And this is to mention but a few of my functions.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Melisande said. “All vacuum cleaners do that.”
“I know,” said the Rom, “but I had to deliver my paid commercial announcement.”
“Consider it delivered. Who sent you?”
“The sender prefers not to reveal his name at this time,” the Rom replied.
“Oh—come on and tell me!”
“Not at this time,” the Rom replied staunchly. “Shall I vacuum the rug?”
Melisande shook her head. “The other vacuum cleaner did it this morning.”
“Scrub the walls? Rub the halls?”
“No reason for it, everything has been done, everything is absolutely and spotlessly clean.”
“Well,” the Rom said, “at least I can remove that stain.”
“What stain?”
“On the arm of your blouse, just above the elbow.”
Melisande looked. “Ooh, I must have done that when I buttered the toast this morning. I knew I should have let the toaster do it.”
“Stain removal is rather a specialty of mine,” the Rom said. He extruded a number-two padded gripper, with which he gripped her elbow, and then extruded a metal arm terminating in a moistened gray pad. With this pad, he stroked the stain.
“You’re making it worse!”
“Only apparently, while I line up the molecules for invisible eradication. All ready now; watch.”
He continued to stroke. The spot faded, then disappeared utterly. Melisande’s arm tingled.
“Gee,” she said, “that’s pretty good.”
“I do it well,” the Rom stated flatly. “But tell me, were you aware that you are maintaining a tension factor of 78.3 in your upper back and shoulder muscles?”
“Huh? Are you some kind of doctor?”
“Obviously not. But I am a fully qualified masseur, and therefore able to take direct tonus readings. 78.3 is—unusual.” The Rom hesitated, then said, “It’s only eight points below the intermittent-spasm level. That much continuous background tension is capable of reflection to the stomach nerves, resulting in what we call a parasympathetic ulceration.”
“That sounds—bad,” Melisande said.
“Well, it’s admittedly not—good,” the Rom replied. “Background tension is an insidious underminer of health, especially when it originates along the neck vertebrae and the upper spine.”
“Here?” Melisande asked, touching the back of her neck.
“More typically here,” the Rom said, reaching out with a spring-steel rubber-clad dermal resonator and palpating an area twelve centimeters lower than the spot she had indicated.
“Hmmm,” said Melisande, in a quizzical, uncommitted manner.
“And here is another typical locus,” the Rom said, extending a second extensor.
“That tickles,” Melisande told him.
“Only at first. I must also mention this situs as characteristically troublesome. And this one.” A third (and possibly a fourth and fifth) extensor moved to the indicated areas.
“Well . . . That really is nice,” Melisande said as the deep-set trapezius muscles of her slender spine moved smoothly beneath the skillful padded prodding of the Rom.
“It has recognized therapeutic effects,” the Rom told her. “And your musculature is responding well; I can feel a slackening of tonus already.”
“I can feel it, too. But you know, I’ve just realized I have this funny bunched-up knot of muscle at the nape of my neck.”
“I was coming to that. The spine-neck juncture is recognized as a primary radiation zone for a variety of diffuse tensions. But we prefer to attack it indirectly, routing our cancellation inputs through secondary loci. Like this. And now I think——”
“Yes, yes, good . . . Gee, I never realized I was tied up like that before. I mean, it’s like having a nest of live snakes under your skin, without having known.”
“That’s what background tension is like,” the Rom said. “Insidious and wasteful, difficult to perceive, and more dangerous than an atypical ulnar thrombosis . . . Yes, now we have achieved a qualitative loosening of the major spinal junctions of the upper back, and we can move on like this.”
“Huh,” said Melisande, “isn’t that sort of——”
“It is definitely indicated,” the Rom said quickly. “Can you detect a change?”
“No! Well, maybe . . . Yes! There really is! I feel—easier.”
“Excellent. Therefore, we continue the movement along well-charted nerve and muscle paths, proceeding always in a gradual manner, as I am doing now.”
“I guess so . . . But I really don’t know if you should——”
“Are any of the effects contraindicated?” the Rom asked.
“It isn’t that, it all feels fine. It feels good. But I still don’t know if you ought to . . . I mean, look, ribs can’t get tense, can they?”
&n
bsp; “Of course not.”
“Then why are you——”
“Because treatment is required by the connective ligaments and integuments.”
“Oh. Hmmmm. Hey. Hey! Hey you!”
“Yes?”
“Nothing . . . I can really feel that loosening. But is it all supposed to feel so good?”
“Well—why not?”
“Because it seems wrong. Because feeling good doesn’t seem therapeutic.”
“Admittedly, it is a side effect,” the Rom said. “Think of it as a secondary manifestation. Pleasure is sometimes unavoidable in the pursuit of health. But it is nothing to be alarmed about, not even when I——”
“Now just a minute!”
“Yes?”
“I think you just better cut that out. I mean to say, there are limits, you can’t palpate every damned thing. You know what I mean?”
“I know that the human body is unitary and without seam or separation,” the Rom replied. “Speaking as a physical therapist, I know that no nerve center can be isolated from any other, despite cultural taboos to the contrary.”
“Yeah, sure, but——”
“The decision is, of course, yours,” the Rom went on, continuing his skilled manipulations. “Order and I obey. But if no order is issued, I continue like this . . .”
“Huh!”
“And, of course, like this.”
“Ooooo my God!”
“Because you see this entire process of tension cancellation as we call it is precisely comparable with the phenomena of de-anesthetization, and, er, so we note not without surprise that paralysis is merely terminal tension——”
Melisande made a sound.
“—And release, or cancellation, is accordingly difficult, not to say frequently impossible since sometimes the individual is too far gone. And sometimes not. For example, can you feel anything when I do this?”
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