Big Giant Floating Head

by Christopher Boucher

  “I know it.”

  “Let’s just get through this, OK?”

  I nodded and she walked inside. But I didn’t follow—I let the door close.

  By now the street was empty—everyone had gone back to their lives. I walked into the middle of the road, and a man came by carrying bags of cotton candy on sticks. I bought one from him and unwrapped it. It was as big as my head.

  ██ came back outside. “Chris?” she said.

  I leaned into the web of pink sweetness, and stuck out my tongue.

  Two days after my wife leaves there’s a knock on the door. It’s an Unloveable. He’s got a crisp white shirt on, a backpack over his shoulder and a folder in his hand. “Good afternoon, Mr. Boucher,” he says. “We are very sorry to hear about your divorce.”

  “It’s a separation,” I say. “Look, I told you last month—”

  “But things are different now, Mr. Boucher,” he says. “Love has failed you. Your adoration score has never been lower.”

  I try not to look at the hole in the man’s chest.

  “Listen,” he says, and he holds up a tablet and points to a three-dimensional, multicolored chart. “No one loves you. I can say that with absolute certainty—we have the data right here.”

  “Maybe not currently,” I say. “But that could change.”

  “The point is, why chase love? Why live that way in the first place? Now, I don’t know if you know who we are, or what we do—”

  “I do,” I say.

  “Well then you know that we’re an international volunteer organization, and one of the single most charitable enterprises on the planet.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “And do you know why we’re so successful?”

  “I think I do,” I say.

  “Because we’re focused, Mr. Boucher,” says the Unloveable. “Wholly dedicated. And since we’re resigned to a life alone, we can direct all that energy—”

  “Look, I know all this,” I say. “My father was an Unloveable—one of the first.”

  “He—oh.” The Unloveable checks his notes. “He was?”

  “But I’m just not interested in joining. OK?” I start to close the door.

  “Can I leave you with some literature, at least? Maybe you know someone else who isn’t loved, and you can pass it on to them?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  The Unloveable hands me a brochure. “My card’s attached, in case you need to reach me,” he says.

  I nod and thank him. Then I close the door and throw the brochure and card in the recycling bin.

  * * *

  In the weeks that follow I do the best I can to rescue my marriage. My wife ██ agrees to meet with a marriage counselor, but she cancels the first session at the last minute and shows up late for the second. Midway through that meeting I turn to face her and say, “I just think, couldn’t we go back to the beginning, when we first met, and—”

  “That was nine years ago, Chris,” ██ says.

  “—I know it will take a lot of work,” I say. “But I’m prepared for that. I want to do that work.”

  “But I don’t,” ██ says to me. Then she turns to the therapist. “I don’t mean this to be hurtful, but I’m really excited about the next phase, and a life without Chris.”

  We finalize the divorce a few weeks later. By then my wife has moved from the hotel where she was staying to a new condo complex in Blix. Movers arrive one day and load up most of our furniture: the couch, the dining room table, most of the kitchenware, our bed. That same week I start seeing a psychiatrist who tells me that I am grieving. “What you’re going through is like a death,” he says.

  “That’s exactly how it feels,” I say. “Like death. I feel dead. I am dead.”

  “You’re not dead,” says the psychiatrist. “But you’re recovering from a significant loss. And that’ll take time.”

  Even though he advises against it, I create a profile on old andsingle.com and start going on dates. The first one is with a woman named Katharyn; she’s the town clerk in East Geryk. Over dinner at The Question Mark she asks me what I do for a living. “I’m a fiction writer,” I say.

  “Oh?” she says. “What kind of fiction?”

  “Experimental novels, mostly,” I say.

  “I mean what type,” she says, smiling—she has a wide, beautiful smile. “Horror novels? Mysteries?”

  “Not really either of those,” I say.

  And I’ll never stop missing you

  “Well I’d love to read something you’ve written,” she says.

  I email her a floating head called “Lady with Invisible Dog.” She writes back, “Thanks so much for showing this to me! It’s so imaginative!” But that’s all the email says. I email her back to thank her and ask her out again, but she never replies.

  A few weeks later I go out with a woman named Belinda. She’s getting divorced herself, and we meet for tea and commiserate. “It’s like, you think your life is going down a certain path,” she says. “And then, wham.”

  “I know it—wham,” I say.

  “Now everything is different and awful,” she says. Then she looks at me over her cup of tea, twists her face up and says, “You’re a little balder than I thought.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Well—”

  “Your picture doesn’t show your hair.”

  “It’s kind of an old picture,” I admit.

  “My husband had long hair,” she says. “Ex. Has. My ex-husband has long hair. God,” she says. She covers her face with her hands and begins to cry. “I’m sorry,” she says.

  “It’s OK,” I say.

  “It’s like why couldn’t we have—I mean, he and I never even considered…” she trails off. Then she says, “Will you give me just one second?”

  “Sure,” I say.

  “I just need to ask him a question,” she says, fishing in her purse.

  “Who?” I say.

  Belinda finds her phone and dials a number, and I hear a voice on the other end. “Steve?” she says.

  I lean back in my chair and look around the café.

  “I know,” she says. “I know. I just—I wanted to—you were? Me too. Me too!” Then she listens for a moment. “I was just thinking that exact same thing! But—I know. We never even talked about that as a possibility. Yes. Yes. That’s what I was trying to tell you when—right. I want that, too!” He says something, and she says, “Right now, I can come over right now.” She stands up and grabs her purse. “OK, honey—I love you, too.” She walks out of the café without even looking back at me.

  After a few more unsuccessful dates, I cancel my account on oldandsingle. Then, a few months later, I’m talking on the phone with Candice, a new editor at the newspaper I write for, and she suggests we meet to talk about my article on Friday night. I think, Friday night! I’m very flattered; I clean up the house, put on some nice jeans and my black shirt, and make salmon. When Candice shows up at my door she’s wearing sweatpants and carrying her laptop. She looks me over and says, “Wait. Did you—aren’t we editing?”

  “Sure,” I say. “Sorry. Yeah. I’ll get my laptop.”

  “Did you think this was a—something else?”

  “No. Just that, it’s Friday night.”

  “And the story’s due on Monday,” Candice says.

  “Of course, no problem,” I say, my face hot with shame.

  When she leaves that night, I close the front door behind her and sit down on the floor of my near-empty house. I don’t cry—I just sit there and wait to feel better, for the loneliness to go away. I fall asleep right there on the hardwood, and the next morning I wake up to a knocking—someone’s at the door. I stand up and look through the window; it’s an Unloveable. When I open the door she says, “Hello. My name is Allie, and I’m something called—” she makes air quotes, “—an Unloveable. I was wondering if I could take a few minutes to tell you about our organization.”

  “I know about it,” I say. “My dad was an
Unloveable, one of the first.”

  “No kidding,” she says. She smiles weakly. “Well, then, I don’t need to give you the pitch.”

  “No,” I say, chuckling.

  “And I bet you don’t need a brochure,” she says.

  “I’ll take one, actually, if that’s OK.”

  “Absolutely,” she says, and she hands me a brochure. Then she pulls her folder close to her chest, so I can’t see the hole where her heart would be, and says, “We just know how much you’re struggling, Mr. Boucher. Your loneliness levels are spiking. That’s why my advisor said to drop by.”

  “Is it possible that I’m in a bad place right now, but that I’ll get better?”

  “That’s not what our research suggests,” she says. “Your case study indicates that you’ll be alone from here on out.”

  “You don’t know that for sure, though,” I say.

  “Right,” she concedes. “But our data models—”

  “The future is a mystery, is what I’m saying.”

  “Sure,” the Unloveable says, and shrugs. “Anyways. Be well, Mr. Boucher.” Then she turns and walks down the steps and away from the house.

  I go to the bathroom and then sit back down on the floor and read the brochure.

  Are you tired of feeling unloved? Have you tried dating and failed? Do you feel ugly? The problem isn’t you, it’s the world around you—a world in which we believe we deserve love. We challenge you to destroy that myth. Step out of the rat race—that constant, daily attempt to try to find people who love you. Face it, no one will! The people who did love you are dead, or they’ve changed their minds! Face facts! Embrace a life without love! Become an Unloveable!

  © Unloveables of America, Inc.

  There are also some testimonials (“Love only ever caused me problems. A life without love is the life for me!”; “I finally understand what it means to be free.”), some Facts About Love (“Love is blind.”; “Love is dumb.”; “Love is a thief.”; “Love’s an illness.”), plus pictures of Unloveables volunteering—digging in the dirt, dishing out soup—and a list of abilities that Unloveables gain: they can eat without gaining weight; they don’t get depressed; they don’t need sleep. And then, at the very bottom, in small type, I see the words “Important: Heart Attacks™ Are Required for All Unloveables!”

  I know most of this already: the heart removals, the volunteerism, the new abilities—I’d heard about it all from my father, who left me, my mother, and my brother when I was eleven. He’d had a triple bypass the year before, and he decided he wanted to see the world. He took a job tracking down missing stories; I know he was in the Australian outback for a while, and then in Colombia. The rest of my family shunned him when he left, but I kept in sparse contact with him: he wrote me a letter when I graduated from high school, and we met once for lunch the summer after my freshman year of college. But then I didn’t hear from him again until I was twenty-three, when he called to ask about the Unloveables.

  “There’s this program,” he told me over the phone, “called the Society for People Not Loved by Anyone.” (That’s what they first called themselves when the program was founded: the SPNLA.)

  “Uh huh,” I said.

  “They take your heart, but I’ve got a bum ticker anyway,” he said. “So I think I’m going to join up.”

  “OK.”

  “Unless you tell me right now that I shouldn’t.”

  “I haven’t seen you in four years,” I said. “What do you expect me to say?”

  “It’s meant for people who aren’t loved by anyone in the whole entire world. Is that me, Chris? Do I fit that bill?”

  “Do whatever you want,” I said, and I hung up the phone.

  About a year later I got an email from my dad, saying he was going to be in town and that maybe he could stop by. We met at the Wandering Cow for coffee. My father had shaved his head—his eyebrows, even—and there was a giant hole in his chest. He ordered two slices of pie and ate them both. “It’s so great to see you, Christopher,” he said between bites.

  “You too,” I told him. “Is the Society for People Not Loved—”

  “We’re called the Unloveables now,” he said.

  “The Unloveables?”

  He nodded.

  “Is the program working for you?”

  He waved the question away. “Best thing I ever did,” he said.

  My father was dressed all in white—white shirt, white pants, white socks—but his sneakers were flecked with red. “What’s on your shoes?”

  But it was like he didn’t hear me. “It just feels so good to be free,” he said. “I’ve spent the last few weeks volunteering at a home for the elderly out near Utica. And I’ve met some of the nicest people.” Then he held out a forkful of pie. “Pie?”

  “No,” I said.

  My dad cleaned his plate. Then a wash of light passed over his face, and he dropped his fork, stood up next to the table and started bouncing in place.

  “Dad,” I said.

  “What?” he said.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know.” I could hear the wind whistling through his chest. “Dancing, I guess,” he said.

  “There’s no music,” I said.

  “I know it,” he said. “I know there isn’t.”

  That was the last time I saw him. He immersed himself in volunteerism, was never loved again by anyone, and died two years later in a plane crash; he was flying with seven other Unloveables when their tiny plane went down in a field outside of Lawrence, Kansas.

  I sit there on the floor that morning and read through the brochure. Then I get my laptop and log onto the Unloveables’ website. There’s a meeting of the local chapter next Tuesday. I think, Why not? What’s the harm? Maybe I’ll meet someone there!

  The meeting is held in a giant warehouse near the airport. When I approach the door I’m greeted by a burly man with a hole in his chest. “Evening,” he says. “Name?”

  “I’m just here to learn,” I say.

  “I still need your name,” he says.

  “Christopher Boucher,” I say.

  “Boucher,” he says. “Email?”

  “Bowcher Booshay at G-mail dot com,” I say.

  He writes it down. “OK,” he says. “Be free.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  I sit down toward the back. There’s a low stage in the front of the room with a foldable table on it. There’s something on the table, but I can’t see what. Soon a woman with very long gray hair takes the stage. “Good evening,” she says.

  “Good evening,” says the audience.

  She holds out her hands. “Why are we here?” We stare back at her; no one says anything. “Why?” she says again.

  A bald man in the front raises his hand.

  “Don’t need to raise your hand,” she says. “We’re not in school.”

  “Because no one loves us,” says the man.

  “OK,” she says.

  “Because we’re lonely,” says an old woman behind me.

  “And we want better lives,” says a guy to my right.

  “We are here,” says the long-haired woman, “because we understand that love is a lie. That it’s not real. We’ve seen it. Each and every one of you know it at your core. We know that our hearts?” Then she picks up the object on the table. My stomach flips; she’s holding a human heart. “Are defects,” she says. “Hindrances. That to remove them, to accept the truth about love, allows us to get on with our lives. To maybe even do something great with them.” Then she drops the heart back on the table; it lands with a plop. “You are here, ladies and gentlemen, because you’re smart. Savvy. Ahead of the curve.”

  A woman in front of me—she’s maybe thirty—coughs.

  “Now I’m not going to try and convince you to become an Unloveable, to adopt our codes. I’m not selling anything here. But I will say this.” I notice that her white shoes are flecked with pink—just like my dad’s. “You wouldn’t be here if y
ou didn’t already know, in that space in your chest, that love is a lie. If you weren’t already an Unloveable. The only question to ask yourself is, are you going to accept that fact and change your life? Or will you continue to live the lie?”

  Afterward, a line of people forms at the sign-up kiosk. Next to the booth is a machine with a giant metal claw sticking out of it—“HeartAttack 2170,” it says on the side. I can hear the thunk as the HeartAttack reaches into chests and takes out hearts. Thunk. Thunk.

  I’m sitting in my seat, watching the line crawl forward, when the burly greeter sits down in the chair behind me, leans forward, and says, “What do you think, friend?”

  I turn back to him. “She’s a really good speaker.”

  “We’re all good speakers,” he says. “Know why? No heart, no adrenaline. No anxiety, either. Also, none of us need sleep.”

  “So you don’t ever sleep,” I say, incredulously.

  “We sleep for fun,” says the greeter, “but not out of necessity.”

  “Do you ever feel sad?” I ask him. “Or lonely?”

  “ ’Course I do,” he says. “That’s the work. To study the sadness. To see what it really is—and how, at its core, it’s empty.”

  “I’d like to be able to do that. To see my sadness as empty.”

  “Of course you would,” he says, putting a hand on my shoulder. “So what do you say?”

  My mind races. “OK,” I blurt.

  “Yeah?” he says.

  “Yes,” I say.

  “Good man,” he says, clapping me on the back. Then I join the line, where I wait for about a half an hour. When I get to the front, the man in the kiosk asks my name, age, and social security number. Then he asks my occupation. “Writer,” I say.

  “Of?”

  “Novels, mostly. Some journalism.”

  He records my scores for loneliness (98), sorrow (97), and compassion (21). Then he says, “Now, you do understand that you’re committing to a life without love.”