Theory of Bastards

by Audrey Schulman

  JayJay had no interest in children, but he did pressure her to have sex more often. He wanted the kind of sex she used to have with him, the kind where she laughed and rocked hard. She wanted that too, but at this point even leaning over to get off her underwear hurt. So instead they tried reading erotica aloud together, lying on their bed in their knee-wall room. He would rub his penis; she would rub her temples.

  Get a hysterectomy, said the specialist, Or pregnant. (His voice mildly aggrieved.)

  Years later, stepping up to the microphone after her MacArthur Award was announced, she looked across the audience and spotted three different colleagues she believed would score higher on intelligence tests or have a more comprehensive understanding of their fields. Standing there, wondering why she was on this stage instead of them, the only difference she could think of was the way her disease had taught her mind to focus. Like a snapping turtle, once her brain had clamped its jaws on a specific problem it would not let go, not unless someone sawed through her scrawny neck. During the day, everything reminded her of her research into love: a couple holding hands, her mother sitting alone in the kitchen, the smell of JayJay’s dirty laundry which she couldn’t believe anyone would find attractive. And at night, her work infiltrated her dreams: her dental hygienist leaning over to floss Frankie’s teeth while reciting data from Male Subject 3; her mother wandering naked through the house tattooed with a chart of monthly estrogen levels.

  In the end, she again chose a treatment her doctor had not recommended, taking Promisium in order to go into a pseudopregnancy, stopping her period entirely. The medicine worked well; if not to erase all pain, at least to decrease it. The reprieve glorious. She ballooned out in weight, appearing gravid and spotlit with joy. Plump, she developed breasts like a lactating Madonna. She felt a kinship with the pet spider that lived on the kitchen shelf, waddling around in its inflated body. Taking her Promisium pills each day, she felt she was swallowing stolen time.

  It was during this respite that she grasped the pattern running through her research results: the differences in the genetic encoding of immunoglobulins. Each woman who selected the smell of a T-shirt box was choosing a man with immunities that she lacked. Like some sci-fi bloodhound, each woman was sniffing into the future, following the trail of children who had not been conceived yet but who were likely to be more disease resistant than either parent. True love for a woman was at least partly based on the tantalizing scent of healthy offspring.

  Frankie published these findings to some interest in the field—tenured staff in her department now stopping to talk to her in the hallway, asking her what she would work on next and even suggesting she apply for the tenure-track position that she ultimately got. However, it was how she followed up on this paper that earned her the media attention. With the recommendation of her department head, she secured a Putnam Grant to take what she considered the next logical step. Based on genetic differences in immunoglobulins, could she predict who would fall in love with whom?

  She advertised for research subjects on several Manhattan meet-up sites for singles, collecting the subjects’ blood samples as well as the slept-in T-shirts from 200 men between 25 and 35 years old, and the blood samples from 57 women of the same age. From each blood sample, she classified the immunoglobulin type and subclass. Then she began to match-make. For each woman, she selected the 20 men with the most radically different immunities. She scheduled the test for when the woman was ovulating, lining up the selected men’s T-shirt boxes on a table for a sniff test.

  Soon afterward, the woman would be sent on two dinner dates: one with the man whose box she had selected, the other with a second male subject, randomly chosen. The woman was not told at any point what had been in the boxes, nor what the boxes had to do with the two men she went on dates with.

  When the experiment worked, it was a life-changing event. Female Subject T sent Frankie a Sim-mail at 3:47 A.M. on the night of her date, divulging in one long run-on sentence how his face had seemed more and more interesting, his words more pertinent until at one point the bowling alley tightened and shifted and she’d sat down plop on the floor with the weight of all that had changed. Subjects G, N and AA arrived the next morning to tell her about their dates, but as they talked they kept back from her, their eyes big. She wasn’t sure what they were imagining might happen if they got too close—that, with a wave of her hands, she might erase this emotion they felt, or might make them feel even more of it.

  Before she’d finished the experiment, three women had moved in with the men whose T-shirts they’d chosen. One was engaged. As the word spread, there began to be a line out her door of men and women asking to be in her study. However, these new subjects acted differently; now they had demands. Some women wanted only to sniff the boxes of men who were Jewish or had a full-time job, or at least were guaranteed not to have a criminal record. The men began to request their sniffers all be younger than them, or brunette, or have a low B.M.I. Several already enrolled subjects, who had not yet gone on their dates, abruptly pulled out of the study saying they weren’t ready for this level of commitment.

  Even before her research was published, an online dating company contacted her (one of the company’s marketing staff happened to have been in the study). The company paid her $163,000 cash for the rights to her research. At the time, this seemed a miraculous deal to her, pulling her out of credit card debt and putting money in the bank for whatever medical intervention she might need next.

  However, within six months, this company released their product based on her research. They called it the Love Bank, charging $5,000 for a chance at true love. Not only did the price ensure a hefty profit, it also suggested the applicants might be of a certain economic class (which in turn increased sign-ups). For a short while—before all the lawsuits hit: the baby born with Tay-Sachs, the polygamous husband, that battered wife—men lined up in droves to deposit their T-shirts, and women lined up to sniff them. The Love Bank opened up branches across the country, became a staple in Hollywood and the Hamptons. A popular movie star was introduced to a hedge-fund manager, the wedding a whirlwind three weeks later. Two reality shows were filmed at the Bank, as well as one sitcom.

  Much of the publicity revolved around the CEO of the Love Bank, filming him driving around Manhattan in his Bugatti with his supermodel girlfriend. Public broadcasting of course preferred to talk to the researcher behind the science. Ari Shapiro asking about Frankie’s earliest memory of smell, Science Friday posing its nasal questions about the possibility of synthesizing individualized perfumes to keep a couple together.

  Marketplace Money on the other hand never called. Instead for the week after the Love Bank had its first public offering of stock, the low price of $163,000 was the punchline to every joke.

  By that point though she didn’t care. The Promisium wasn’t working anymore, and the pain had returned.

  DAY 20

  Twenty One

  After the keeper rolled up the gate to the enclosure, the bonobos exited their sleeping chamber. Certain that all the fruit hidden around the enclosure was 3-D printed, they didn’t bother to look for it. Instead they just sat in front of Frankie on the balcony.

  Even after she’d thrown all the real fruit and they’d finished eating it, they continued to sit there for a while, hoping for more. Only after she held up her empty hands and then the empty bucket did they begin to knuckle around the enclosure, searching for the printed food.

  A minute later, Lucy peeped with surprise, scooping up a scrap of real mango where it had fallen into a crevice. Petey, next to her, snatched it out of her hand and cantered away.

  At a male daring to steal food from a female, every female reacted as one, bolting after him, screaming, all teeth and ferocity.

  Although Petey weighed 10 pounds more than any one of them, chased by this crowd of fury, he dropped the mango chunk and backed into a corner, crouching and covering his head,
while the females waa-barked and whacked branches onto the ground near him. Finally, they wandered off to nap in the sun, exhausted.

  The hunger was getting to all of them.

  Frankie watched this, then said, Ok Bindi, double my order of fruit for tomorrow.

  Her EarDrums said, Doubling your order of fruit for tomorrow to 40 pounds mangos and 10 pounds papaya. The total, with delivery, is $653.87.

  She paused for a moment at this number, then said, Ok, buy.

  Her BodyWare seemed strangely slow. The cursor on her Lenses spun for two whole seconds while it processed the order. Watching it, she noticed the percent sign and ampersand in the corner pulsing.

  Ok Bindi, she asked, How far is the nearest App Store?

  Her Bindi responded, 63 minutes away under present traffic conditions.

  Frankie said, Jeez.

  Her Bindi asked, Would you like me to schedule a car?

  Frankie inhaled, considering. She looked at Adele, whose temperature was currently elevated, then answered, Not yet.

  *

  Stotts and Frankie were both at the table in the kitchen, eating lunch and working on their Lenses. Both gestured in the air, flicking from one page to the next and talking to their devices. He was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She was dipping pork rinds into a bowl of warm caramel and then swinging them into her mouth. She savored the sweet greasy crunch. There was not a single ingredient here she would have been able to eat before: sugar, meat, lard. Meanwhile, on her Lenses, she charted her data of bonobo copulations, wanting to see if any of the pairs were mating with one another more frequently.

  He asked, Why do you study mating?

  For a moment she assumed he was on a call. Glancing around the 3-D histogram on her Lenses, she noticed he was looking at her.

  She wiped a spot of caramel off her chin and replied, Secret to evolution, right?

  He said, It’s something more than that to you.

  She spread her fingers to increase the size of the histogram and spun it gently. It showed the pair who mated the most were Marge and Adele. Two females mating were not going to have the evolutionary impact she was looking for.

  She said, Relationships are a mystery to me. Maybe if I can figure out how other animals manage, it’ll help me.

  He answered with doubt, Maybe.

  What do you mean?

  He said, You are a trifle . . . direct.

  She looked at him. In that single word, so much was compressed.

  He didn’t speak as Kansas-polite around her anymore. She didn’t speak as Manhattan-rude around him. They were instead developing a common language. Lately she’d noticed him sometimes watching her, his head to one side, like the bonobos, trying to figure her out.

  And she was curious about him too. She imagined he had the life that she did not—at night when he went home, a child running to him, a spouse smiling.

  She admitted with only the greatest reluctance when he was right.

  *

  Mama was leaning back against a tree, a child’s book in her lap that she was scraping the honey off of and eating. She used her nails to pry the next two pages apart.

  For a single moment she stared at the pages, clearly gob-smacked with surprise.

  Her scream of terror was piercing.

  She dropped the book and, in a display of raw athleticism, flew to the top of the climbing structure. Up there, unable to get any further away, she leaned over the side, shrieking down at the book where it lay on the ground, the little hair she had left standing up on her arms and back. All the bonobos bolted up after her, terrified. At the top, they spun around confused, searching for danger. Only after a moment did they spot the book. Squealing down at it, their voices were truly hysterical, probably partly because they didn’t understand.

  In front of the enclosure, Frankie got up and stepped closer, one hand on the glass. The bonobos stood on the metal bar at the very top of the structure, holding on with their toes. Sweetie tried to climb Mr. Mister’s back, wanting to get further away. Id clung to Houdina, terrified.

  Then Frankie spotted Goliath. He was howling with fear and eyeing the top of the plexiglass wall, bobbing his head up and down, judging the distance. If he attempted the jump and missed, he would fall 30 feet to the cement.

  So Frankie bolted around the building and down the hall, moving faster than she’d moved in years. She opened the research-room door and stepped inside the enclosure. The level of noise was physical. Above her, Goliath was taking half steps from one side to the other, trying to find the best spot to jump from.

  None of the bonobos, at the moment, cared she was in here. She ran to the book.

  Above her, their voices changed, trying to warn her of the danger, Goliath looking down at her.

  Picking the book up, she saw it was a normal preschool book. A is for Armadillos said the first page. B is for Bird said the next. Then she turned the page to see, C is for Chimp. A photo of a chimp grinned out at the viewer, many teeth visible.

  Above her, spotting the photo, the bonobos began to wail with an entirely new level of terror.

  Mama was looking at her, making the same gesture again and again, a gesture where her hand moved rapidly from her mouth down. The avatar translated. Frankie couldn’t hear what she said, but the text underneath read, Bad. Bad.

  Mama’s hands were shaking. She made a new gesture: her right thumb heading for her eye as though she wanted to gouge it out, the motion stopped by her left fist. She made the gesture several times.

  The text under the avatar read, Danger. Danger.

  Frankie closed the book to hide the chimp. She said, It’s alright. It’s fine. Just a picture.

  None of them could hear her so she used one of the only signs she knew, shaking her fist No no.

  Her motion however shook the book and they shrieked louder.

  So Frankie opened the book and ripped out the page with the chimp.

  There was a shocked silence, then more wailing.

  She held out the page and tore the image of the chimp in half and then into smaller pieces, using large gestures so they could see what she was doing. Their screams changed, but did not quiet down. Cupping the pieces and the rest of the book in her hands, she carried all of it out of the enclosure. As soon as she started moving, the bonobos all scurried away, as though she carried an armful of flying snakes that might launch themselves into the air at any moment.

  She dumped the book and pieces of paper inside the building, then stepped back into the enclosure, holding out her empty hands for them to see. She walked over to where the book had been and patted the ground.

  All gone, she said, All gone. It’s alright.

  Since they couldn’t hear her, she made the sign for no and then for danger, imitating as best as she could Mama’s gesture.

  Their voices now held a note of confusion—either her gesture was garbled or they weren’t sure now if they should be scared.

  On the way out, she stopped to pick up one last scrap of paper, a tiny curl of blue background. She took it with her, closing the door behind her. Through the window, she could see the bonobos still crying, sniffing the air and searching for any sign of the book or photo.

  She walked back around the building to her normal spot in the tourist area. The bonobos stayed up on the structure, holding each other and rocking, their cries quieting. Now that she was outside of the plexiglass, she could hear the apes in the other enclosures bellowing at all the commotion.

  It took her a moment to separate out the sound of the chimps, behind her and to her right. A chaotic roar, deep voiced and primal.

  The bonobos held each other tight, sobbing with frustration at a world with chimps in it.

  The keeper came running up the path. She yelled, What happened?

  Frankie said, One of the books had a picture of
a chimp in it.

  The keeper stepped closer, staring at her mouth and said, Speak slowly.

  Frankie said, Chimp. Mama saw a photo of a chimp.

  The keeper looked at the bonobos, then back at Frankie, How?

  It was in the honey book.

  Damn.

  Frankie asked, Why is she so scared of chimps?

  Mama came from the same lab as the chimps. They hate her.

  What? Why?

  The keeper shrugged, Something happened.

  Since Frankie had been buying fruit for the bonobos, the keeper had been treating her better, more willing to answer her questions.

  The keeper added, They know she’s here.

  Frankie asked, Why does she like you so much?

  The keeper paused, confused at the sudden subject change.

  Frankie said, She trusts you.

  The keeper looked at Mama who was clinging to Marge on top of the climbing structure. She said, Her breasts don’t produce much milk. She had two babies before Tooch. Both starved to death.

  Ohh, breathed Frankie.

  The keeper said, With Tooch, I taught her how to feed him with a bottle. She’s grateful.

  For several days after this, every bonobo gave a wide berth to the spot on the ground where the book had been.

  DAY 21

  Twenty Two

  Frankie slept in. She’d been sleeping much deeper as her gut healed and for some reason this morning her Bindi didn’t wake her up at the right time. When she opened her eyes, the sun was streaming in the window. Turning on her Lenses for the time, she saw the percent sign and ampersand had been joined by a dollar sign in the corner of the screen.

  She shuffle-jogged around the Foundation, then ate breakfast, before heading to the enclosure. By this point, the tourists were already entering the gates. Since she’d arrived at the Foundation, she’d been working with less intensity than normal, giving herself time to recoup—to cook and eat, talk with Stotts and knapp with Goliath. At night she’d even started reading a novel. Soon, she was sure, she’d start working at her normal pace again.