A Paradigm of Earth

by Candas Jane Dorsey

  “Nothing that a brain-cell transplant couldn’t cure,” said Jakob disdainfully, and John glared at him. “Fine, fine, I’m sony,” said Jakob, “I like your stuff, but that isn’t commercial TV either, is it? Any more than my stuff is mainstream dance. You are out of the norm whether you like the idea or not.”

  “I am just ahead of the norm,” said John, “but I will set the standard, that I can tell you. I am not doing anything far out with corn flakes and ‘happenings’ like your folks did when they were young.”

  “I’m sorry I told you that story,” said Jakob angrily. “My folks were trying to figure out how to wake up a dead-from-the-assboth-ways populace. A few cornflakes in the machinery may have seemed like a good idea in 1969 or whenever it was. People need a kick in the ass these days too. How many decades, and how many social changes since then? And now it’s all been revoked; it hasn’t made a fucking bit of difference.”

  “So, so strange the way you, you guys talk,” said Aziz. “Like old movies.”

  “Yeah, My Dinner with André,” said Morgan, but nobody knew it. “Too old,” she said, grinning.

  “I’ll look it up,” said John, and she was sure he would, and would see himself as André, the talkative and egocentric one. She wondered aloud to Blue, when the others had scattered, whether John would soon be adding his own monologues to his documentary.

  Sure enough, a few days later, John thanked her for the tip, and told her about the voice-over commentary he was now planning. “I’ll keep the footage of you others,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be derivative.”

  “No, I can see that,” said Morgan, but afterward she said to Blue, “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “You told me,” said Blue. “I want to know how I can come to read people like that. Like you do.”

  “We say, ‘read people like a book’,” said Morgan. “And the answer is, there is no answer. Learn as much as you can, including about empathy, and do your best. It’s one of the human difficulties.”

  “John, you are consistently rude to Jakob. If it keeps up, I’ll have to give you your notice.” She looked up from the easy chair where she had placed herself to wait for him to come in.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about. This is Jakob’s home. He doesn’t need to face bigotry here as well as in the world.”

  “Maybe we just don’t get along.”

  “Maybe you don’t get along with anyone gay.”

  “You knew I had a hard time with homosexuality when I moved in. I told you that, and you brought him in anyway. I mean, brought me in.”

  “No, what you told me was that you were working to overcome your homophobia, and that you thought a diverse group of roommates would be good for you. As far as I can see, you aren’t working to overcome any of your flaws.”

  He shifted before her, moving the camera bag from one shoulder to the other, not looking at her. “Like what else?”

  “Like, doing your share of the scut work around here. Like not leaving your messes for others to clean up. Like paying your rent on time. We’ve talked about all this before.”

  “It’s not like you’re suffering for the money.”

  “Actually, I am, but that isn’t the point. The point is that you are slacking off and getting up our noses. We can get a better roommate than that. There is actually a line-up, even if you discount the thrill-seekers. Remember what I told you. This is your second formal warning. One more, and you’re history.”

  “You can’t kick me out. My documentary isn’t done!”

  Morgan almost laughed, but she knew he would think she wasn’t serious if she did, so she went to tough-cop instead. “Unless you clean up your act, watch me.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll do my best. Just tell me what I’m supposed to do, and I’ll do it.”

  “I just told you. And it isn’t the first time. You have a very selective memory. Maybe you should record this, play it back when you get confused.”

  “Well, aside from Jakob. Like, be specific.”

  “Okay, like, if you see a mess, clean it up. If you come to the dryer and someone else’s stuff is still in it, fold the stuff. If you come to the washer and someone else’s stuff is still in it, put it in the dryer or hang it up. If you come to the sink with dirty dishes, wash them and whatever other dishes are there. Clean the bathroom every week. Clean the shower after you use it. Hang up your towels. We’ve been through this before. It’s not rocket science.”

  “What if it’s not my turn?”

  “Do it anyway. You have a lot of catch-up to do, by now.”

  “What else?”

  “Whatever you see that needs doing. You’re a grown-up. I shouldn’t have to assign tasks to you.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Okay.”

  “Okay, like, I’ll do it? Or just, okay, get off my back?”

  “Okay, I’ll do it. I really do want to stay here, Morgan.” His look was halfway between whipped puppy and door-to-door evangelist.

  “Yeah,” said Morgan. “I know you do.”

  She pushed herself up from the chair and walked out past him. She noticed that he carefully moved away from her. Don’t worry, she thought, you can’t catch it.

  She was not sure if it was queerness, femaleness, or alien taint that she thought he was afraid of catching from her.

  Alien taint. Now that was an interesting thought to think about someone who was Blue’s greatest fan, to hear him talk. Something had made Morgan wonder about that. What was he doing that had made her uneasy?

  “Jakob hasn’t been to the clinic for ten days,” the grey man asked her one morning later in the week. “Is he all right?”

  “I’ll ask him,” said Morgan.

  She went up to Jakob’s studio that afternoon. Jakob and Blue were practicing together at the barre. A bootleg of some dissonant dissident music was playing loudly enough to start an immediate ringing in her ears.

  It’s a bloody good thing this place is soundproofed, Morgan thought. Someone at that school did something right, whatever my mother thought of her parents.

  “Look, Morgan,” shouted Blue, and did a series of grandes jêtes across the studio. Then, returning, the alien went up on point and executed a series of precise toework the names of which Morgan couldn’t even guess. The alien was wearing earplugs. Morgan put her hands over her ears.

  Waving at the music console to lower the levels to merely stentorian, Jakob pulled out his own earplugs and walked gracefully over to Morgan, wiping the sweat from his gleaming dark skin with a white towel: Morgan wondered whether it should have been Aziz or Russ who should have been there to fully appreciate the moment.

  “Why do you wear earplugs and then turn it up until it’s deafening?”

  “Usually I have it at more bearable levels, but today I want Blue to feel it in the body. Like deaf people do.”

  “That was a cute little demo Blue gave me there.”

  “It’s the classics this week,” said Jakob, “Nureyev, Baryshnikov, Fonteyn, Kain. Last week we did Balanchine and Graham and Ailey and Edouard Lock. La La La Human Steps, on point in sneakers way back in 1984. That led us to Les Grandes Ballets Canadiennes doing ballet in drag, and that’s how we got where we are today. Astonishing, isn’t it?”

  “Blue must be physically—”

  “—strong? Adept? A fast learner? Versatile? Honeychile, you have no idea!”

  “And how is your strength holding out?”

  “Fine. Why?”

  “I heard you haven’t been to the clinic lately. My grey man wonders if you’re all right.”

  “Never better,” said Jakob, smiling like a cat with cream.

  “Come on. You told me that withdrawal was hell. You look better than you ever have. I swear you’re even putting on muscle mass.”

  “Blue and I made a little deal,” said Jakob. “I’d help him with the dancing, and he’d help me with the drugs. So far we’re both satisfied.”

  “Hel
p you how?”

  “Call it sleepteaching,” said Jakob, and, nudging her arm, he leaned over and said confidentially into her ear. “Blue does some amazing things in dreams. Detox like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Are you watching?” called the alien, who was now doing something improbable on the climbing wall at the end of the studio.

  “Everyone’s watching,” said Morgan. Blue dropped from the top of the twelve-foot wall and, grinning, pulled out the earplugs.

  Deeply disturbed, Morgan went back downstairs and telephoned the grey man.

  “He’s fine,” she said. “He decided to withdraw, and he’s been doing a lot of exercise to counteract it.”

  “Must produce a whole lot of endorphins,” said Mr. Grey.

  “I guess it works for him,” said Morgan.

  She dreams of the alien as a skeleton, glowing in darkness. She is helping put on internal organs, muscles, blood vessels, nerves, skin; like a theater dresser she is holding the layers like coats for the naked one to put on. The alien glows like—boron?—blue, more and more substantial. When the dressing-up is complete, the alien turns to her, smiling.

  “How do you want to be taken apart?” says Blue’s voice in the darkness.

  When she woke, sitting up, her body was vibrating. With fear, with frustration, with knowledge of the past. With anticipation of that dangerous future.

  So she lay in the night room, her belly tight, unable to relieve the longing. To be somewhere else, not to be lonely, to be alone. To be safe.

  Finally she shut her mind to it, and slept.

  13

  A birthday present

  Morgan cleaned the second-floor hallway, her portable stereo tucked into a pocket. Diaspora I was playing: complicated layered texts, which seemed to match her mood, chanted by a variety of voices.

  Blue came out of Delany’s room, upset and with brow furrowed in a way Morgan knew Blue had copied from her or Russ.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Delany is angry with me. I was only trying to help …”

  “Sometimes what seems like help isn’t really,” she said automatically. “What did you offer?”

  “I offered to correct the mistakes in the helices. It would be simple enough. There is only a tweak. The difficult part would be the repetition. Or replication.”

  “Helices?”

  “The DNA. Hers is damaged.”

  Shocked, Morgan turned up the music. The voices were running perfect interference, she hoped. “You offered to cure her?”

  “I just said if she wanted I could change it. I learned what needed to be done by reading all the scientific research. She yelled at me. I don’t understand. I’m sorry, I am too sad, I cannot talk now. Maybe we can talk later?”

  “Sure.” Morgan watched Blue walk down the corridor, wondering if it could be true. She knocked on Delany’s door. “It’s me. Can I come in?”

  “If you must.” Yep, she was mad. Morgan picked up the stereo and slipped in quietly. Delany was transferring from her wheelchair to bed. Her movements were erratic and furious. When she thumped down on the bed, she shoved the wheelchair hard enough that it collided with the desk, scratching the newly refinished wood. Morgan turned the stereo down only slightly. She was still sweating from the flash of fear she had felt for Blue when she heard those naïvely-spoken words.

  “Your damned alien thinks it can fix me,” said Delany quietly and furiously. “Make it stop.”

  “My alien again?”

  “Fix me. As if I’m broken!”

  Morgan had only a second to decide, and chose honesty. “Honey … you are broken.”

  “I don’t want deus ex machinal”

  “Blue is no god. There is no machine.”

  “There is no cure either. If Blue could fix my genetic code, my DNA, could it fix my muscles? My skeleton? Put back all the development that was lost? Let me look like other people, which I never will, because all the bones are already twisted and decalcified? Give me back a normal life, after all these years? Take away the memory of all the humiliations, all the pratfalls, all the insults, all the condescension? There is no fucking cure and I don’t want some fucking carrot dangled before me that makes me hope, even for a second, that my life could change that way. Why the fuck would Blue do that to me?”

  “Maybe because of love? Maybe to help? Maybe to make the rest of your life easier?”

  “I don’t want its fucking help.” Delany pulled her thin legs into bed, one by one.

  “Yes you do,” said Morgan. “You want it so bad you can taste it. You just don’t believe it.”

  “You gonna put me through this too?”

  “Only because I love you.”

  “Love,” said Delany dismissively. “The things people do with that excuse. It’s the easiest word to say.”

  “Loving isn’t easy,” said Morgan furiously. “You want it to be easy?” Delany was angry too, she propped herself up in bed, tweaked the covers viciously across her legs.

  “You think anything gets learned in one lesson?”

  “I’m tired of living with not being perfect,” Delany said slowly. “I’m tired of settling for whatever my body will allow me to have. Live with it. Live with it. Try harder. Make an effort. Don’t you think I make an effort? Every fucking minute. But it’s never enough to make it really work for me. You think that would change with a DNA transfusion?”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” Morgan said, sudden tears starting behind her nose, eyes.

  “I want to go home,” said Delany forlornly, uselessly, and started to cry. Morgan turned off the music, and in the relief of silence sat down on the bed, rubbed Delany’s tense neck, then pulled the slight body back to lean on her, stroked the thick fair hair.

  “How do you ask for anything,” said Delany, muffled, “without sounding like a martyr?”

  “You don’t,” said Morgan. “You just resign yourself to sounding like something. Then you decide you don’t care what that is. Then you just ask.”

  “I really am tired of living,” said Delany in a calm, resigned voice.

  “Too bad,” said Morgan. “You don’t get to cop out that way. ‘Alive and stuck with it’, as the poet said.”

  “You love that line, don’t you? Never mind me,” said Delany, trying to sit up, but the angle was wrong, she couldn’t get the leverage, she was like a moth trapped against a car window, pushing, pushing.

  “Help me, Morgan,” she finally said, tears at last rolling across her face. Morgan pulled her upright, didn’t take her hands away.

  “Now that you can ask, how much help do you need?”

  “Everything, everything. I’m afraid of the dark, you know that? I am. I hate the darkness.”

  Morgan thought darkness was all that kept her sane, but she showed none of that in her smile. “See us both leaking like sieves,” she said. “God is a crybaby. We know ’cause we’re made in the same image, they say.”

  “Do you believe in God?” Delany said, surprised.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Morgan said. “You never know. I suppose I’ll find out after.”

  “After what, you die?”

  “Sure. But ’til then, so what? How about you?”

  “I don’t think I can any more,” Delany said. “It’s such hard work trying to feel blessed.”

  “But you are,” Morgan said, “blessed by sentience, sapience. You can think and feel.” So what? she thought, but this was a rescue and the rescuer doesn’t jump out of the lifeboat.

  But Delany was better than Morgan gave her credit for. “So can you, Morgan.” Morgan drew back and looked. “You think I don’t know you? I know you. You have to turn the intentions back on sooner or later. If not for me, for someone. I don’t matter, I’ll live. But you should try, too.”

  “Change of roles all of a sudden,” said Morgan.

  “Don’t get defensive.”

  “Who, me?”

  “Do you love me?”

  “Sure. I said so
.”

  “But …”

  “But it’s strange to me now. Okay, I admit it, I’m … not sure.”

  “But you want me.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Sticks out a mile,” Delany said. “You’re too careful when you comb my hair not to touch me.”

  “I do. So?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then why ask?”

  “To make you honest.”

  “Oh, I’m honest. That’s something I can’t escape. Never mind honesty.”

  “Don’t be self-indulgent either. You have responsibilities around here.”

  “Yeah, I keep it all together, all right. Open all our lives like paper crackers, pop! and they’re broken. By bringing in Blue. Now what?”

  “Love. What was missing for all of us before.”

  “That’s not up to us to force,” Morgan said.

  “Not forced,” said Delany. “Just what you always do. Offer it freely.”

  “What I do?”

  “Don’t you know yourself yet?”

  Morgan stood and paced to the window. Outside in the alley the streetlights shattered the darkness. Sharp, angry.

  “How much do you think I can do?” she said finally.

  “Everything you have to,” said Delany. “Everything. Everything but save my life.”

  Morgan looked at her, surprised.

  “That’s my own chore. I work at it every day. If I keep trying I might get it right. With or without Blue’s ‘tweaking.’” Delany’s voice twisted like her fingers.

  “Sorry,” said Morgan.

  “For what?”

  “Death. Life. Whatever else I can’t fix. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m tired,” said Delany, in a different tone. “I need to sleep. Go to bed, Morgan.”

  “Will you talk to Blue in the morning? You really did a job there, you know. Blue had no idea why you were angry.”

  “I’ll talk to Blue.”

  “And will you see if what Blue can do might help?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Will you promise me?”

  “Don’t push me, Morgan. I’ll do what I do. Go to bed.”