The Bradbury Report

by Steven Polansky

  I must have blanched, or gasped. The tall man looked at me. “What is it?” he said. He said this in a kindly way.

  “I know him,” I said.

  “You know him?” he said.

  “I know who this is.”

  “This is a clone,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you mean you know the original?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I mean that.”

  The driver looked at me but didn’t speak. The tall man shook his head. “Christ,” he said. “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “It’s not possible,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “No,” he said. “Of course not. Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s his name?” he said, and I knew he was the one in charge.

  “His name is Ray Bradbury. We were in graduate school together.”

  “Maybe you’re mistaken,” he said. “We can check this. We can find out.”

  “I’m not mistaken,” I said. “I know him.” I had a brief snip of clarity. “I knew him.”

  “Is he dead, then?”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  He put his hand on my arm. My arm was bare, and his fingers were elongated and knuckly, vegetative. I tried not to recoil. His touch was gentle. “Ray Bradbury, you said?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Good. We can check this. Will you be all right?”

  “I hope so,” I said. “Yes.”

  I hadn’t signed on for this.

  What follows, Ray, are the notes I made during the time your clone was with me. I put them down in an attempt to keep my thinking straight, borderline functional and sane. I had no one to talk to. It is an account of my time with your clone. It is dismal stuff.

  Tomorrow I leave for New Hampshire. Who knows how this will go? Good luck to us both, Ray. Good luck to us both.

  Thursday. July 16. 9 p.m.

  Jesus God, how am I to do this? For seven days. It makes me too sad, makes me tired at the thought. I feel old. Today all day I was thinking about quitting. One night, one day, and already I want to quit. I do. I want to give him back. Let someone else take him. I’m not the right one. Not for him. It’s not human to ask me. I almost put out the rake. I saw him at eight this morning drive by in the Chinese car and I was ready to get the rake and put it out. An hour ago he drove by again. Right on time. I should have been outside, waiting for him to drive by. I should have put out the rake. I was too ashamed. Tomorrow, first thing, I will do it. How can they ask me to do this? For goodness sake. There is no choice. Calm down.

  It’s hot in here. He was drenched in sweat, poor thing. If I opened the windows maybe we’d get a breeze, but he’ll start up again and the neighbors will think I’m killing him. Who will they think he is? They are your friends. Some of them you’ve known all your life. Do not think ill of them. What a racket. The poor boy. I’ve never heard such noise. Like some wild creature, something dying in the woods. I know nothing about things dying in the woods. What about all my howling? I may howl again. You’d think I was killing him. Trembling. Twitching. His arms and legs jerking around. I couldn’t keep a blanket on him. It was piteous, his hands flying all over the place. He nearly got me. Coming off the sedatives they gave him for transport. I don’t think he ever woke up. On top of all the other stuff he’d been on, you’d think they’d have shown some mercy. The poor boy. Clone. What is he? What am I to call him? How am I to think of him? You are confused, you stupid old woman, because he is not who you think he is. He is someone else. You don’t know him. If I opened the windows, we could get a breeze, if there is one.

  I’m thinking of the first night with _____ , the night we brought him home from the hospital. We had no idea what to do. We had the equipment, the supplies, all the baby stuff, and no idea how to use it. We were terrified. He slept through, lucky for us. Sweet little thing. His head like a pumpkin. He didn’t cry. I checked on him every five minutes to make sure he was breathing. Thank God my mother was nearby. Little pumpkin head. He’s turned out okay. He’s turned out better than okay. Lucky in my children. A mother is only as happy as her saddest child. I’ve got used to being alone. The house feels alien tonight, dangerous. I’m afraid to leave the kitchen. I’m afraid to get out of this chair. What if he gets out of bed?

  I went shopping today, early, before eight. He was resting quietly. I dashed out and back. I grabbed some disposable underwear, a 24-pack of adult diapers, diaper-rash cream. I was embarrassed to be in the incontinence aisle. My friend wears them. She’s my age. Not me, not yet. Just keep my uterus where it belongs. I was surprised to see they work like the baby ones. I had nothing to use to change him. Some stuff my daughter left when she was here last, baby diapers, a packet of wipes that had dried out. So far he has had nothing to eat. I was able to give him a little water from a sippy-cup. He hardly woke. I looked in on him in the middle of the night, before three sometime. Even from outside the room I could smell it. A terrible smell. Much worse than kids’ poop. My kids’ urine was like water, odorless and clear. He was asleep on his back, his arms at his side. The blanket was on the floor. He was breathing, moaning with each breath. Shuddering. I undid his belt, unzipped his pants, got them down around his ankles. The smell nearly knocked me over. He was already in a diaper. They’d brought him in a diaper. Why didn’t they tell me? They told me nothing. What will he be like when he wakes up? How will I restrain him if I need to? The inside of his pants was covered with poop, the seat, the legs. He must have had more than one bowel movement in there. Explosive. His stool was loose and watery, greenish gray, smeared all over his legs and his stomach. It was on his socks. I tried not to breathe. It was terrible. I got a pile of hand towels and wet washcloths. His poop was on the bed. It was on my arms and hands, on my shirt. This is an awful job if it is not someone you love. I cleaned him up. In the middle of his belly, where it belonged, he had an ordinary navel I’m not sure why I was surprised to see. I will ask about this. I looked at his thing. Poop? Thing? What is wrong with me? He was uncircumcised, which made it much harder to clean. I had never seen one uncircumcised before up close. I didn’t like the look of it. I cleaned it with a washcloth. He became erect in my hand. I felt guilty. He was asleep, poor thing. I put a beach towel over him, then the blanket from the floor. That dog we had from the pound, always humping your leg. Leo was the name it came with. I didn’t like him. We didn’t have him long. When the dog got worked up, my husband called it the red rocket. The sight of it coming out, twanging there, red and nasty. Appalling. Too much for me. I’ll put the rake out tomorrow morning.

  Throw the washcloths and towels away. Don’t try to launder them, for God’s sake.

  Friday. July 17. 10:15 p.m.

  Another day. It looks like I’ll keep him the week. I didn’t watch for the car today, either time. The rake is still in the garage. I feel like a new mother all over again with a colicky baby. _____ cried nonstop the first three months. We had to hold her, rock her, walk her up and down the room. Nothing else soothed her. I can’t remember how I got through it, though on either side the boys were relatively easy. Now she’s got children of her own. Sweet, placid girls, thank God, because her husband is no help to her. I am not a fan of my children’s spouses. Is any mother really?

  This is worse than colic. I must have emptied the pail ten times. There was nothing left in him to bring up and he kept retching. After each spell he fell back asleep. We’ve got a thunderstorm. It rained off and on all day. Now it’s really coming down. I pray we don’t lose power. I couldn’t open the windows even if he’d stay quiet. You’d think he’d be exhausted from all that throwing up. I held the pail for him, kept him from falling off the bed. I dabbed his forehead with a damp washcloth. I offered him ginger ale and ice in a sippy-cup, which I couldn’t get him to take. It seemed to make him angry. This afternoon for an hour he didn’t stop sneezing. I didn’t kn
ow what to do for him. I’m torn. That boy up there, that man, is the product of a system I detest. I hate that there are any clones at all. And this one. Of all of them, this one. You must tell yourself he is not Ray.

  He is not Ray. He is a human being and you have agreed to care for him. You can stick it out one week. You can stick anything out one week. Forget your politics. Do the human thing. As if I had a choice. Shit, he’s yowling again.

  It’s midnight. I might never get to sleep. He threw up all over the floor, before I could get up there, then again into the pail. He hasn’t eaten a thing. How does he have anything left? I changed him. He doesn’t like having me change him. He doesn’t like being in diapers, that’s clear. I don’t blame him. He swims in my husband’s pajama bottoms, but they’re easy off, easy on. What am I to call him? I need to stop thinking of him as Ray. I’m reluctant to give him a name. He’s not a stray cat I’ve taken in. Maybe he has a name and will tell me what it is when he speaks to me. When he is able to speak. When he is ready. If he even can speak. If he can speak, what language will it be? What might we call him? What would you call him, if he were yours? What would I call him? Sonny? I wanted to call our daughter Sonny, but my husband wouldn’t go along with it. Something biblical? What about Jacob, who pretended to be his twin? Something sadder. Job or Jonah or Jeremiah. All the J names. I’ve got to think of something to call him. Temporarily. I don’t want to think of him as Ray. You could call him Puke.

  Maybe Sonny. We’ll see. I have no idea what drugs, how many, he was on before they found him, what drugs he’s coming off of. Or how long it will take. Apart from the sedatives we gave him, and I don’t know what those were, or how much he got. We assume the male clones are drugged, but we don’t know. I’m sure they drew some blood from him. I never used drugs, never knew anybody, not really, who did. I never saw anyone go through withdrawal, except in movies. Maybe they’re new drugs, experimental, not available to us, drugs we’ve never heard of. Designed specifically for clones. Just so I don’t do him any harm. My back hurts. I spent most of the day sitting in a chair beside the bed. I watched him while he slept. Looked at his face. Watched him quiver and quake, as if he were electrified. I held his hand as long as he would let me. I talked to him when he was quiet. When he wasn’t throwing up or sneezing. When he wasn’t making those animal noises. I wanted to keep him company, let him know he wasn’t alone, that I meant to help him. I told him who I was. Where he was. I talked to him about my children and grandchildren. I told him about the town. About Ray, what I could remember. Of course I didn’t tell him what he was. Is it possible he knows what he is? Was any of it calming, reassuring? Maybe it was. I couldn’t tell how much of it he heard or understood. I remembered sitting beside Ray one night, all night, holding him while he wept about some girl in Virginia he’d broken up with. We’d never heard of her, Sara and I. Surprise. I hadn’t seen him for months. He couldn’t find Sara, and he showed up at my room looking for comfort. Nervy. I comforted him. He was pathetic, how could I not? I told the clone the story. I talked about my husband. I recited a poem my mother read to me and I read to my kids. A long poem. James James Morrison Morrison. I was happy to see I still remembered it all. At some point in the late afternoon he opened his eyes and looked at me. It was the first time since I’ve had him I felt he really saw me. I believe he was curious. Maybe he was alarmed. I don’t know what he felt. He seemed most interested when I held up a framed photograph that was on the night table of my three children in their bathing suits up at Spirit Lake, so that for a moment I thought he might reach out to take it from my hand. Had he ever seen a woman before? We think probably he hadn’t, but what do we know? You’re the first woman he sees? Poor guy. Don’t despair, Sonny. There’s better to come.

  Saturday. July 18. 7:30 p.m.

  While I can still see straight.

  He had a seizure. This morning just before dawn. I happened to be in the room. I had just changed him. I sat in the chair beside the bed and waited to be sure he had gone back to sleep. He’d had a peaceful night, waking only twice. His bowel movements are coming less frequently. His stool is getting firmer, less soupy. I take this as a hopeful sign. I know more about his stool than I’d care to. The smell is not quite so noxious as it was, which is a mercy to me. I tried to be as quiet as I could going out. I made it to the door, and then blam. His arms shot up. Like he was reaching for the ceiling, his arms stiff, locked at the elbows, his fingers fluttering. His head flopped to one side. His legs went completely rigid. His back arched off the bed. His whole body was in spasm. It looked as if it were trying to levitate. He didn’t make a sound. The only sound was the creaking of the bedstead. I went to him. His eyes were open enough that I could see they were rolling. There was a honeycomb of spit foaming out the corner of his mouth. I knew what was happening. I had seen this before. _____ had several seizures when he was three, three and a half. After the first he was diagnosed with BCE, which they said he’d outgrow. He did. He had only three seizures we knew about. Three that same year, then none after. I knew basically what to do. Really, what not to do. I didn’t try to wedge his mouth open, or stick anything between his teeth. I wasn’t overly worried about him biting his tongue. I didn’t try to restrain his movements. I thought about getting him off the bed and onto the floor, but scrapped that idea. I moved everything out of his reach and watched that he did not hurt himself. I would say the fit lasted fifteen seconds. When it was over, he was exhausted and limp. I rolled him onto his side, which is what they tell you to do. For the next four hours he hardly moved. When he woke up, sometime in the late morning, I could see he was in considerable pain. Most likely, among other things I couldn’t begin to guess at, a whopping headache. I tried to give him some aspirin but couldn’t get him to take it. By that time he must have been coming off the sedatives they gave him. Maybe that in combination with withdrawing from God knows how many drugs he was on caused the seizure. I don’t know. I pray it will be the only one.

  Saturday night. I should get out, but how can I? It would be nice to laugh once in a while. Your husband dies and you become scary to your friends. They shy away. I need to run to the store for some disinfectant at least. Not tonight. I’m too tired. It’s quiet outside. The calm after. We suffered some damage here, in town. Tree limbs down, patio furniture blown around. There’ll be some cleanup. I didn’t get the chance to check on my garden. One week to Dolly Day. Jesus. What an embarrassment. Let us all make total fools of ourselves, why don’t we? I’ll be in. I have to figure out something he’ll eat or he’ll starve to death. He drank some grape juice for me today. I’m forcing fluids. With all the sweating and shitting he’s doing, he must be dehydrated.

  They just called. A man. I didn’t recognize his voice. He wanted to confirm that they’d be picking up the clone Wednesday night at eight. They have verified the identity of the original. From the tattoo. You were right, he said. He is your Ray Bradbury. Not my Ray Bradbury, I told him. He told me how to read the code. The number on the clone’s arm, which I didn’t really see until this morning, is 1123043468. The first six numbers give you the birth date of the clone’s original, in this case November 23, 2004. The last four numbers, 3468, are the last four numbers of the original’s social security number. Easy when you know the key. They are sure Ray is still alive, which I’m happy to hear, though they haven’t located him yet. I wonder if he and Sara still live in New Hampshire. I didn’t mention that. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t want to give that information, to be of that kind of help. I wonder how many children they have, what their life has been like. Then he said that because I knew the original, they’d been considering a new course of action, one that would further involve me, which they’ll tell me about Wednesday when they come to get the clone. I said I didn’t think I wanted to be further involved. That may be, he said. Condescending jerk. We’ll talk about it Wednesday, he said. There’ll be nothing to talk about, I told him. I was angry. I still am. The fact that I know the original is the
very reason I ought not to be further involved. I should have said that. We’ll see, he said. Then he hung up. He didn’t even ask me how things were going.

  I went up to check on him sometime midmorning. He was asleep. I’d left him on his side, but he’d rolled onto his back. He was breathing through his mouth, making little snoring noises. He was still wearing the shirt they’d brought him in, and it was filthy. I managed to get it off him without waking him up. It was soaked with his sweat and spattered with his vomit. I put it straight into the garbage. I need to brush his teeth. I could not have waked him if I’d tried, but it is not easy to get someone’s shirt off when he can’t cooperate. It is like making a bed with the person in it, which I learned to do when my husband was near the end. I saw the tattoo. We’d thought the clones must bear some mark of identification, but I was still a little shocked, really, to see it. The numbers were bigger and darker than you’d expect. They’d clearly been tattooed. They looked aggressive and mean. I sat down in the chair by the bed and watched him lying asleep on his back with his shirt off. I let him air out. I’ve seen the clone, now, all over, top and bottom, back and front. I’ve touched him in the most private places. We’d believed the cloning process might result in some physical deformities, that the clones might be clubfooted or harelipped. Maybe worse than that. Not this clone, anyway. His body is beautiful. It is flawless. Everything is where, and as, it should be. He is more beautiful than I remember Ray being, though I never got to see Ray with his clothes off. Am I seeing him now? As he was then? Was he this beautiful? I was thinking about how he’d got an erection when I was cleaning him, about how I’d held it in my hand. I felt a long, deep tug down there. I touched myself. I hadn’t thought to do that in a long time. Not since my husband died. Not when we were together.