Half World: A Novel

by O'Connor, Scott

  Thomas was shouting, suddenly. The B Geary line runs continuously from six A.M. to eight P.M. and on an intermittent overnight schedule. Streetcars running every ten minutes during the workday, every half hour thereafter.

  Ginnie knelt beside him, held her finger to her lips.

  The Geary Street rail service will close at the end of the year, he shouted, with buses replacing the streetcars. Thereafter streetcar service will permanently cease operation.

  “Switch,” she whispered. “Switch.” She could see Thomas struggling for the meaning of the word, his eyes circling the room, then it came to him and he pressed the imagined button on his chest, closed his mouth, his eyes, the power draining from his engine.

  Ginnie could hear a big-band theme from the living room, the quiz show signing off. She leaned in and kissed Thomas on the forehead. She stood and watched him flinch, recoiling, as if wishing away the simple feeling of contact.

  22

  Henry’s visions began not long after they’d started with the johns. Fleeting things, in windows, mirrors. The moments in the north bedroom that Henry turned away from, brought back to him later, as if trapped in the glass. The car windshield, the television in the living room of the house in Oakland, its screen dark in the early morning, Ginnie and the children asleep.

  A john with Elizabeth, a john with Emma. A john holding Elizabeth’s wrists and Henry looks away, down from the glowing window to his ledger. A john pulling Emma’s hair, slapping her across the face. A john holding Elizabeth by the neck, shouting into her open mouth.

  At a movie theater with Hannah and the images on-screen twist into a nightmare memory. At the breakfast table, cutting Thomas’s toast and a movement in the window catches Henry’s eye. A john’s arm swinging and a girl falling and the first body climbing onto the second.

  He looks at Hannah, at Thomas. He looks at Ginnie in the passenger seat beside him and can see the north bedroom in the car’s window beyond.

  That is Henry Gladwell. Henry March would not allow these things. He needs to remind himself of the distinction. This is something Weir taught him. Every operation has casualties. There are always compromises made for a larger good. This was why other names were necessary. There were practical reasons and then there were deeper concerns.

  A girl in a window with a man who means her harm.

  Henry Gladwell, Henry March. He excuses himself from the dinner table and looks in the bathroom mirror, the face reflected there. Repeating the name. You have to go home at night, Weir had said. Don’t forget this. You have to remind yourself of who you really are.

  23

  The man from Washington arrived on the first afternoon of the summer. He seemed like an extension of the day, bright and blond and blue-eyed, tan from his time on the road in the rented convertible he’d parked halfway down the block.

  His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, his shirt open at the collar. He approached Henry with a matinee-idol smile.

  “Let me guess. They didn’t tell you I was coming.”

  Henry shook his head.

  “Dr. Cameron Clarke,” he said, offering his hand. “You can call me Chip. Paul Marist says hello.”

  * * *

  Clarke walked through the north living room, taking in the furnishings, the artwork.

  “This is really something.”

  Henry poured Clarke a scotch in the kitchen. The man was familiar somehow. Henry tried to place the face. The name didn’t register, but the name could have been invented two weeks ago, could have been created in the convertible on his drive west.

  “Where’s the other man?” Clarke said. He sat on the sofa, sipping his scotch.

  “Dorn.”

  Clarke lifted a packet out of his shirt pocket, set a cigarette on his lower lip. “I’ve been told he’s quite a character.”

  “That would be an accurate description.”

  “How many”—Clarke lit a match, looking for the word—“ladies do you have working?”

  “Two.”

  That Saturday-afternoon smile again. “Ever thought you’d be doing something like this, Mr. March?”

  “Gladwell.”

  “Gladwell, right. Mind if I call you Henry?”

  “That’s fine.”

  Clarke shook his head, delighted by the entire thing.

  Henry said, “Did we meet in Washington?”

  “I don’t believe so. Do I look familiar?”

  “No.”

  “Well, there you go.” Clarke sipped his drink. “I have a delivery for you, down in the car. Locked in the glove box, don’t worry. I meant to bring it up, but I was so eager to see the place.” He leaned back on the couch, smiling at the prints on the walls. “This is really something else.”

  “We should go down.”

  “Of course.” Clarke rose from the sofa, swallowed the last of his scotch, shaking a sliver of ice into his mouth. “You’ll want to meet Stormy.” He looked at Henry. “That’s what we call it. I have no idea who came up with the name, but it fits. Just wait until you see Stormy in action.”

  * * *

  They sat around Henry’s desk in the office. Clarke opened the box and unrolled a sheet of newspaper. He removed a glass vial and held it between his thumb and index finger. The vial was half full with a clear liquid. He turned it to catch the light from the desk lamp.

  He talked about dosage. He talked about onset period and duration of effects. He talked about precautionary measures to take when handling, not to let the liquid touch their clothes, their skin.

  “What’s a microgram?” Dorn said.

  Clarke set the vial on the desk. They all stared, as if waiting for it to do something on its own.

  “One millionth of a gram,” Clarke said.

  “That means nothing to me.”

  “One-tenth the size of a grain of sand.”

  “And how much is in there with the water?”

  “Five hundred micrograms. One dose.”

  “How much is too much?” Henry said.

  Clarke shook his head. “You can’t overdose. Not that we’ve seen.”

  “Have you tried it?” Dorn said.

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  Clarke smiled. “And everything changes.”

  He said that everyone back east used the pet name for the drug. Small caps when written, whispered when spoken. STORMY. They even used the name in official correspondence, though official correspondence on the subject was rare and discouraged. STORMY was a more accurate description, Clarke said, more elegant than its full Christian name.

  “Which would be what?” Dorn said.

  Clarke lit a cigarette, shook his match out into the ashtray on Henry’s desk. “Lysergic acid diethylamide.”

  Dorn stared at the vial, tapping his teeth with his fingernail.

  “How many doses did you bring?” Henry said.

  “Enough.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They’re secure.”

  “They’re not secure unless they’re with me.”

  “I’ll hang on to them,” Clarke said.

  “That’s not acceptable.”

  “I’ve been instructed to hang on to them.” Clarke pulled on his cigarette, set it to rest in the ashtray. He looked across the desk at Henry. “Do you want to try it? You could consider it hands-on research.”

  “No.”

  Clarke looked at Dorn. “How about you?”

  “No.” Henry answered before Dorn could open his mouth.

  “Have it your way.” Clarke sat back, lifted his cigarette. “But you have no idea what you’re missing.”

  24

  They left the house early on Saturday mornings, dressing quietly and meeting in the kitchen. Henry drank his coffee and Hannah rushed through her cereal, anxious to
leave before her mother and brother awoke. Standing in the doorway, arms folded, foot tapping, gestures she’d learned from impatient television wives.

  They approached the bay through the surrounding neighborhoods, the sky beginning to lighten as they made their way down the hill, and then the bridge appeared, rising to fill the windshield, the long spans revealed, steel arms glinting in the sun.

  They drove the lower deck, in the lane beside the trains. Every week Henry asked if Hannah wanted to drive all the way over, into the city, and every week she said no.

  The bridge itself fascinated her. She rattled off information as they drove, things she’d learned in school, the height of the towers and length of the span and the time it had taken to build. It seemed like an ancient structure to her, something that had stood since an unimaginable past, but Henry was always struck by the facts, how quickly something so colossal had been constructed and its relative youth, only twice as old as Hannah.

  She talked while he drove. This was more like the Hannah he knew. She had always been genial and outgoing, a member of the Brownie Scouts, leader of a Polly Pigtail Club she had founded with a group of friends in Arlington. She had her mother’s self-assurance, making her a mystery to Henry in the same way that Ginnie was a mystery to him. Their ease in the world. But the move and the film had changed her, had made her wary and uncertain in ways that Henry understood.

  She still woke two or three times a week, crying from nightmares about the bomb and the devastated city. On the nights that he was home he tried to reassure her, but it was becoming clear that there were no words convincing enough. So he tried something else, bringing her postcards from drugstores and newsstands, photos of Chinatown storefronts and Union Square hotels, seals sunning themselves on the piers. Evidence of normalcy in the city. Proof of life.

  She preferred black-and-white postcards, which surprised him. He would have thought she’d find the color comforting, more like real life, but she felt the black-and-white images had an authenticity the others lacked. She studied the pictures in her bedroom, holding them for long silent moments, eyes moving slowly across the thin cardboard. She looked for the most mundane of images, rows of tidy houses, street signs, men loading a milk truck curbside. Moments so commonplace that they’d be impossible to fabricate, wouldn’t be worth constructing a lie around. When she found one, she thumbtacked the postcard to the wall with the others she’d selected. Then she stepped back and looked at the images, at the larger image the smaller ones created.

  Into the tunnel, the sun and sky gone, suddenly. Hannah pointed across the tracks to the doorway-size openings in the far wall. Those are dead-man holes, she said. They’re for the gandy dancers. So rail workers can step in and disappear if a train is coming.

  They never drove farther than Yerba Buena. Henry parked the car on the island so that it faced the bridge and they watched the sparse weekend traffic crossing between cities. Ginnie and Thomas would be up by now, having breakfast in the kitchen. Ginnie watching the clock on the stove, worrying. She had lost some of her confidence, too, since those last months in Washington. His uncertainty had made them all unsure.

  Henry suggested that they take the train the following week, have lunch on Market Street, ride a streetcar up the hill to see Oakland from the other side of the bay. He always suggested this, and Hannah always responded in the same way. Looking out at the towers in the fog, nodding, noncommittal, still unconvinced.

  They drove home, back across the bridge. Hannah was quieter now. She looked out her window, pointing to dead-man holes, watching the railmen working on the sides of the tracks and then looking for a train. Wanting to see the system work, the safe escape. Waiting for the noise and the engine lights, for one of the men to step into a doorway and disappear.

  25

  Dorn is late and when he finally arrives at the south apartment he’s drunk.

  “I don’t want to see that look, Hank. It’s been a bitch of a day.” He crosses to the breakfront bar, grabs the scotch. “I spent all afternoon in the hospital.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened.” Dorn pours a drink, tosses it back. “My wife needed some tests.”

  Henry’s ledger is open to a blank page. He checks his watch, writes the date and time. He almost writes the full name of the drug and then stops himself, inscribing the nickname instead.

  Dorn says, “Any word from Emma?”

  “Not yet.”

  Dorn fills his flask, spilling scotch, cursing under his breath.

  Henry says, “What kind of tests?”

  Dorn takes a drink, screws the cap back onto his flask. “Not the good kind.”

  He goes back outside to wait.

  * * *

  Henry checks his watch, looks up from the ledger to see Clarke on the other side of the mirror. Clarke is standing in the bedroom, almost perfectly still, except for a slight turn at the waist. His eyes moving, trying to spot the equipment, the cameras and spike mics. Trying to see the room as the john will see it. Looking at the walls, the ceiling. He doesn’t look into the mirror because the mirror is obvious.

  Clarke speaks softly, Hello, hello. Henry hears his voice in the headphones and knows who Clarke is, finally. He recognizes the voice, the psychiatrist at the back of the conference room in Washington, the man standing in shadow while the films of the captured soldiers played against the wall.

  * * *

  Noise on the stairs and then Dorn comes into the office, Clarke following close behind. They pull their chairs alongside Henry’s, facing the glass. They put on their headphones. Dorn starts to cough, pounds his chest. Henry and Clarke watch him as if they’re at a theater and the performance won’t begin until the noise subsides. Dorn passes his flask to Clarke and Clarke takes a long drink.

  * * *

  Front door, shoes in the living room. The sound of Emma pouring drinks in the kitchen. Henry pictures the eyedropper in her purse, now in her hand, the dropper uncapped, the liquid squeezed into the drink.

  STORMY.

  Henry marks the time in his ledger.

  * * *

  Voices in the headphones.

  This ain’t your apartment.

  Me and a friend, Emma says.

  Where’s your friend?

  Out.

  She coming back?

  Not tonight.

  Dorn sucks an antacid. The slight squeak of the circling tape reels is the only other sound in the office.

  Emma says, I know you. Your name’s Lonnie, right? I’ve heard you play.

  Where?

  That club on Post Street.

  Never played there.

  I’ve heard you play. I remember your face.

  You can’t see my face when I’m playing.

  I remember it from when you lowered your horn. Another man playing. You were standing there waiting, watching him, bobbing your head. Holding your horn at your side. I remember your face.

  You want money or dope?

  We can talk about that later.

  We can talk about that later. Who you trying to kid?

  I want to hear you play.

  I ain’t playing tonight.

  You’ve got your horn.

  I’ve always got my horn. But I haven’t played in a month.

  I’ll just sit and listen.

  Put on a record. We’ll listen to that.

  I don’t want a record. I want to dance while you play.

  I don’t play fast.

  I don’t dance fast.

  * * *

  The sound of the horn in the headphones. Henry lowers the gain, looks to Dorn, worried about the noise. The neighbors across the alley calling the police, someone coming out to knock at the door.

  Clarke takes off his headphones and cocks his head, listens to the music through the walls. “Body and So
ul,” he whispers, and for some reason Henry writes this in the ledger.

  * * *

  Lonnie’s naked back to the mirror. Long, thick scars crossing his shoulder blades. Emma on her knees in front of him, invisible to the men in the office. Lonnie’s head back, looking up at the ceiling fan, and Henry takes a picture.

  Emma stops. Her face appears beside Lonnie’s waist.

  What’s the matter, baby?

  She stands and takes a step back and looks at Lonnie.

  I can see the sky, he says.

  How’s that?

  The roof has curled back and I can see the sky. There. He points to the ceiling.

  Maybe you should sit down.

  Where’s my horn? He sits on the bed, still looking up.

  Baby?

  Where’s my horn? I have to play this.

  * * *

  The sound of Dorn clearing his throat and then he steps into frame, the view through the mirror. Lonnie still sitting on the bed looking up at the ceiling. The rest of the room of no interest to him. Emma stands from the bed, her long limbs, like a crane dipping when she bends to pick her dress off the floor. She backs out of the room.

  Lonnie looks right at the camera hidden behind the ceiling fan and Henry takes a picture. The captured moment: Lonnie on the bed, Dorn inside the door, standing slightly hunched, some great beast arrived at the heart of the thing.

  * * *

  Lonnie.

  No response.

  Lonnie.

  Who’s that?

  Look over here.

  Who’s that?

  Over here.

  Oh, Jesus.

  Do you know who I am?

  Oh, Jesus.

  You know who I am?

  I know. I know. I can see your eyes.

  Henry removes his headphones, sets them on his desk during the screaming.

  * * *

  Many questions. Names, dates, who knows who, where can I find this man, who does this man know. Lonnie’s answers are meaningless. Bears, green, green, “St. James Infirmary.” As if he’s hearing different questions. As if he’s having another conversation somewhere else.