The Dream of Doctor Bantam

by Jeanne Thornton

  I’m not really contributing anything, she said. I should go.

  You should be contributing the most, said Ira. You’re the booth babe. It’s your job to get pathetic dudes interested in you so that they think you’ll find them interesting, too, if they buy my publication.

  Julie laughed. That’s so cynical, she said. You want me to be a whore for your shitty political zine? Are you going to pay me whore’s rates? Are you going to protect me from other pimps? Do I have to get your name tattooed on my ass?

  You want to contribute; that’s how you contribute, Ira said.

  Julie glared at him; he was deep in his paperback. She sat up straight for a moment, then she stood up, planted her feet apart, put her hands behind her back. A couple was passing by, burnt orange sweater for the girl and longhorn ball cap for the guy; early-evening intoxication followed along with them like cartoon characters with hard luck rainclouds over their heads.

  Extra, extra, she shouted; the couple jumped. Read all about labor exploitation and Wal-Mart and God only knows what else! The Bluecollar Review, five years’ worth of fantastic content! Read it and weep for your wasted boorzhielives! Only three dollars!

  The couple sped up and rounded the corner just past the Institute building. Ira set down his paperback and looked at her.

  Perfect, he said. You’re a natural.

  Am I doing good? she asked. Am I good at making the boys like me?

  He shook his head and went back to reading. A girl had just come out of the Institute building, a lanky one: long ed hair, wine-colored, tight white lips set into a harmonica-playing grimace, black-stockinged legs pumping toward the Retrograde door. She wore the standard Institute uniform, white blouse and navy skirt, everything all buttoned up tight like battleship rivets.

  Extra, Julie shouted at the girl. New magazine about social injustice! Read it and weep! Only two dollars for the pretty, pretty lady!

  The girl didn’t even slow down. Her head whipped around to look at Julie; her red hair clouded around behind her skull, like a kind of Moral Majority version of Cyndi Lauper.

  But it was her eyes that did it: there was something about her eyes, something nuts, like an evil wizard was lurking somewhere in her retinas, firing lightning bolts out through her pupils. Julie shuddered. The girl stomped through the Retrograde door and disappeared; Julie started breathing again.

  Jesus, she said.

  What? said Ira. She’s from the Institute; they’re all nuts.

  That was beyond nuts, said Julie. That was like, she wanted to kill me.

  Now why would anyone want to kill you, said Ira, and kept reading.

  Julie looked at him, then picked up a copy of the latest issue and stood close to the door of the Retrograde, just around the corner of the doorframe, out of sight. The door opened and the red hair came into view; Julie stepped out and shoved the headline in the girl’s face.

  Extra, she screamed; the girl screamed also and stumbled on her high heels; the Americano she was carrying sloshed out of the slot in the paper cup lid.

  What is wrong with you, the girl wailed.

  Read all about it! said Julie. Bitches walk the streets of Austin! Entire farms ravaged by plague! Governor declares state of emergency!

  The girl stopped in place and turned, full on, to face Julie. There were drops of coffee clinging to the buttons of her blouse.

  I feel sorry for you, the girl said.

  She had a weird accent; her voice sounded deliberate, over-enunciated, like she’d learned English late in life, and her words came out spaced more evenly than they should have, the rhythm of machine gun rounds.

  I feel sorry for you, she repeated, because you will die having contributed nothing to the greater identity of mankind. You can only offer randomness, and noise.

  The girl’s eyes were still burning lightning into Julie’s. She felt like her bones were getting hollow and heavy at the same time, crazily, like this girl’s eyes were forcing her to sit down and close her mouth. She stiffened up her legs and shoved the headline forward again.

  Extra, she said. Local cult turns bitches even bitchier! Basic axioms of science are completely violated!

  The girl’s lip curled up; her teeth were creepily even, like some orthodontic malpractice had filed them flat.

  You don’t know what you’re talking about, she said.

  Yeah, well, you’re in a cult, said Julie.

  The Institute isn’t a cult, said the girl, and she raised her chin. If you want to know what the Institute is, I suggest you come with me, and I’ll enroll you in a relaxation course and you can learn for yourself what we are all about. Or you can stand on the street and shout like a, like a crazy person.

  Julie laughed.

  Sure, okay, she said. Let’s go enroll in a relaxation course.

  Julie, said Ira, putting the paperback down.

  No, it’s totally fine, said Julie. Let’s go. Ira, you know my mom’s address. Let her know that I’m joining the cult, okay? Let her know that I’ll be fine, I’m just getting a good brainwashing done, forget about school and things, and in like five years when I run out of money or piss off the Leader or whatever you have to do, I’ll quit and come home.

  She stared at the girl, tried to make lightning bolts come out of her own eyes.

  Is that okay with you? she said. Five years, all my money, then I quit; sound good?

  Fine, said the girl. If you never have to quit, what’s the point in doing anything?

  All the electric charge that had been building up in Julie’s eyes dissipated. Her nose was suddenly full of cigarette smoke; her mouth tasted like lingonberries.

  What did you say? she asked.

  But the girl had seen her back down, even just a little; the girl’s chin was in the air, she had moved on to Ira.

  Hi, Patrice, said Ira.

  Hello, Ira, said the girl, Patrice, apparently. She looked back at Julie; her lip curled to reveal those weird teeth again. What is your purpose out here, with this person?

  Ira shrugged. I have all kinds of friends, he said.

  Patrice looked down at him.

  It’s four days into June already, she said. Do you … are you going to make the usual payment?

  I’ll write you a check tomorrow, Ira said. I’ll come up and slip it under your door.

  Patrice nodded, slowly. The electricity was gone from her eyes as well; it was strange, it was like the science club Julie and Robbie had belonged to. They’d had to build a robot to go along a track of sensors, and it worked perfectly as long as you kept the controls tightly on the path—and the moment the robot lost track of the sensors, it started spinning, reeling, overheating—trying to find its way back to the sensors, the thing that gave its entire life meaning. Patrice’s mouth was darkening, slackening—she actually had pretty fantastic lips, Julie realized.

  Will it be a good check? Patrice asked.

  Good as any, Ira said.

  Patrice nodded, then looked back at Julie.

  Nice to meet you, she said, and she swung around and started walking slowly back to the Institute. Five steps in, she wandered back onto the sensor track; she sped up to her goose-step pace, smashed through the front door, disappeared.

  Julie stood with the Bluecollar Review hanging against her hip, stared at the place where Patrice had disappeared.

  So that’s two of my prominent female relationships you’ve fucked up today, said Ira. Congratulations. You’re going for the Guinness; I can feel it.

  You’re dating her? said Julie. So she dates guys, is what you’re saying? Have you ever seen her with girls?

  She’s my landlord, said Ira. Or I guess, property manager. The Institute is my landlord.

  Julie looked down at Ira.

  How can you stand to have the Institute be your landlord? she asked. They’re a destructive cult.

  They let me pay the rent months late, he said. It’s an ethically fucked up world. What can you do.

  She kept looking at him. T
hen she quickly sat down next to him, very close.

  You have to introduce me to her, she said. When can I come over?

  Ira laughed.

  That’s rich, he said. Introduce you to her. I think you made a good impression on her; thanks.

  Like she’s even going to remember this, said Julie. She’s probably crazy. Or whatever; she remembers it; I don’t care. You can smooth it over. Come on, invite me over. Make me a good introduction to her.

  Nothing doing, said Ira. I have to pay rent to her. I’m not introducing Julie Thatch to her.

  But she said what Tabitha said, said Julie.

  Her voice cracked when she said it. She let her lips close. Ira looked over at her, the streetlight smearing the lenses of his cracked plastic glasses.

  She said what Tabitha said? he asked.

  I mean, she’s hot, said Julie. Introduce me to her because she’s hot. Please.

  Ira looked down at the back of his paperback. He tapped it twice against his work boot. A group of students passed by, bragging about how many shots they’d done, or would do.

  All right, he said. Come by in a couple of days.

  Julie relaxed her spine; she looked out at the street, all the people floating by.

  Thank you, she said.

  No trouble, said Ira. So. Do you want to go get a hamburger?

  Shit, Julie laughed. We didn’t even sell anything. Come on, let’s stay out here longer. Let’s sell everything. Let’s sell out the whole print run. Let’s sell the rights to all the stories in all the future issues. Let’s sell the whole world.

  I never sell anything, said Ira. It’s fine. It’s a moral victory.

  She picked up a magazine anyway and ran after a kid with a backpack.

  Hey, she shouted. I’m the booth babe. I’ll like kiss you or something if you buy this, okay?

  He walked faster, away from her. She watched him, then went back to Ira. He started to pack up the back issues, the cardboard sign, the blanket; Julie watched him. He zipped up his backpack, shouldered it, and started walking north toward the all-night diner. Julie followed, the magazine in her hand.

  I hate moral victories, she said as they walked. Why would anyone want anything but money?

  What an adorable little capitalist pig, said Ira.

  I’m serious, said Julie, circling around to the front of him and walking backward with him down the street. Money means survival. I’m going to have so much money when I grow up. I’m going to, like, buy and sell you.

  I’m a bargain, said Ira. Jesus.

  What? asked Julie. That’s my name, don’t wear it out.

  It’s just, you and Tabitha are very different people, he said.

  She stopped in front of him, forcing him to stop with her. In the middle of the street she stood on the tips of her toes and kissed him so hard on the cheek that she left a red welt. She closed her eyes when she did it: in ghostly visions, a row of perfect, sneering white teeth.

  2

  The curbs in West Campus were covered with grass, rarely-mowed and hanging, concealing secret cities of insects. Above, the low-slung telephone wires crashed into the tops of trees. Everywhere nature was fighting civilization. On the porch of a commune along Rio Grande three twenty-somethings were smoking pot and barbecuing thick-smelling vegetables; they waved to Julie as she walked by, en route to Ira’s to meet this cult girl for real this time, the polo shirt she’d worn in eighth grade to the science fair regionals buttoned up to her neck. She didn’t wave back; they were wasting their lives.

  A spreading Bradford pear stained the Bermuda grass around Ira’s house blue in the late-May light. The house was old, 1970s, with a chain-link fence that squeezed out all sides of the rotting railing that closed in the porch. Flaking blue paint lined the wooden walls and there were spiderwebs between the slats, and a propped-up bike without a lock rested against the porch stairs. A white plastic table with a chessboard print bore a full ashtray centered two squares ahead of Queen’s pawn, and there was a rusted wire shelf lined with the usual junk: a garden trowel caked in mud, empty terra cotta pots, forgotten photograph frames, a pocket notebook short-edge bound in wire with no cover and CALL ABOUT JOB written in ballpoint pen with no number, no explanation.

  There were two doors. One of them led to the ground floor, the crack between porch and jamb guarded by a welcome mat with a Wolf Man print and flanked by a wide poster of a marijuana leaf and a Victor Moscoso print in nauseating stereographic orange. The other door led up.

  She stood on the Wolf Man welcome mat and knocked on Ira’s door, then paced the deck as she waited, looking through the window of the door leading upstairs. Varicolored Christmas lights ran around the inside of the door frame, climbed the baseboards and looped along the railing of the carpeted staircase on their way to frame the door to the apartment at the top. She knocked on Ira’s door again: no answer.

  God damn you, asshole, she hissed, and rattled the doorknob, open the door, open the door; I want to meet this cult girl already—

  She could hear faint guitar solos, honest and real-sounding, coming from somewhere at the back of the house. She bit her lip, hard, and tried to circle the porch, looking for a likely window, but then stopped. The door to the second floor was open.

  She told herself that she would go back down any second now as she climbed the steps. She’d just go up the first step; no, she’d go up halfway; no, she’d go up until she heard a creak. Photographs of Paris streets, no frames to them, had been Scotch-taped at even intervals along the narrow walls; reflections of pink, yellow, green, and blue glowed in the gloss of each black-and-white print. She tried to figure out exactly what was so unwholesome about this; it had something to do with the way you couldn’t see the lights from outside, something to do with the way they were decorations for an exclusively private audience. She left the door open to the porch as she climbed. Each step had an echo and from somewhere below the staircase she swore she could hear the rust and springs.

  She stepped off of the staircase and onto the landing. The door to the apartment had longago been painted red; filtered through the Christmas lights, the places where the paint had come off in wide flakes fluoresced in many colors like loosened, corrupted skin on the victim of some rare tropical fever.

  She thought about it—hell, she’d come here to meet this girl anyway—and she knocked. No answer. She knocked again, then jiggled the knob. It jiggled easily; the door of the apartment was unlocked. She knocked a third time, then turned the knob and opened the door. Immediately she began to cough as years of daily smoking’s stale air leaped out at her, its claws yellow and extended.

  Hello, she called. There was no answer.

  How far did she want to take this? And when would she have an opportunity like this again? And did these questions, in the end, contribute to one another?

  The apartment was no brighter than the staircase; heavy velvet drapes on the window choked out all but a wafer of sunlight. There was little furniture: a striped couch, a pair of wooden bar stools, a floor lamp covered by a scarlet handkerchief, an empty wrought-iron wine rack and a portable CD/cassette player painted burgundy and propped up on a pair of black plastic milk crates. Each bar stool held an old tuna can lined with cigarette butts. On the walls were more black-and-white photographs, three per wall, evenly spaced out along three of the four walls. The ceiling was a whole jungle canopy of Christmas lights; they bunched up and hung over Julie’s head like adders.

  Hello, she called; this time she didn’t wait for an answer.

  She circled the walls, looking at the photographs. She made it halfway around the room, five photos in, before she frowned and went back to the first wall, the north one. A restaurant on the Trocadero, tourists having picnics on Sacre-Coeur, a bookseller’s cart on the quays. Then, on the east wall: Trocadero restaurant, tourists and picnics, bookseller’s cart. The south wall was the same.

  She circled, comparing, and she didn’t notice the legs hanging over the couch until at least
a minute after she really should have.

  The legs that hung over the edge of the couch were tan and smooth, except for one long razor scratch that ran from the shin up to the point where the skin disappeared into a silver Japanese robe. The girl from the street was drooling on a yellow pillow propped on the couch’s other arm. Her eyes were closed, pressed into the fabric; her hair, red-gold and genetically immoderate, spilled around her broad angel forehead, her elf jawline. Her neck crooked like a swan’s, retired like a turtle’s into the folds of the Japanese robe. Her toes splayed and flexed in feline sleep. She seemed transformed—she was a second girl, somehow, asleep. Whether she was the good or the evil twin, Julie couldn’t tell.

  Julie stared at her toes as they moved.

  Patrice opened her eyes. There was a spot of drool on her dark brown lips; a tongue lapped it away. She lifted her head and blinked at the complete stranger in her living room.

  Hi, said Julie. We met the other day.

  You’re Julie, she said. It was the same cigarette voice of Patrice, yesterday, but changed, slackened. She looked at the stain on her pillow and touched it with the tip of one long, tan finger.

  I am Julie, said Julie. I’m sorry I, um, came into your apartment. I can come back later, if you want.

  No, said the girl. Now’s fine. What does this look like to you?

  The drool stain looked a moon with parts of it falling off and streaking as they entered the atmosphere. Julie frowned and focused on her legs.