The Dream of Doctor Bantam
Page 14
Can I get it with milk? she asked Officer Kate.
I don’t care what you do, said Officer Kate.
She asked the gawky barista to add some milk and then she and Officer Kate sat on the couch together for fifteen minutes, and Officer Kate explained to her that she was sorry, that the Institute made these kinds of calls every four days, at least, usually for some nonsense, one time she had had to run a homeless woman off, this woman who was just sleeping on the sidewalk outside, for having a gun, which was actually just a brush, and as far as she was concerned those Institute people were total scum, complete abusers of the police system, that she wouldn’t answer their constant calls to the station if there wasn’t some kind of fundamental police oath that made you have to answer constant calls to the station like that, it’s terrible how some people take advantage, there are so many better things she could be doing, so anyway, kids like you ought to stay away from them, and she won’t cite you this time, but she may have to if you go back there, all right, even if it’s stupid, even if this whole legal system is stupid, she’s getting a refill, do you want anything?
Another coffee with milk, said Julie.
Officer Kate brought back two cups of coffee, one with milk and one black. She took out a flask in a leatherworked slipcase engraved with runes, and poured a tiny splash into the coffee, then drank it in a slow, hissy sip.
Remember, she said. Don’t go back there, okay? Those people are crazy. They’re menaces.
She tipped the rest of the flask into her coffee, radioed to the dispatcher, and left Julie with half of her croissant and an hour to go before Patrice got off work.
She let herself into the apartment with the key Patrice had given her. It had been nearly two weeks and Patrice hadn’t thought to change the lock.
For this reason, she read as she sat on the couch waiting for Patrice to come home, the timebound are essentially grafted into a reality of moments, not of facts. To the timebound, this statement would seem nonsense: to a perspective confined to fourspace, there could be no such thing as a fact without that fact’s grounding in time. Facts—which are true and which, as we have seen, are eternal—are distinct from events—which are bound up in particulars, causality, and other false perspectives of this kind.
Imagine trying to describe a person by saying: “At noon he has a mustache; at three his eyes are blue; at five he has a deep voice.” This would not only miss the point, but it would be redundant, nonsensical, and false—as false as the life of the timebound.
She wanted a reality of moments for Patrice—new moments, moments in which Patrice was free, was alive.
The door opened; Patrice came in; Julie sat up on her knees. Patrice smiled at her as she slid her shoes off, held an arm over her chest as she bent—suddenly modest, like a bride.
I have to finish some of this work, Patrice said. And then we can talk, all you like.
I’ll provide you with moral support, said Julie, hands in her pockets.
They went into the bedroom. Julie shifted some of the clothes over and set herself down on the bedspread. With a grunt, Patrice lifted the Machine from its place and set it on the chair beside her with a metal thunk.
You do that every time you need to use the desk? asked Julie.
I am used to it, said Patrice.
I’d change it, said Julie. I’d steal a TV tray for you, or a cabinet or something. I’d make it so you’d never have to lift a finger again.
Patrice smiled, dippily, then took papers out of the suitcase.
She worked for a while, mostly reviewing the papers, comparing them with other papers, marking quick notes in a quadrille pad identical to the diary Julie wasn’t really supposed to know about. Julie liked watching her work. The way her wrist tensed and released when she made the long loop at the end of her letters, like a cat’s paw shaking off water. The way she rapped each triplicate form three times against her desk before putting them away. The way she pinched dogears between her fingers, tight, like killing horseflies. The way she pumped on the stapler violently, like she was digging a posthole. The way she made clerical work seem like being a ranch hand; this was her country, this Institute work, ranging all around her. She had a sweetly fascist expression while she worked.
Tell me what you’re doing, said Julie.
She stopped, flustered, the spell broken.
I’m, nothing, she said. These are our students, at the Institute, who come in for free sessions to determine whether or not they want to join. It’s called pre-INTAKE, kind of an outreach.
You should take a break, said Julie. You should sit with me, on the bed.
I need to work, said Patrice. My identity is as a student of the Institute, so I need to work.
That sounds so creepy, said Julie.
I am sorry it sounds creepy, said Patrice.
Your identity should be to sit here with me, on the bed, said Julie.
She had just been saying things, enjoying how it flustered her. But Patrice stopped writing altogether, sat with her palm down on the desk, her head hung.
Sorry, said Julie. You should work. I know.
Then Patrice lifted her head and turned the chair around to face her.
I need to smoke, she said. Let’s go in the other room.
No, I like it here, said Julie. We’ll smoke in here.
Here is where I work, said Patrice. Here I can’t work if I smell smoke.
I’ll fix it, said Julie. I’ll take care of everything. Come here.
Patrice turned in her chair. One hand gripped the edge of the desk like it was the railing around a tiger pit.
Come here, said Julie. She patted the spot next to her on the paisley blanket. Come here. Trust Julie.
Patrice got up. Looking up at her, her face was like a falcon’s face; the long, straight nose; the eyes beady and hungry behind it. Julie smiled and patted the spot on the blanket one, two, three times. On the third pat Patrice marched forward and sat.
The weight of her like a seesaw, shifting the balance of the springs. The smell of her; the heat of her just six inches away. The force of her crazy eyes—still there, even in this quieter form, still there. She looked at Julie openly; with no part of her was she smiling. She had come to do what duty at last made her do. Julie smiled at this, welcomed her in with her smile, made her feel comfortable. Then she pounced.
Patrice gave a shriek as Julie fell across her lap—her breasts were touching Patrice’s thighs—and Patrice tried to get up, but Julie was too heavy for her, held her down as she grabbed the other end of the paisley sheet and pulled it off the mattress and over their heads. She held Patrice’s wrists together and stroked the inside of them with her fingers as Patrice whimpered in the darkness.
Shh, said Julie. Shh. Give me your cigarettes.
Patrice didn’t move. Julie poked her head out of the blanket, saw the pack on the table, dragged it inside. She drew out a cigarette with her left hand and found Patrice’s mouth with the fingers of her right.
Soft skin, wet surface, hidden mesas of bone. Julie worked Patrice’s lips open; she didn’t resist; she allowed it to happen. Her heartbeat, pressed against Julie’s leg, was fast, frightened, thrilled as it echoed against the cloth walls of the paisley cave. Julie set the cigarette in her mouth; she found the matches in her pocket. The flicker, old and red, against the walls. The hints of her face in the burning cherry: the shadowed hollow at the base of the neck, the cartoon slit of a mouth, two bright dots dancing in black-and-brown pools. She coughed a little, shifted against Julie.
Shh, said Julie. You’ll knock the cave down. You’ll get smoke everywhere.
You don’t have a cigarette, said Patrice.
I have you, said Julie. You’re smoking. I’m smoking you.
She closed her eyes in the dark and opened her mouth; she found Patrice’s lips; she breathed in the smoke from her mouth.
Maybe it was the nicotine: her heart, tick-tocking away in her ribs against Julie’s ear, skipped its beat.
Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m thinking, Julie said into Patrice’s lips.
Lunch line in third grade, shuffling along with the same forty kids for the same five interminable minutes. Eyes on Bethany Whitney ahead of her, on Bethany’s Hypercolor T-shirt, its shadows brighter than its highlights. Eyes on Bethany’s shuffling white shorts.
She thought about all the possible ways girls and boys could combine. Boys had a presence and girls had an absence. They could complement one another; this seemed best. Boys and boys was second best: they could clash with one another, swordfight, maybe invert a presence into an absence. Girls were shit out of luck. She thought about it as she took her tray of spaghetti with butter and followed Bethany Whitney’s ass to the long cafeteria tables. Two Thermos cups banging, trying to find a way into one another. Two milk cartons trying to pour into one another, only pouring the same old nonsense back and forth until it went bad.
But it wasn’t that. It was easing a long silk scarf through the crack underneath a door, slowly, slowly, being careful not to tear it. It was the thrill of watching it catch for a moment, watching the fine strands that made it up stretch, watching them break, watching it jump free. Watching it fill with air, like a sail, then luff, then float to the carpet, come to rest.
Fuck the cave, she said, and so they lay on the bare mattress, the twisted remains of the fitted sheet between them, the paisley blanket wrapped around their feet like clouds of foam out of the sea. Patrice was smoking, quiet.
I can’t feel my legs, said Julie. Jesus. Can you feel your legs?
Mm, said Patrice.
Who can feel her legs better? asked Julie. Should we have a race?
She dug at Patrice’s side with her pinching fingers. Patrice slapped her hand away.
I’m sorry I called you a destruction addict, she said. I was so afraid you’d go away, I wouldn’t see you anymore. I was so stupid to be so afraid.
Her eyes got wide and she turned away.
I was so stupid to be afraid, she wailed.
Hey, said Julie. It’s fine. Hey.
Three o’clock is after six o’clock, she said into the pillow.
It’s fine, said Julie, sitting up on an elbow, shaking her. It’s fine!
She rolled onto her back. Those eyes again, that body exposed, those arms hanging defenseless at its sides. The lines of the pillow still pressed into her face. The deep flush of her cheeks in the darkness, the thing possessing her still hanging in the air, a cloud of wicked smoke, escaped from their blanket cave, in the air above her face.
Always stay with me, said Patrice into the smoke. Always be here.
I always will, said Julie, without thinking.
It was June, and in August she’d go back for her senior year of high school. It was June and she wanted to save someone’s soul; it was June and she talked with beautiful girls about the meaning of time and the meaning of life; it was June and she ran her fingers through red-gold hair in an apartment far, far from home. It was June, and for all her life she had lived on a dock, pacing back and forth looking for ships, and now one was passing her by, and she shot her harpoon gun over the sea wall and the breakers, into the prow, on an impossible tightrope she’d walked until she was here in front of the prow, the woman cutting the waves, her wood faded to yellow and her eyes sad-carved, dripping with salt, and it was June, and Julie clung to the woman on the prow, happy stowaway, for as long as her arms could hold out, and dreamed as cold water crashed into her again and again and she dreamed she could catch rainbows in the spray if she looked.
And in August, the ship would shake her loose; summer would be over and her real life would start again. She would let go and fall into the sea. Or she would hang on and let the ship carry her—where? Wherever they would go, together.
Patrice was asleep, hot breath on the soft skin above her breast; she held tighter, and as much as she didn’t believe it, as much as she hated it, she offered up this prayer: let Patrice be right about time. Let the dream of Doctor Bantam be real; let August never come.
INSTITUTE OF TEMPORAL ILLUSIONS
INTERNAL SERVICES MEMO
“The one moral commandment, the one true virtue in any honest identity, can be expressed in one word: simplify!”
— Alistair Bantam, Founder
From: Identity Counseling Administration, ITI Branch #0242 (AU-TEX), 1st Floor Coordinator
To: Identity Evaluations, ITI Branch #0242 (AU-TEX), 2nd Floor Coordinator
cc: National ITI Archives, Quality Control Identity Processing Office, Bantam Office of Ephemeral Archiving
Re: Report and Evaluation of Identity Counseling Session REFERENCE 10/28/02, Dual Identity, Patrice Marechal Degree 0–9 and Gregory Roche Degree 0–10
PURPOSE: To make honest the shared identity of Roche 0–10 and Marechal 0–9, both Branch #0242 AU-TEX staff for REFERENCE 3 and REFERNECE 5 respectively and improve relative security in identities of both parties and also redress diminishment of productivity caused by lack of honesty in shared identity of both parties. To make things better.
MATERIALS:
Machine, Bantam Memory Elucidator Mk VIII
Machine, Bantam Memory Elucidator Mk VIII (second copy)
Paper (ream, 1x)
#2H Pencils (12x)
Identities (2x)
PROCEDURES:
(1) The order of administration of Machine counseling is determined by a coin flip. Roche’s case is attended to with greater priority than Marechal’s, resulting from her choosing TAILS, erroneously.
(2) Both identities are taken into a room and the Machine is administered. Counselors zero out Machine feedback then run association drills to remind the fundamental identity to be forthcoming about questions on sensitive topics relating to interpersonal relationships without slamming, distorting, or blinking out sensitive data.
(3) Identical questions are administered to both identities and the results recorded using an equal quantity of pencils, paper, etc. according to the judgment of the administrator.
(4) The results of the interview are attached below.
RESULTS:
Attached is the full transcript of the interviews with Roche and with Marechal, pursuant to Founder’s Directive of 04/02/81 on Information Retention.
INTERVIEW 10/28/02:011: ROCHE
Describe the object of inquiry when she first became known to you.
I saw her first—or our identities became known to one another first I guess, more precisely—when I was working pre-INTAKE on Guadalupe street. The branch was doing below-optimal, lots of bounces and flakes and headshakers on our roster, and only two people routed into dismantling/counseling over the weeks prior, so as you can imagine my boss was kind of riding me and I was pretty stressed out. So I was working hard. I was pitching hardballs, raving up enthusiasm, basically running any process I could run to route people into counseling and grow the chapter and keep myself, you know, on course to zero.
You haven’t answered. Describe the object of inquiry when she first became known to you.
She was—it was a positive interaction. I mean I thought she was cute and all—and serious-minded and not too timebound or anything, also. Maybe other identities wouldn’t have the same perception of her as cute. She was dressed like everyone else was, you know, burnt orange hoodie and white shorts and white sneakers, and her red hair looked kind of wet as she rushed from class to dorm and back. She had a pencil stuck into it or something—it looked kind of bizarre.
Go deeper on the object of inquiry.
She didn’t have that pale skin that most redheads had. She was like half Greek or something—she looked kind of bronzed, stained. You could tell that underneath the bulky sweater fabric she had nice curves—small, kind of aerodynamic, but still nice. Her face was kind of long and her eyes kind of bulged out. She looked a little crazy, honestly. She looked like there was some furious little orchestra playing inside her head and she had to b
e 100 percent focused on conducting it, and anytime you said anything to her it was like she had to rewrite the whole score on the fly around what you said, conducting all the while. So I guess we clicked or something. We both seemed kind of stressed—I mean, serious too.
Describe your initial interactions with the object.
I asked her if she was having a good day, pursuant to the usual rave-up process. She stopped and she looked at me—and I don’t mean she just slowed down; it was like she froze in place and stared. She said, I don’t know if I’m having a good day.
So I asked her if there was any stress in her life that might be causing her not to have a good day. She thought about it.
I guess my classes, she said. I guess I’m having a hard time with my economics classes.
Can you help yourself? I asked.
I’m sorry? she said. She had that kind of weird way of talking—you know how she talks, kind of monotone. She had that even then.
It’s what we say, I said. People always ask you if they can help you, in like stores and things. But what they mean is: can I help you buy something from me? So we like to ask: can you help yourself? It’s a little more honest, and people can only really help themselves in the end. Don’t you agree?
She stared at me—her lips fell open. She still had braces, then—it seemed weird to me, someone having braces at nineteen, which is how old she was, then. Who gets braces at nineteen?
I’m not sure if I can help myself, she said.
That’s ridiculous, I smiled. Every person in the world can help himself, or herself. You just have to want to learn how.
I gave her the questioning-eyes process, but I didn’t even need to—at that point it was, you know, like fish in a barrel. I followed the Bantam program for pre-INTAKE and didn’t even have to branch down the flowchart very far. She agreed to come in for a free relaxation course in three minutes I think. Score one stat point for the week and the heat was a little bit off of me. At the time it seemed like a miracle.
At the time?
Oh God—I mean, let me be precise—it seems like a miracle here, where we were then on the map of time; here, where we are now, talking to you, it seems less like a miracle. I guess this is the source of the problems I’ve been having with this whole breakup?