PLOWING THE DARK

by Richard Powers

  Adie sat listening, eviscerated. When she couldn't make out Ted's words, she made them up rather than ask him to repeat a single vowel. The boys talked on, memories feeding on themselves, for in the end, there was nothing but reworking the one hope chest full of stories. For a while Adie walked around the room, groping every object she could reach. She looked over the small library of CDs, a medium invented since she and Ted had lived together. The tune that she searched for cowered there, among the others.

  Do you listen much to your discs? A decade and a half of dodged questions, and this was the thing she chose to ask. She bit her tongue and hoped for a yes. At least some pit orchestra, to accompany the endless afternoons of sparrow-bickering.

  Not…. as often as you might think. They're hard to get to. Hard... to load.

  She knew what "hard" stood for. "Hard" was the last euphemism that dignity left him.

  Lunch came. A tuna salad for the resident, and a cube of Jell-O for his guests to share. Steve and the nurse, with orchestration from Zimmerman, moved him from bed to chair. Adie watched. TeraSys robots moved with more mobility and coordination. The body that had warmed her once, that she had warmed, now flopped toward its target like hardened rubber.

  The nurse hovered. You want some help with your food, Ted?

  He waved her off, the arm a brutal flail. I will lunch alone with my friends. With whom I have not dined for some time.

  His fork performed a bravura, involuntary loop-the-loop. Steve, suppressing a laugh, started to choke on a bite of tuna. Ted flailed at him, and his fork hit the rug. This second fling sent celery chunks flying in all directions. The boys were both hysterical. And then they weren't. That long, wheezing suck of air that each previous time had turned into a laugh veered into another place.

  Adie stepped into the breach before she even knew there was one. She pulled her chair flush against Ted's and took up his jettisoned fork. As if she had done it forever, each day of her adult life, she stabbed a chunk of tuna and steered it into this lunging little chick's mouth. Ted opened, received, and swallowed, also knowing the drill. Her free arm went out and encircled him, steadying the bull's-eye.

  So how about that Little League World Series? she asked him. Something else, huh?

  The corners of his chewing mouth pulled up in an almost controlled rictus.

  Lunch decimated, the composer confided in them about his new project, just under way. A last-minute sprint to the finish, something midway between setting Scottish folk tunes and heaving up an Opus 111. The work lay hiding inside his portable computer. Spiegel fired the box up for a look. The full score appeared on the screen.

  Spiegel cleared his throat in shock. Chamber orchestra, Ted? Where are you going to find a chamber orchestra to play contemporary music these days? Or is this another soap-company commercial?

  Zimmerman howled. Look at it. Read the notes, you Philist...

  Adie came up behind Spiegel. The two of them inspected the score, trying to turn the armada of formal symbols into a symphony for the inner ear.

  How are you entering this? she asked.

  It seemed one of the nurses, an amateur pianist, occasionally came and took dictation. It took Ted almost a full minute to say as much. She s also ... something of a ... piece. It aids ... the composition process ... to have someone ... to impress.

  The visitors traded disbelief. The man was dead up to the waist, with the tide rising. But something in him still pursued the conquest, long after conquest could be of any use.

  /'// take some dictation if you like, Steve offered.

  Ted's eyes went round and terrified: Would you?

  Just don't try to cop a feel while I'm at it.

  Adie stood to go. I'm taking a walk. My bit to aid the creative process.

  She came back an hour later. Stevie swung around at her entrance, utterly panicked. His look accused her: Where have you been? It's hopeless. Hopeless. She came over to the screen. They'd added no more than four measures.

  We're going on an expedition, she announced. It's gorgeous out there. She crossed over to Ted and draped herself around him. You'd like that, wouldn't you?

  His eyes fled back into their place of wonder. I... would. ... indeed.

  They dollied his wheelchair down the linoleum hall and through the rec room. The circle of charmed TV viewers now sat in communion over an extinguished set. No one objected to the fact that the screen had gone blank. At the sight, Ted sucked air in through the sides of his mouth—eeegh ... eeegh—and Adie accelerated him out the front door.

  His spectral wail only crescendoed, once out in the open air. Everything in this scared, small town that could possibly stare at him did. All Lebanon gawked at the man in a wheelchair, bellowing at this chance gift of freedom.

  Adie leaned down to Ted's ear. Sotto voce, through the side of her mouth, she giggled, Now, Grandpa, you fucking control yourself or we're taking you back to the can. This only made Stevie pick up and propagate the horse laugh.

  First time, Ted tried to say. First time in six months. Not fifty yards down the asphalt, he cried out, My God!

  Adie slammed the wheelchair to a stop, bracing for crisis.

  Look .. . at that... tree!

  They turned toward the midsized maple that Ted's wavering arm stalk seemed to indicate. Steve and Adie looked up into the boughs, searching out a source large enough to rate the alarm. The branches drifted, a crowd of thousand-palmed arms waving callow-green, three-fingered salutes.

  I've never ... seen anything like it.

  And then, looking, neither had any of them. Matte, shiny, then matte again as the wind flipped their surfaces, each leaf semaphored a single bit in a composite message too large to read. The trio stood until self-consciousness set in again, blinding them.

  The cedars of Lebanon, Spiegel pronounced. Adie shoved him. Good Christ, there's another one!

  They were, in fact, all over the place. Cheap and eager miracles, too common to look at twice. The wheelchair rolled slowly up the street, under that greening canopy.

  It took some pushing to get to town. But town ended as soon as they entered it. Thirty-two places in the United States went by the same name, half of them having started existence as Utopias. Texas alone boasted three of them. This particular Lebanon now existed, to the extent that it could be said to exist, as a theme park version of itself. The Glendower Shaker Museum. The junk-turned-antiques shops, the fleabag hotels upgraded to bed-and-breakfasts for weekenders escaping Cinci or Columbus.

  Main Street ran its eight blocks before giving up the ghost. The expedition came to rest at Main and Broadway, awaiting the rapture, which, when it finally came, would surely be at least this quiet. Zimmerman swung his arm in a resounding upbeat, Adie's cue to cut up to Pleasant, circle around, and start the whole loop over again.

  J can't believe it. It's all still here.

  They never let you out? Spiegel asked. Never take you for a spin?

  How could they? Too ... label-intensive.

  They ran the meager gauntlet of storefronts, Ted narrating the tour. Good place to eat. Place I used to do my laundry. This ... guy still fixes shoes. Can you imagine? A hobbler!

  Air spit out of Spiegel's pressed lips. Cobbler, buddy.

  Unless he's a bad one, Adie offered.

  Cobbler. That's what I said! Followed by the rasping inhale, the eegh of uncontainable glee at this, the black comedy of his existence.

  Adie weighed the size of the two ratios: New York to this prop town; this prop town to the nursing home. Which was the farther fall? She was not good at math. Her private calculator tape rarely gave the same subtotal twice. But the answer to this long division was obvious. The second drop-off made the first seem level. The next drop would be no problem at all.

  They rounded the loop again. On the third pass, revelation flagged. The thick, supernal gift past deserving now only fatigued them, at least the two doing the pushing. Spiegel broke first. That so-called good place to eat. Want to give it a try?
/>
  I do, indeed. And I hope that... woman we saw is still... sitting out front.

  Spiegel and Adie traded glances. There was something supremely cruel to evolution. Desire survived the purpose of its burn.

  In that public place, Adie again rose to save them. She ordered for Ted, spoon-fed him, and wiped his face without a trace of patronage. She helped the waitress clean up the glass that Zimmerman's lunging backhand managed to swipe from the table. And she ate her own meal as well, all the while holding up her end of the conversation.

  Ted asked about her work out West. She described the magic lantern show, in detail.

  I've told you about all that stuff, Steve kept interrupting. Over the phone. You remember.

  Clearly he didn't. Also clear that Ted could make nothing of the sketch Adie now drew for him. But she carried on gamely, the only strategy ever available.

  We're supposed to demo for the general public next spring, and I haven't a clue as to what we should be building.

  Spiegel laughed. She says that like she's saying, "I don't have a thing to wear."

  Ted just stared at his two lost friends, ecstatic with bafflement.

  By the time they rolled back down the long hill to the home, darkness had settled in. The old folks were watching a video blooper out-take show, gales of hilarity pouring out of the set. The instant they got back to his room, Ted blurted, Put me ... on the bed.

  Neither healthy body knew what was happening. They worked the badly distributed sack, Steve under the shoulders and Adie at the knees. They floundered, slipped, and banged his deadened torso against the metal sides of the hospital bed, at last getting him more or less supine, face-up, and centered.

  Pull down my pants.

  Spiegel punched him. Jesus, Zimmerman. Will you never change?

  Hurry!

  Thickened with emergency, Adie spent whole milliseconds wondering how they'd avoided this moment until now. She dove under the bed, the likely hiding spot, and surfaced with the bedpan.

  Just put... just put me ...

  Between the two of them, they figured out the logistics. While Ted mewled in agony, the cause lost, Adie and Steve lifted his naked middle and slipped the pan underneath him.

  I'm sorry. Humiliation bubbled up, broken, from Ted's throat. You two. I'm so ... sorry.

  About what? Adie rubbed his shoulder, looking away from his worthless, bared groin. We got you.

  I'm in? His eyes retreated deep into their stunned corners. I made it... ?

  She nodded.

  Oh. His voice relaxed in a wave of wonder. Oh! What a ... good... day.

  How does he pay for the single room? she asked Spiegel, on the way to their own motel that night.

  Steve had fallen away sharply from jovial to grim, the minute they left the home. He made a fortune on those sell-out TV ads. The beatific Shaker rip-off. His thirty seconds of tonal recidivism.

  She closed her eyes, hearing the beautiful tune against her will. That cash can't possibly last much longer.

  Neither can he, Steve said.

  At the motel check-in, she surprised him. One room, she told the desk clerk. With two single beds. She turned to Steve. Hope that's all right with you? I'm not sleeping in a strange room by myself tonight. Not after that.

  Nothing separated them but a bedside light. My God, Spiegel whispered into the dark. The man can't go to the bathroom by himself. And he's still... he's still...

  Don't say it, she said.

  Each faced the other's wall, silent for a while. You know? he said at last. No lesson in life cripples me worse than "life goes on." And he fell asleep.

  She followed, mere hours later.

  Adie dawdled the next morning, first in the shower and later over the complimentary continental breakfast. It crossed Spiegel's mind as well, just how many eternities they could knock off the tally simply by showing up a few minutes later.

  When they arrived, Ted was waiting for them, agitated. I woke up with this weird... idea. That you said something yesterday. About building a cave?

  Adie embraced him where he lay. A Cavern.

  Technically speaking, Spiegel added.

  Why would anyone ... ?

  Haven't you watched the tape I sent you?

  Ted flailed in the direction of the TV room. I don't go out there much.

  I spent weeks slaving over a hot workstation cooking that up for you, and this is the thanks I get?

  Spiegel found the video on Ted's shelf. Grateful for the diversion, Adie collaborated in dragging Ted out and commandeering the set. And so the nodding, enchanted geriatric ring looked on at their first working demo of virtual reality, a new galaxy beyond their combined ken.

  Steve appeared on the videotape, making a few off-color comments that no one, Ted included, seemed to decipher. Then he stepped into the Cavern and fired it up. He took a spin through the Crayon World, then the Weather Room, then the Jungle.

  What is this? a blue-skinned, beaked woman asked. A travel show or something?

  I seen one of them, explained a man attached to a tube of oxygen. It's got to do with special effects.

  On the tape, Spiegel set the controls for Aries.

  I did that, Adie said, holding Ted's flapping hand.

  I... thought it was ... Van Gogh.

  Then the taped version of Steve booted up the invisible organ. His hands played upon air, and a deeper air issued from them. Ted sat forward, transfixed. Here at last was something one could learn from. They'd forgotten to attach his belt restraint. Adie had to reach over to keep him in the chair.

  I need... one of those. But one .. . that doesn't need hands. Ted wanted to see the instrument again. He asked for a third look, but the rest of the audience shouted him down. He rocked his head all the way back to his room. That's... the thing I'm going to be playing. Any month now.

  Somehow that day passed faster than the last. Time's aperture stopped down to match the stunted bandwidth. Steve took more dictation. F... sharp. No. Make that a G ... flat. Even the simplest whole-note triads required endless revision.

  Adie watched. Through the window, at the contested feeder, the sparrow industry worked out its continued survival, eating and excreting, twitching and chattering, inventing each minute from scratch.

  They rolled Ted out to the terrace, hoping to store up the outdoors in the cells of his body. He asked for a windbreaker, despite the warmth. He seemed happy just to sit and look, without any walls to jam his focal length.

  Spiegel, workless now for longer than he had been since college, paced in place. Already he wanted the airport waiting lounge and the flight back to Seattle. So what do you do all day? How do you fill the damn vacuum?

  Ted's eyes opened wide. For the last few weeks ... I've been trying to remember... the name of every woman I've ever... enjoyed.

  Spiegel all but spit his teeth across the terrace. How many of those that you enjoyed did you actually ... enjoy?

  Not... many. Ted avoided looking at either of them. I'm just trying ... to put my story together. Where I was ... when. I don't know. Half a minute passed. And why.

  Done, Adie laughed. And it's taken me less than forty seconds.

  Ted stared at her, that look of myelin-stripped panic. You knew ... all of them?

  Not yours, you idiot. Mine.

  Oh. Ted's grin worked against the width of the disease. Oh. In that case... I wonder if you could help me with ... the name of the cat woman?

  Spiegel tucked his face under his arm. Adie smiled sweetly. You asshole.

  The ... cat woman. You two ... know the one I mean?

  The three of them sat loosened by the breeze, looking over the accumulated wreckage of the past that still, somehow, seemed worth enumerating.

  They didn't brave a restaurant again that evening. Instead, Adie ran out for candles and wine, a decent BV Napa cabernet that they drank out of paper cups. By dinner's end, there seemed nothing left to say.

  Steve, as always, broke first under the silence. Well. S
hall we have a listen before we go?

  A ... listen? Ted's face shrank in horror at the possible meanings.

  To the chamber symphony, man. What did you think I meant?

  The chamber... ? How?

  Steve pointed at the computer and whirled his finger around in space—the obscure sign language for whirring electrons. Through the magic of semiconductors. How else?

  Oh. It flooded Ted's voice, a bitterness so great that only an immobilized soul could survive it. Oh. I thought you meant a real listen.

  But a fake listen would have to do, for the fake was all they had. Spiegel loaded the piece, set quarter note equal to sixty, clicked the cursor on the first measure, and released the synthetic music.

  Notes spread over them in the dark, notes in a constellation that no one could have guessed came out of this man. The sound stunned Adie, even in the synthesized clarinets and trombones, even in the tinny approximation of inch-wide speakers. This music was not Ted, not any Ted either of them had ever known. It had no edge, no irony, no flamboyance, no demonstration of academic credentials. It was tonal. Standing waves of continuous, proscribed modulations outdid even Dives in luxurious archaism. Music meant nothing, except by convention. But this massive parallel data of pitches in time turned her viscera in a way unreachable by any paraphrase. There were things so complicated that only the ear could know them.

  Sound snaked around itself, pointless and beautiful. The shaped sound counted for nothing. It demonstrated nothing. It proved nothing but its own raw need for a redemption that, finally, could only be denied. Something in this music had been lost in transcription. Some impediment to Zimmerman's conception brought about by the disease. Some inability to write what he meant, dictating through the ether while lying in bed.

  But a look came across Ted's face as he listened. The music came as close to conception as the encumbered process was ever going to let him come. At last the piece trickled out, stumbling through the incomplete measure that Spiegel had transcribed that very evening. And when the chords decayed, the piece still abided in the night that scattered it.

  Ted's eyes pleaded with the two of them. His mouth latched on to a sudden rush. If I could just finish all four movements. It's music ... that people might love. That people might think about and... feel. Not like that alien stuff we all used to make ...