“You think hearts can feel?”
“Don’t know. Something does.”
“Yeah. Something.” A pause. “There’s this lady that’s been goin’ to the same gynecologist and obstetrician as Angela—she had her baby two nights ago. They didn’t think she was going to make it.”
“The mother or the baby?”
“The baby. Little girl.”
“What happened?”
“The little girl’s heart was undeveloped on one side. Born that way. Would have died within days.”
“Would have?”
“Yeah. They gave her one of those baboon hearts. Those fuckin’ baboons are good for something, besides beating off in the jungle and eatin’ fleas offa each other.”
“Suppose it’d been your daughter. Would you have let ’em put a baboon heart in her?”
“Fuckin’ right I would. Anything that’d save a baby—especially mine—I’d do. I’d gut the fuckin’ baboon myself, if I had to. There are no rules for these things, Helwig. You go with what works, with what’s right. That’s what fuckin’ science is for!”
Mitch found himself nodding in complete agreement. You had to break new ground, he knew, to do what was right. If you could see it clearly. If you had the technology.
“I mean,” Mario continued, “do you think the kid’s got any less heart, if you know what I mean, simply because it’s from a baboon? That she’ll grow up somehow lacking feelings that other kids have got? That what’s in your heart is somehow tied to the physical hunk of flesh itself?”
“No,” said Mitch. “I don’t think that at all.” He let an interval of silence fall. “Not at all.”
25
At eight years of age, Barbie Helwig managed to travel the few blocks between Thorncliffe Public School and the apartment block that she called home in the usual time of twenty-five minutes. This entailed stopping and checking each garbage can, as casually as possible, on the off-chance there was a treasure, some rare form of foolishly cast-off exotica therein; one also had to walk only on the pavement cracks for the first block, so as not to tumble to a horrible death in the quicksand, while managing never to step on a crack for the next two blocks, lest one break the sorcerer’s magic spell and let loose the multitude of fanged demons that were the inevitable result. It was a tricky—and time-consuming—business. An eight-year-old’s itinerary was circuitous at best.
Nevertheless, eyes wide and bright, she arrived in effervescent, wind-blown fashion in the building foyer, decided to buzz for the door to open, in case Mommy was home, thus saving her the trouble of rummaging about in her ever-brimming pockets for her key. It always seemed worth a chance.
“Yes?”
She recognized the voice, with some sense of let-down. It was Mrs. Chan.
“It’s me. Barbie.” She waited a moment. The buzzer sounded, and with the usual mighty pull, she opened the door and headed for the elevator. The fact that Mrs. Chan was upstairs meant that Mommy wouldn’t be home for a while, she knew. This disappointed her, in a way she did not clearly understand. Mrs. Chan was certainly nice enough. In fact, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with Mrs. Chan when you got right down to it. It had to do with Mommy’s absence. It had to do with the fact that Barbie felt more and more—what was the word she was searching for?—abandoned? That seemed too strong. Mommy never abandoned her. Neither did Daddy. Yet they were seldom home, especially together, except on occasional weekends.
Barbie had learned to keep herself happy and amused. She made up games, played with her computer, read comics—sometimes even got immersed in a book, although Daddy always told her that a real book was something that didn’t start out as a TV show first, something she didn’t fully understand at all. For this reason, she had never shown him her favorite: The Scimitar’s Revenge. It had a picture of Rod McLoughlin, her absolute favorite—a real dream-hunk, as Lottie Patel in her class would say—dressed in his scimitar, urban-guerrilla outfit, with a dark-eyed, raven-haired beauty at his side, similarly clad, a beret pulled low on her forehead, as they ventured out into the city to do battle with the proponents of evil. He looked better on the cheap paperback cover than he did on TV; certainly more real, more tangible. A lot of the words she didn’t understand. But she readily absorbed the basic fantasy and enjoyed the excitement of it all immensely. It seemed deliciously removed from her self-contained life in the apartment.
She was sure that neither Daddy nor Mommy would approve. But it didn’t matter. They’d never know. They weren’t around enough to see her struggling through the fascinating world between the shiny covers. It was her secret. Something that was hers, and hers alone.
The elevator door slid open, and she scurried down the hall. She wondered what Mrs. Chan would make for dinner.
26
The veal at La Cantina had been superb; the Chianti, exquisite. The conversation had been stimulating, heightened by the dim lighting, the flickering shadow of that ominous candle on the checkered tablecloth, and the sense of anticipation that hovered in the air between them like a tangible thing. When the waiter cleared the table, they were both crisply aware of the next hurdle to be leapt. They managed to stave it off in as pleasant a manner as possible by ordering coffee and liqueurs.
“What’s on the agenda tomorrow?” Elaine asked. Even as she asked it, she wondered if some inner control center had caused her to make a psychic vault over what was still on the agenda for this evening. Sticking to shoptalk was, she realized, probably some form of denial of what she was really doing here, what they were both doing here.
What would probably happen...
“Two things. Going to take some samples of the new software programs that those two psychiatrists from Buffalo came up with over to a group of doctors at Toronto General. The meeting’s set for ten o’clock.” He lifted the Cointreau to his lips, sipped, smiled with satisfaction, looked at Elaine lingeringly. He replaced it on the table. She let him talk. “These guys have written programs that can help people think their way out of phobias by using their subconscious—hypnotize themselves, virtually.”
“Is there a market for this?” she asked, not without some wryness.
“We think so. Now we’re going to find out.”
“Your computer can be your shrink.”
He nodded. “To some extent, they’ve convinced us.”
“How?” she asked, interested in spite of herself.
“People,” he said, “are of two minds about nearly everything.” He looked her in the eye. “Haven’t you noticed?”
“Yes,” she said. “I have.” She let the silence say the rest.
“Everyone has an unconscious mind as well as a conscious one. The unconscious one keeps a record of everything we’ve ever seen, every skill we’ve ever learned, every judgment we’ve ever made. All this is inside the brain—if we could just get at it. The key to making these programs work is the user’s ability to go into a trance.” He looked displeased with the word “trance.” He tried again. “Not really a trance...more like managing to block out all other thoughts and concentrate your attention on one source of information. ‘Trances’ can be shallow or deep and still fit the name; it’s at this point, though, that it’s possible to get information either into or out of the unconscious mind.”
“Closer to meditation? To Zen?”
“If you can do that, you could use these programs, I’d warrant. At least that’s what the gents down at Toronto General want to satisfy themselves about before ordering a pile. They’re hooked on the theory. We’re going to see if they can actually use it.”
“How does it work? I mean, is it run on a video component? Or with printed messages? Or what?”
“The first demos we’ve got operate on printed messages. If they succeed, we’ll escalate the programs by allotting more funds to their development. Eventually, there’d be a video component, with accompanying audio interaction—quite sophisticated.”
“I’ll say. Settle back, folks, plug in your Sh
rink 5000, and explore your navel.”
He chuckled. “Next step is marketing and pricing.”
“Expensive?”
“Of necessity, yes.”
“Why? Expensive to produce them?”
“No. People won’t take them seriously unless they cost a lot. Our marketing research has confirmed this. They’ll sell much better at, say, a hundred and twenty dollars than they would at sixty.”
“That’s crazy.”
“That’s human nature.”
“Isn’t that a little cynical?”
“Not at all. It’s a free market. No one has to buy. No one,” he added, “can make us do anything we don’t want to do, unless they subject us to some sort of coercion, can they?” He sipped his Cointreau, smiling mischievously.
She, too, smiled mischievously. “Not as long as we’re all of two minds about everything anyway.” She sipped her Bailey’s, letting it glow within her. Then she reached across and placed her hand on his. “You said there were two things on the agenda for tomorrow. What’s the second?”
“Lunch with you.”
She smiled, as his finger traced her wrist sensuously. In spite of the pleasure, the anticipation, she was still nervous—a tingling of uncomfortable tension, not unlike a form of vertigo. What she was doing was dizzying. There was no precedent in her experience for the ascent to the lofty heights of risk and passion she was contemplating. People, she heard him say once more in her head, are of two minds about nearly everything. Her subconscious dredged up fleeting images of her wedding day, of an early date she had gone on with Mitch, of sitting in the middle of the night breastfeeding Barbie, listening to rain come down onto the parking lot pavement outside their apartment window, feeling at peace with herself. Where had it all gone?
She didn’t know.
They had bridged the subject of this evening wordlessly. But they would be together. That much she knew. It seemed to be inevitable. It was what she wanted, she told herself.
Briefly, she saw the flame from the candle glint in the gold ring on her left hand.
When they had finished making love, they lay side by side on their backs, their hands clasped. It had been good for both of them. Elaine turned her head and stared at Don’s profile, silhouetted against the flashing neon from the sign of the Lakeshore Motel, not far from their window. He was breathing regularly, his eyes closed, a look of contentment on his shadowed features. She turned on her side to face him, resting her free hand on his chest, caressing him lightly. He turned to her, cupping her bare shoulder, sliding his hand along her arm and down to her breast, stroking it gently, lovingly, touching the nipple sensuously and delicately so that it began to harden again. Then he touched his lips to hers and she kissed him back, and they moved once more into one another’s arms, giving and receiving the comforts of the flesh, seeking solace.
They stayed like that for a long time, having already spent themselves physically. It was only when she felt the wetness of the pillow, then realized that it was coming from the tears streaming silently down her cheeks, that she rolled away and sat up. He touched her back. She stood up, shivering, and reached down for her bra and pants, ignoring as best she could the fact that the tears, which had sprung so surprisingly from deep and quiet springs, were still flowing, dreamlike, down her face.
27
When Mitch arrived home around 12:30 a.m., both weary and tense, he was not ready to sleep. Nor was he ready to talk. For this reason, he satisfied himself with a quick glance into his bedroom, where he saw the familiar shape of his wife in their bed; she stirred in a way that suggested she was still awake, and even possibly waiting for him. But he couldn’t handle anything like normal communication just yet. He wanted to be left alone for a bit longer—long enough to feel totally exhausted; long enough not to have to think, to justify his every action, to explain every decision he made. His last hour at the station had been spent filling out reports concerning a break-in, a traffic accident, and his decision to take a shot at a mugger who had beaten an eighty-four-year-old woman unconscious for fifty-three dollars.
Firing your revolver could mean paperwork for hours, he knew. His only regret was that he had missed. It was merely incidental that the woman had not died; she had been meant to die. Or if not, it had certainly been of no particular concern to the mugger either way.
Mitch would have liked to have cornered him alone, out of the way of prying eyes. As he walked down the hall to Barbie’s room, he felt the firm presence and shape of the Barking Dog on his belt, beneath his coat.
Opening the door carefully, he peered in. She was asleep, as only children can be, he thought. The covers were tossed aside and she was almost sideways in her bed. He smiled and entered stealthily. He straightened her while she ground her teeth, pulling the covers flush with her chin. Her mouth was opened temporarily, then she ground her teeth again, while he winced at the sound, and turned on her side, her back to him. Polka Bear fell to the floor, and he bent to retrieve it, placing it high on the pillow beside her, then he retreated silently from the room, pulling the door shut behind him. There was, he knew, something infinitely satisfying and peaceful about that room—something that could never be duplicated by the shaping and decorating and guile of an adult’s sleeping quarters. A last refuge, he thought, as he walked toward the living room, undoing the brass buttons on the front of his coat. A place where you can still have Polka Bear sleeping with you, and where Daddy can still tuck you in.
Plopping himself in front of the tube, his feet stretched out in front of him on the worn green hassock, he picked up the remote and the TV sprang to life at the touch of his finger. Muting the sound so as not to disturb the others, he let his fingers dance across the pressure buttons at random, while before his eyes jumped glimpses of a multitude of glossy worlds: “A.M. Magazine,” “Business Report,” the New York Philharmonic, airline schedules, stock quotations, Mr. Grocer Shopping Bargains, a Detroit Red Wing hockey game, a news-weather-sports report in tri-color; along with these were the syndicated ghosts from the past, shows that never died, that instead were sent to wander like the Jew of legend across the electron particles of TV screens the world over, seeking release into death, but never finding it, never meeting their savior, never atoning fully for their original impudent gestures to the world. Mitch was, as always, both horrified and fascinated at stumbling into this world of the walking dead, this realm of post-midnight ghouls—even the eternal “Mary Tyler Moore Show,” with Ted Knight recounting for the millionth time how it all began in a five-thousand watt station, flickered briefly on the screen before his finger could press it into temporary oblivion. They skittered across the visual landscape in tumbling succession: “Mad Max,” “Santa Barbara,” “Video Singles,” “Pink Punk,” “Maude,” “Dallas,” “Banana Splits,” “Dune...”
Ghosts.
Abruptly, his eye caught something in black-and-white flit by, and he willed his hand to halt, then pressed the reverse button until it reappeared.
He sat stunned as he realized what he had stumbled upon. It was an old episode of “Leave It to Beaver.” The ludicrousness of airing it at this time hit him first. Then he was smitten with the pleasure of haying found it. There they were: the Beaver, Wally, Ward, and June Cleaver—the model North American family of the mid-twentieth century.
How many of them, he wondered, are dead now? How many of them are literally ghosts now?
Everything else about what he was watching was dead, too, he realized. This was the past—the not-very-distant past at that. He watched the Beaver swing around the white picket fence that surrounded his house—a Cape Cod style, detached—his baseball cap swiveled at a careless angle on his tousled head, his eyes bright and dancing, his schoolbooks under his arm. He was talking with Lumpy. The dialogue was typical: “Gee, Lumpy, I don’t know...If I had my choice between a three-pound bass and a girl, I’d take the three-pound bass.”
Ghosts.
Mitch Helwig sat and
watched the whole episode, scarcely moving. When it ended, he pressed the off button and sat for a long time in the dimly lit room. It was two o’clock before he decided to go to bed.
28
That night, Barbie dreamed, among other things, of living in a big house in some unidentifiable part of the city, a house riddled with secret passages and underground tunnels and innumerable rooms. In one of the rooms was Ms. Lowry, her third-grade teacher. In another were Gramp and Gram Helwig, and the room smelled just like their house always did: pipe tobacco and gumwood. Another room was tilted like the Magic Carpet Ride at the Exhibition, another rolled and swayed like the SeaRoom at ElectroWorld. In her dream, she and Lottie Patel, her best friend, spent their time hunting for the key to the attic, because they knew that up there was where the Scimitar was being held captive, and they had to free him.
Mitch Helwig, for the most part, slept dreamlessly, except for a brief flurry of REM activity around dawn. When he awoke, all he could recall was a tangle of images woven together in a patternless jumble, like a ball of yarn hopelessly knotted. He remembered, though, watching the Beaver in his dream, down at the station with Karoulis, DeMarco, Elaine, and Mario. The Beaver was going to shoot Lumpy out of a cannon.
Elaine Helwig did not dream at all that night.
For that matter, she did not even sleep.
29
“He’s there again, Mr. Scopellini.” Daniel Otis spoke into the intercom handset, standing in the privacy of the large, tinted second-story window that faced out onto Commercial Road. He was gazing down at the dark brown, late-model Chevrolet discreetly parked a block or so down the street, scarcely noticeable in the waning twilight.
Barking Dogs - A Mitch Helwig Book Page 13