The Subject Steve: A Novel

by Sam Lipsyte

  I signed the waiver, the warrant, whatever it was.

  I started to murmur so the Rad Balm girl would lean down.

  I stabbed her in the neck with the Bic.

  * * *

  The Digger appeared in the doorway of the hut. I'd noticed him staring in from time to time, wordless, eyes flashing from behind his ski mask, but he'd never been so brazen before. Now he walked into the room and stood near an oil portrait of Heinrich painted on black velvet. It hung from a hook in the thatch. Soldier, Healer, Dreamer said the brass plate.

  "How is she?" I said.

  He looked away for a while, as though wondering if he should speak.

  "She'll live," he said.

  "Why don't you take your mask off? I know you, don't I? Where do I know you from?"

  "I need to tell you," he said. "I've been asked to dig you a hole."

  "Will I be dead when they put me in it?"

  "That's an interesting question."

  "Will you answer it?"

  "I wish I would," said the Digger.

  Desmond rolled in some covered dishes on a cart.

  "Sure it's safe?" I said. "I'm a psycho now."

  "I'll take my chances. Anyway, they're watching us. The whole world is watching us. This is your last meal."

  "Don't I get to choose?"

  My last bacon cheeseburger was a bit too bacony.

  "How is it?" said Desmond.

  "Delicious."

  "We polled the Realms. Baked Alaska got nipped at the wire. Can I have a bite?"

  I tore some burger off for Desmond.

  "Damn," he said. "This is the shit. All that clean Asian food around here makes me sick. You know, my father was a flavor engineer."

  "I didn't know that."

  "God, I remember all the crazy guys that worked at his lab. Did stuff just for a goof. One guy, he made this steak sauce. He called it Holocaust-flavored. He bottled the shit and he-"

  "I think I'd like to be alone now."

  "I understand. But do you mind if I ask you one question?"

  "One question," I said.

  "How did you go on living knowing you were going to die?"

  "Was I living?" I said.

  "Wow," said Desmond. "Don't talk. Don't say another thing. Those should be your last words. Mythic, man. I knew you had style."

  "Fuck you," I said.

  "See, you ruined it. You always ruin it, don't you?"

  "We said one question," I said.

  Desmond stood and raised his hand towards the wall thatch. A woman in a mink brassiere walked into the room. Fair Dinkum.

  "This is Tina," said Desmond, shut the door behind him.

  Tina took a seat near my bed.

  "I like your tattoo," I said. "Is that a water bottle?"

  "Look," she said. "I'm not attracted to you in any way, but I'm supposed to offer you some kind of final sexual favor in the way of sex and stuff. Nobody else wanted to, so, of course, I'm like, I volunteer. I'm the little trooper, aren't I? Mom? Mom? Can you hear me, Mom? She's not dead, but it's like she's hovering all the time anyway. She's like, Tina, if everybody was like I'm not jumping off the bridge, and so on. Oh, well. So, what do you think? A little hoobie doobie? Some jobby wobby?"

  "Jobby wobby," I said.

  "Did I say jobby wobby? I didn't mean jobby wobby. I could shit on your cock, though."

  She plucked at her lip stud.

  They wheeled me out to the desert in my bed. They wheeled me out across the scrub, took me up to a little hillock of hard earth. They maybe meant to murder me with sunlight. Baked Steve. Devil's Steve Cake. Old Gold and the Rad Balm girl rigged lights and video gear. Dietz squatted by my gurney, rubbed my skull.

  "I'll see you on the other side, bro," he said. "Or if there's no other side, then, well, I guess I'm seeing you right now."

  Trubate was sweat-resplendent in his robe. He paced about his minions, muttered something about turning water into vitamin water, hummed. It was the aardvark song. I must have hummed it in my sleep. Maybe the nation was humming it by now.

  "Fiona," I said.

  The Digger was nearly done with the hole. The task had maybe taken a toll on him. He fell to his knees in the dirt, let some air in under his mask. I saw an odd lump of skin there.

  "We're good to go," said the Rad Balm girl.

  "Fucking finally," said Bobby. "Where's Warren? Don't we get another doggie speech?"

  "Warren's not coming," said the Rad Balm girl. "He says his presence would send the wrong message to his readers."

  "Pussy," said Trubate. "Pussy readers."

  The Rad Balm girl held me down, saw me notice the bandage on her throat, dug her thumbnail into my ear. Old Gold unbuckled my bed straps, bound me up with rope. He ripped my gown away, picked up a tray of cold grease. I could make out shreds of last night's chuck, my mythic bacon cheese. Old Gold scooped up handfuls of the stuff, smeared me down like a channel swimmer. Sunlight was too easy. They meant to bait the beasts out of the desert night, the ants and wolves and wolverines, the carrion-loving birds, all of God's meat-horny Steve-craving things.

  Renee stood off and watched, crutch tips sinking in sand.

  "They could have voted for something much crueler," Trubate kept saying. "You should be thankful. Grateful. Thankful."

  The Philosopher stood over me with his new marvelous mouth.

  "I want you to know that in all my years of science I've never come across a subject as worthy of the name as you. I'll tell them what you did here this day. At cocktail parties. At informal seminars. Do you have anything to say before the ball gag goes in?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "Eighty-three percent of respondents weighed in for the gag option. Seventy-four percent of those people, incidentally, also regularly purchase home decor products online. Don't know what it means, really, but the people of the Realms have spoken. Do you have anything to say to the world?"

  "I'm thirsty."

  "That's it?"

  "The Realms is not the Realms!" I said.

  "Anything else?"

  "It's all hype! You're being duped! The goose has no clothes! The president is a moon rock! Eden is a fuck club!"

  "Take your time."

  "The server is not secure!"

  "Gag him!"

  The Rad Balm girl rammed the ball in my mouth, cinched it tight. Old Gold tipped me into the hole. I kept squinching my eyes, waiting for dirt to splash down, but then I remembered the cameras, the burger fat. The Digger stood staring from the lip of the hole. It would have made for a menacing shot. Maybe it did. My ball gag probably had a camera, too. The Digger leaned down and tugged his ski mask off his head. He had a nylon stocking on beneath it.

  How fucked is the Subject Steve?

  Hard to say. One could argue, for instance, that fuckedness is a vague concept, indefinable, and thus a meaningless point of departure for any sort of cogent analysis. Yet by the same token, one could make room for the advent of a counterargument, whereby fuckedness is posited as something else entirely. Feel free tovoice your opinion.

  I shivered in my pit, stared up at the stars. There were forms now finally in these decals of the void, I could see it, a cosmos of my own, a god grid tailored to this niche of one. Up in the bitter firmament Cudahy heaved his shot and Fiona picked her pock and a box of Hinks Civic stainless nibs spilled out in milky light. Here was Renee, frozen in her sneeze of sorrow, and Captain Thornfield's captainless hat. There was Heinrich preaching from his porch, Bobby in his blazing robe, Estelle in lewd galactic concourse with her only spawn, big jiz splooging across the vaults of heaven. There was Donald, his stars stifled somehow, and the Kincaids, Big Fran and Little Fran, indistinguishable save for the far stars that looped to make the apron string bow. Here was William, young William, with his straw of happiness, his art rock toupee. Here was Maryse asquat a chamber pot filled with candied yams, a viscid bile coursing down her chin. There was my mother, the navigator, flying through the star shatter of some celesti
al head-on, a Ziploc bag of Cheez-Its in her fist. I saw them all up there, the Philosopher and the Mechanic, two-faced, one-hooded, a fire-sale Janus, Greta and Clarice double-dipping Jesus, Mr. Ferguson, Wendell Tarr, Dr. Cornwallis, the Rad Balm girl. There were even bears up there. I saw fucking bears up there. But where was Steve? I searched the suns of night for a constellated me.

  What the hell ever happened to Steve?

  The Subject Steve is without a doubt a dead subject. He's probably dead in the desert somewhere, though initial air searches have recovered nothing but a stolen van and a diary. We surmise Steve ran out of gas and staggered off into the waste. Whether his disease or the elements claimed him first we will never know. Click here tocook up a theory, or click here toorder souvenirs from Steve's life, including his Jews of Jazz calendar and snapshots of his family. Click here for spycam video of his sexy daughter inflagrante delicioso ! Click here for apeek at the newest offerings from the Realms, Inside the Mothering Hut and It's Your Funeral: The Digger DaShawn Digs Real-Life Graves .

  I heard footsteps, too quick for people feet. They had the pouncy sound of people-hunters. I heard barks and breathing. Dogs, desert dogs. Hell's hounds here for their treat. I looked up from my hole, saw cold eyes burn green in fur.

  Let the bastards note, I thought.

  "Fuhk Oo," I said into my ball gag.

  "Hey," said a voice, "don't talk to my dog that way."

  Warren vaulted down into the hole. He had a steak knife in his hand. His wolfhound hopped in after him, sniffed my hair.

  "No, Pascal," said Warren, shinned the dog off, cut my ropes.

  I tried to get up, fell back in the hole.

  "Here," said Warren, hoisted me out.

  Far off I could see the lights of the hangar. The redemption van rumbled towards us with the headlights dimmed.

  "I thought your dog was dead," I said.

  "I'm an artist," said Warren.

  "Why are you doing this?"

  "I don't know. I guess I'm just tired of the bullshit."

  "What bullshit?"

  "I don't know."

  "You're the spokesman of your generation."

  "Yeah."

  "You're not really articulating."

  "Steve, I'm saving your life."

  "Thanks."

  "Look," said Warren, "someday my name will come up in conversation, as it seems to so goddamn often these days. Some of your friends will scoff at my work, all the attention it's been paid. Hype, they'll say. Marketing. A dearth of authentic talent. But you'll stick up for me. You guys don't know what the hell you're talking about, you'll say. That guy saved my fucking life."

  I wanted to tell him I'd be dead by then, that maybe he should talk to Spider or Wideband about this.

  Now the van rolled up and Trubate was out the door. He wiped at his nose with his robe sleeve.

  "Fucking outstanding," he said. "Fucking beautiful. A rescue mission. Now I know why I went through all that bullshit with your jerk lawyers, Warren. You are a motherfucking genius. You are without a doubt the most significant artist of your generation. Now where do you want it?"

  Trubate got his gun out. Warren whipped the knife. The blade wheeled in high-watt light. The grip hit Trubate in the eye. He drew his hands up to cup it, hollered, staggered back, let the gun drop. I dove on the thing, stood slowly with a bead on Trubate.

  "You don't have the balls to shoot me," he said.

  He squirmed in the sand. Fluid from his eye squirted down his cheek.

  "I never did," I said. "I never had the balls for anything, Bobby. I'm a ball-less wonder. De-balled. Sans balls. Without balls."

  "That's all I meant," said Trubate.

  I shot him in the head.

  "Shit," he moaned.

  Warren went over to where Trubate lay.

  "No blood."

  "Rubber bullet," I said.

  "I think you stunned him," said Warren.

  "I'm stunned," said Trubate. "I don't fucking believe this."

  "Fuf nath ta beleef?" I said.

  "What did he say?" said Trubate. "What did that motherfucker say?"

  "Slap leather," I said. "Fill your hand."

  "You'd better go," said Warren.

  "Need a ride?"

  "I'd better stay. I'm under contract."

  "Me, too, I guess."

  "Not for what I'm getting."

  "You're a good man," I said.

  "I don't know about that," said Warren. "I feel more like a boy. Everybody my age does. It's like we're all trying to come to terms with a moment that won't quite reveal itself, and here we are, devoid of a context within which to situate ourselves-"

  "Warren," I said.

  "What?"

  I got in the van, drove out across the desert floor. The desert was forever. The whole wide world was a road. There were lit shapes in the distance. Hills, houses, power lines, who knew? The van shook as it picked up speed. The steering wheel stabbed my hands. The radio was full of static. I could have sworn I heard a voice there just the same.

  It said, This ain't no joke, Jack.

  It said, Fare thee well.