Manning pauses, looking at his notes. He stabs a period with his pen. “Have you told all this to the police?”
“Yes.” She exhales wearily. Then she leans close to Manning and tells him, under her smoky breath, “All except that part about how I coulda killed him myself, if you know what I mean.”
He nods confidentially. “This has been helpful, Dora Lee. I only wish you’d seen more.” Then he nods to David, signaling that they’re ready to leave.
As David rises and pockets his notes, Dora Lee says, “Awful sorry, Mark, but there wasn’t much to see. There was nothin’ special about the man at Clifford’s door—except, of course, that there was a man at Clifford’s door.”
Huh? Manning looks at David, who asks, “What do you mean, Dora Lee?”
She laughs. “Well,” she explains, coughing, “most of Clifford’s callers were of the female persuasion. Especially at that hour. Especially when the music got loud.”
Manning and David again look at each other, exchanging a shrug. It’s time to go. “Thank you,” Manning tells the woman, “we appreciate your taking time for us.”
“Hell, Mark”—she extends her hand, a big, beefy mitt of a hand, crunching his knuckles—“anytime.” She walks both men to the door and opens it. “If you think of more questions, just ask.”
David glances over his shoulder into the apartment. There’s a quizzical look on his face. “Actually, Dora Lee, I’ve been sort of curious …”
“Yeah, sweetie? What?”
His glasses flash toward the bedroom. “It’s that, uh …”
“Elvis?” She laughs, coughs. “Why, that’s my costume—for my act. See, I do this impersonation? And folks seem to think it’s pretty good, and I been workin’ a lot of church fund-raisers lately. Maybe you heard, the Christian Family Crusade is openin’ a fancy new hotel here in Chicago, the Gethsemane Arms, and I’m booked for a nightly show there next month.”
“Really?” says Manning, struggling to appear interested. “We’ll try to catch it.”
Dora Lee beams. “You just let me know when, and I’ll getcha a good table.”
“Thanks,” the guys tell her. “We’ll let you know.”
As they pass by her on their way through the door, she takes aim at David’s plump, muscular rear and gives it a hearty slap. He stops and turns to her, stunned. She leans, croaking into his ear, “Feel free to pop back up and see me anytime!” She breaks into laughter and thumps the door closed. Then the apartment reverberates with the explosive hack of another coughing jag.
The two reporters retreat down the stairs, David trying not to laugh. Manning lags behind him by a couple of steps, immersed in his thoughts, sorting through what he has seen and heard. When they at last pass through the vestibule and emerge into the hot shade of the building’s canopy, David blurts, “She’s nuts!” He has found the whole experience uproarious, but he’s had to restrain himself till this moment. “Did you see that Elvis getup?”
“That’s not all I saw.” Manning smiles, but he’s too preoccupied to fully appreciate David’s hilarity. “When Dora Lee opened that drawer for cigarettes, I noticed something peeking from a batch of old Christmas cards and other junk—it was the muzzle of a pistol.”
Friday, June 25
IT’S A PLANET—not in theory, not in virtual reality, not in digitized projection—but in itself, in all its density and roundness, anchoring a rose-colored atmosphere that resembles the Day-Glo haze airbrushed on a psychedelic poster that a college roommate once taped to the cement-block walls of Manning’s dorm room.
Manning grinds his feet in the Zarnikal dirt, ready to run. He breathes the strange vapor, filling his lungs with galactic fog. At first he attributes his light-headedness to the gas he has inhaled, but then he discovers that it is not his brain that has been buoyed, but his body. The mass of this distant world is so slight that it generates barely enough gravity to keep his feet in touch with the surface. The horizon before him arcs like a world in miniature, a dusty landscape through a fish-eye lens. The globe spins so rapidly—its day, he remembers, is equivalent to two Earth hours—that his hair is tousled by never-ending winds blown by coral-fingered clouds.
He feels neither hot nor cold in the dim sunlight that radiates from a moving pinpoint in the farthest reaches of the sky. He is alone and without inhibition, so he bends to remove his running shorts. He kicks free of them and sends the ball of yellow nylon hurtling before him. It disappears beyond the horizon, and as he contemplates the laws of physics rewritten for this strange terrain, his shorts reappear—from behind, in the sky above him, fixed in an eternal orbit. The pink planet now has a little yellow moon. Dr. Zarnik got to name the planet he discovered, but Manning can take credit for its moon. “Eros,” he names it aloud.
Intrigued by his newfound power to launch projectiles into space, he looks about for something else to fling into the cosmos. But there is nothing—no rocks, no plants, no birds or lizards—just the perfect, untrampled stretch of talc-fine dirt that surrounds him, the rosy tendrils of clouds that streak with geometric precision overhead. The only other objects, he concludes, in his entire new world are the shoes on his feet—white leather running shoes, his favorite pair, the ones he wore the morning when he first had sex with Neil, the ones that have taken on the power of a fetish, their laces crusty with the spatters of uncounted orgasms. The thought of losing them to the heavens is unspeakably painful. The shoes, he decides, must stay.
Manning has been running since high school, at times escaping something, at other times pursuing. He ran on a cross-country team because he was told it was required. Later, in college, he ran for the enjoyment of it. In adult life, in the real world, he rediscovered it and hoped it might forestall middle age. But the revelation he expected least was the hedonistic pleasure of running, the erotic element that scratches his consciousness every time he laces up those shoes. He has run on cinder tracks, on city streets, on the shore of Lake Michigan, and on a mountain road one Christmas morning in Phoenix. He has run in his dreams as well, a recurring dream in which he returns to a hometown where he never grew up. Running there, he has flown, taken flight, soared above a fluttering tunnel of elms and convulsed in midair, shooting semen into a pristine blue sky.
But this is different. Neither blue sky nor fluttering elms are here to conjure memories of a childhood never known. There is no cinder track, no lakeshore, no mountainside—there is only the compacted vastness of an empty world.
Manning moves. He steps forward, and the entire globe turns beneath his feet, as if riding on frictionless ball bearings. He walks faster, and the rotation of the planet increases. The pinprick sun moves faster overhead and begins to set behind him, stretching his infinitely long shadow beyond the horizon. Night falls instantly. Manning quickens his pace, knowing that the rosy tinge of morning can be only a few strides ahead.
And there it is. The sun pops into view again and begins another ascent toward Zarnikal noon.
Manning shifts to a faster pace and achieves a running stride. Both feet momentarily leave the ground. His toes tap the surface, sending him forward with longer and longer leaps, nearly weightless. His breathing adjusts to the greater exertion; his lungs are fueled by the clouds. He circumnavigates the planet so quickly now that the sun rises and sets with dizzying regularity. He could run like this forever. And although he has already traversed great distances, he realizes that all his efforts have moved him nowhere—planet Zarnik spins beneath the worn treads of his shoes, but he’s still seven billion miles from home.
It’s as if he’s running in place, yet he’s unquestionably in motion. The minimal landscape rushes past him. The sun continues to circle. And the endless long-fingered clouds streak overhead in perpetual winds. Their sagging tendrils of vapor whip past him, through his hair, around his body, sliding across his skin, invading every pore, picking at each follicle. The relentless gusts turn playful, scrambling between his legs, licking at his testicles, caressing his penis, wh
ich swells at the touch.
He slows his pace to savor these sensations and clears his mind of the frettings that clutter his waking hours—time, distance, speed, goals. His head tilts back and his mouth gapes open so he can gulp at the clouds and feel their presence within him. Strands of his hair (it has grown quickly here) tickle his shoulders. His pace has slowed to a walk. A shuffle. He stops.
He squats, resting in the powdery sand, still breathing deep, not from exertion but with excitement. With the tips of his fingers, he feels his hardened nipples. He slides his hands to let his palms rub his buttocks. But just when his senses are shuttering themselves, blinded to every stimulation but pleasure, Manning notices his shoes. One of them has come untied, its laces drooping in a loose, sloppy knot.
Manning exhales. The erotic moment is held at bay as Manning’s mind snaps back to reality. He plants one knee in the dust and brings his other foot forward to examine the offending laces. He unties the shoe, tugs the lace tighter through the series of eyelets, then ties a new bow—just so. It’s perfect.
He sits, brings the other shoe forward, and touches up its bow as well. With knees bent, he leans to place both hands at the sides of his feet. He pets the white leather, feeling the laces with his thumbs and the rough-treaded soles with his index finger. He draws his hands up his legs, past his hips, to rest again over his nipples. Then he places his hands behind him and leans backward to lie fully on the ground. The dot of sun halts at the apogee of its path, directly overhead. Its pencil beam cuts through the drifting clouds like a pink laser with Manning felled at the bull’s-eye of a glowing circle projected on the desert floor.
Manning writhes in the dim noon-light, closing his eyes so that his mind may freely explore the uncharted fantasies that now flicker about him. The dull pink glow from his eyelids blackens for an instant. Something has cast its shadow over him. He looks into the sky and spots the craggy yellow ball of Eros in its lunar path, which has just eclipsed the sun. Manning laughs, grinds his hair in the dirt, and grabs his penis. Again his eyelids close as his mind drifts out of his body so that all his senses may focus on his groin. And again a shadow blurs over him. Eros, he thinks, has intruded once more on the sunbeam that bathes his nakedness. He glances into the sky, but the wad of yellow nylon is not there. His breathing stops. His pulse quickens. Something has darkened his noon. Something has invaded his private world.
Neil laughs. Manning rolls onto his left side to find his loftmate crouching there, inches away, wearing only the track shoes he wore on the morning when they first made love. Manning breathes. He smiles with relief. “Hello there, kiddo. Care to help me with this?” Neil shares the smile and bends forward to kiss Manning, sliding his tongue over Manning’s lips and across his cheek, planting it in his ear. Manning groans, closing his eyes.
Once again, the hazy light goes momentarily dark. His eyelids spring open to confirm that Neil is still at his side—the shadow was not his. Nor was it the shadow of Eros—his shorts are nowhere in the midday sky. He flops his head, looking to the right, and there he sees another man standing near him in the dust, younger, more muscular, wearing nothing, not even shoes. Manning’s gaze climbs the sculpted body and is riveted at last by the dual image of himself reflected in the lenses of owlish glasses worn by a boyish Clark Kent. Manning quickly turns to see if Neil has spotted the intruder, but he has not—his face is now buried under Manning’s arm.
The one with glasses smiles, then kneels at Manning’s side. Leaning close, he touches Manning’s lips, generating a tiny white-hot spark that crackles in the explosive atmosphere. The one with glasses laughs, then drives his tongue into Manning’s right ear. Manning groans.
Hearing the groans, Neil again puts his tongue into Manning’s left ear. The tongues wag within Manning’s head—he’s sure they must be touching. They slide and thrust like pistons, creating a deafening racket of suction noises. Lost in this din, Manning extends his hands to explore the bodies of his partners, who hunker at both sides of him. His hands find their groins, cupping their balls. He flicks his middle fingers across the two anuses; the tongues push deeper into his ears.
Someone’s hand now holds Manning’s penis and begins to stroke it. “My God,” he breathes. The stimulation is so intense, he fears that he may simply black out and fade away before reaching an orgasm, retaining nothing of the sensual memories that would pack his brain if he could think straight. But his wits have vanished.
And there’s more. Someone’s fingers begin to pinch his nipples, twisting just to the verge of pain.
That does it—his back arches as he raises his head from the ground. The tongues slip away, the suction noises cease, and his world is suddenly silent. The moment of orgasm approaches, then grips him. He watches his weightless semen pump out of his body and into the black sky. Backlit by the sun, which moves again along its path toward evening, the sticky strands glisten and tumble in the darkness. Then they break apart, congealing into beads that dance and shudder and finally come to rest, a new constellation of milky jewels in the farthest reaches of an imaginary universe.
“Hey,” says Neil, “are you okay?”
Manning’s eyes open. His face is half buried in the sheets, but he can see the clock on the nightstand, which isn’t set to go off for another twenty minutes. He turns onto his left side to find Neil sitting up in bed.
“You were moaning. Pain or pleasure?”
Manning tosses back the sheet to give Neil a gander. “Pleasure.”
Late that morning, Manning arrives with David at the planetarium for their appointment with Dr. Zarnik to see the “graphic realization,” which the astronomer has claimed will prove the existence of his newly discovered planet. Today is Friday, and the parking lot is jammed. The weekend has begun early for hordes of families on vacation, and the sky show is a popular attraction.
Once inside the building, Manning knows his way, telling the receptionist that Dr. Zarnik needn’t come downstairs to escort them up to the lab. He leads David around a doubled-back queue of visitors, down a rear hallway, and up the metal stairs. Walking through the hall toward the door to the observatory, Manning says, “Play along with me, David. I hate to sound devious, but something’s been troubling me about Zarnik’s lab. I want to take a closer look at things while he’s not watching. I doubt we’ll be lucky enough to get him out of the room, but if we can get him involved with you, that may give me sufficient leeway to do some snooping. So I want you to assume the role of a green rookie—all wide-eyed, young and eager.”
As David nods with unbridled enthusiasm, Manning feels foolish, realizing that in fact the kid is young and eager.
David tells him, “You can count on me. I’ve dreamed of opportunities like this.”
Manning assumes that David has spoken of his dreams figuratively. A strained smile contorts his lips as he deadpans, “So have I, David.”
They stop at the door with the red sign. There is no knob, only the keyhole for the lock, and no doorbell. Manning shrugs, then knocks.
After waiting a full minute, David whispers, “Are you sure we were expected?”
“I thought we were,” says Manning. “He said to be here before noon.”
“Ah, gentlemen!” says Dr. Zarnik, skittering toward them from the opposite end of the hall. “Sorry to make you wait, but—clumsy me—I forgot something, as usual.” Wedged under his arm is a folded newspaper and a black plastic box, the size of a book or a videotape. Fumbling with the whistle and the keys chained around his neck, he manages to open the door. “Do step inside, please.”
He escorts them toward the middle of the room, tossing the paper and the plastic box—it’s a videocassette—onto the desk. He turns to face his visitors, standing in a clearing amid the electronic hodgepodge. Checking his watch, he tells them, “Several minutes remain until the graphic realization can be presented.”
Manning says, “That should give us enough time for a few more questions, Professor. As I told you on the phone, I’d
like to clear up some details before finishing my story.”
“I am at your service. I want you to be absolutely confident of the veracity of my claim. Any questions you might have—please, fire away.”
“Thank you. Do you mind if I sit?” As he speaks, Manning sits at Zarnik’s desk, opening a steno pad and uncapping his Montblanc.
“Make yourself comfortable,” says Zarnik. “You too, Mr. Bosch.”
David pulls a chair to a corner of the desk and takes out his own notebook, uncapping a ballpoint with his teeth.
Manning says, “Dr. Zarnik, I wonder if you’d be willing to speculate about the physical characteristics of this new planet. I want my readers to feel that this story ‘takes them there,’ that they have actually set foot on planet Zarnik. For instance, if I were standing on its surface, what would I see looking up to the sky as the Zarnikal day reaches high noon?”
The astronomer looks at him with a blank expression, as though he’s never tried to visualize the environment of the far-flung world he has found. With hands behind his back, he paces to the center of the room, suggesting, “It would not really matter whether it were day or night. The sky would be black, punctured everywhere by an intense display of stars.”
“If the sky is black, that implies there is no atmosphere. Is that the case—no clouds, no vapors, nothing?”
Zarnik crosses his arms, then brings the fingers of one hand to his chin. “That would be pure speculation, Mr. Manning, although I appreciate your attempt to draw a more vivid picture for your readers.”
The disappointment in Manning’s voice is unmistakable as he reads aloud the note he has written: “Black sky, just stars, nothing else.”
Zarnik shrugs. “If you’re looking for a little excitement, you could throw in some meteorites, an asteroid belt.”
Manning perks up. “Asteroids?”
“Cosmic litter. Hunks of something that blew up in eons past.” He simulates an explosion with his hands. “Pesky space rocks.” His fingers waggle like falling debris. “Unpredictable complications that could spoil one’s day out there.” A chipper laugh reveals that he has enjoyed this brief foray into the more poetic aspects of his science.
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