Stories

by Susan Sontag

  At least the doctor in Jekyll remains undaunted by Hyde’s corrosive antics. Jekyll notes that Hyde’s constitution looks embattled now. From what can be glimpsed of Hyde’s chicken-breasted frame through his wrinkled work shirt, two of whose buttons are missing, he’s lost weight, and his cough rivals Camille’s.

  Making one more effort, Jekyll manages to rouse the eloquent, long-suffering aspirant to psychic unity; and from the couch he aims that part of himself, like a gun, at Hyde. Addressing Hyde, he begins a monologue. Hyde gulps down more gin while Jekyll names the main points on the map of his discontent, expounding on his heartfelt desire to change his life. Utterson comes in for heavy savaging, he and that motley crew of disciples and bastards camping out in Oyster Bay at the Institute for Deprogramming Potential Human Beings.

  “But the Work did you a lot of good, right?” Hyde mumbles, still on the run.

  How could Jekyll deny that the Work has helped him? That, without the Work, he wouldn’t have become as gifted a physician as he is today; that he wouldn’t be so calm, controlled, steady, self-observing; that he couldn’t so easily inspire trust in and impose his will on colleagues, subordinates, and patients. “Utterson isn’t the problem,” Jekyll admits. “It’s me.”

  “I don’t get it,” whines Hyde, abruptly dropping to all fours and crouching in a corner.

  “It’s … wanting to give everything up. I’d like to be … Don’t laugh! I’d like to be you.”

  “Wow!” Hyde claps the palm of his hand to his rodent-like forehead. “What a load of middle-class crap! You’d like to be me?” He lurches up, awkward as ever, from the floor. “You’d like to lead my trashy life? Man, you are clean out of your ever-loving skull!”

  “But,” says Jekyll, “if your life depresses you, why don’t you move back to the city?”

  “And get busted? Thanks a lot!”

  “But things can be arranged, you know that. I’ll tell Lanyon.”

  “That asshole?” Hyde pivots, the bottle in his claw. “He’s senile.”

  “He’s not. And you’re drunk.”

  “Just because you keep that shyster alive with these injections of yours, you don’t have to defend his health,” Hyde rants. “Lanyon couldn’t get a D.A. to reduce charges on a baby who landed in the Tombs for stealing a diaper.”

  “Don’t drink so much. I hate to think what your liver looks like.”

  “Cool it, man!” Hyde snarls, halting his lame progress around the room. “Want to see my tracks?” He fumbles with the left sleeve of his work shirt, tugging it up over his elbow. “Well, I’m clean now, see! And I owe it all to—good—old—booze!” He pats the bottle and then slams it down on the rattan table. Utterson raises his glass of Armagnac, scans the long oval table in the refectory, and proposes a toast. His favorite subject for a toast is a certain kind of idiot. During a high-spirited dinner several years ago, Utterson invented a whole taxonomy of spiritual retardedness; “idiots,” as he insisted on calling them, could be classified into ingenious categories and subcategories, the point being to determine into which category each person at the table fell. The game is still being played, with pupils nervously interrogating themselves, and Utterson reserving the right to pronounce the final verdict. Utterson sips the Armagnac and grins.

  Jekyll is continuing. “Well, if you won’t come back to the city, would you consider moving somewhere else? We could …” He hesitates, then plunges. “We could go somewhere together. I mean, I’d go with you.”

  That does stop Hyde’s gyrations, at least momentarily. “What would you want to do that for? Man, you have really flipped your wig!” Jekyll feels, through the strong roots of his hair, his scalp tingling.

  “I know it sounds crazy …” Jekyll pauses. “But we wouldn’t have to stay in one place. We could be on the road most of the year.”

  “Hey, what is this? A proposition? Don’t tell me that after umpteen years of happy marriage you’ve discovered you’re some kind of fruit. Oh, man, that would be too much!” He falls to the floor, flops over like a dog, then stretches out on his back, convulsed with laughter.

  “Cut it out, Eddy!” Jekyll, leaning forward on the couch, is embarrassed. “You know it’s not that. It’s because … I’ve realized I don’t have enough … enough imagination. You know what I mean?”

  Hyde waves his spindly legs in the air, while pushing both hands into his ribs to stop laughing. “And you think if you hang around with me”—choking and coughing, he sits up—“you’ll get more … imaginative?”

  “Drink some water.”

  Hyde, shaking his head sullenly, staggers to his feet. “I don’t get it.” He is wheezing. “You want to toss your career in the garbage can, move out of a rent-controlled apartment, leave your old lady—”

  “No,” Jekyll interrupts, “I’d like my wife to come with us.”

  “Far out!” Hyde snorts. “Okay, you want to dump your apartment, drag your wife away from her friends, kiss off Utterson, let down all those poor coons waiting on line at your clinic who think you’re Dr. Schweitzer, run out on all those nurses who you never ball …” Jekyll nods. “For what?”

  “Because I’m not free.”

  “Free!” Hyde explodes drunkenly. “Grow up, you big baby.”

  “But it’s true. I live a life that’s … all laid out. Nothing is going to happen to me. I mean, I know what’s going to happen to me. I’m thirty-eight, and with my health and family history I’ll probably live to be ninety. But I could already write my obituary.”

  “Big momma’s baby!”

  “You’ve already said that.”

  “Freedom!” Hyde rubs his fist against his eyes. “Man, have you got an old head!”

  “Right,” Jekyll says. “That’s why it’s good for me to be with you.”

  “Well, don’t start thinking I can help you! Jeezus, I’ve got problems of my own.” He starts pacing around again. “One more minute and you’ll be talking about happiness.” He stops in his tracks, gazing fiercely at Jekyll. “Or love.” His small eyes are blinking.

  “Look, Eddy, I’m really sorry about the way she …” Jekyll sees Hyde’s swarthy face going livid with distress. “About … what’s happened to you.”

  “God damn love,” moans Hyde. He wipes his nose with the back of his left hand and pours himself another drink.

  But nothing, least of all despair, seems to stop Hyde’s incessant, ungainly motility. Jekyll’s left foot is falling asleep, and he starts thinking about how late it is. He rises from the couch, stretching his arms above his head.

  “Don’t split!” Hyde screeches. As Jekyll drops his arms to his sides, Hyde bounds over to where he’s standing. “You have to crash here tonight anyway.” Thrusting the compact dial of his face close to Jekyll’s chest, he whispers, almost gibbering: “You missed the last train.”

  Jekyll nods. But he doesn’t sit down.

  “What’s wrong now?” Hyde demands belligerently.

  “I’d like something to eat.”

  “How come?” Hyde leers. “I ain’t hungry.”

  Jekyll pushes him aside and heads for the john in the hallway. As he is about to flush the toilet, Hyde starts banging on the door. Jekyll pulls the chain, but nothing happens.

  Hyde keeps banging. “Hey!” He kicks the door. “I’ll ask my ma to whip up something.”

  “Does your mother live here with you?” Jekyll says through the door.

  “Sure.” Hyde kicks the door again. “Since … since that broad left.”

  “But you hate your mother! I remember your telling me that years ago.”

  “So what!” exclaims Hyde. “She’s doing her thing. I’m doing mine. She don’t get in my way.”

  Jekyll opens the door. “I shouldn’t be bothering you with my problems.”

  Hyde is just outside. “No sweat!” Hyde’s mouth crumples into a jaunty sneer, meant to be friendly, that shows a mouthful of tartared teeth. “I’m glad you popped up, Hank. And I dig your being so out fro
nt with me, even if you have gone off your nut.”

  Jekyll demurs once again, although he has by now given up the hope of persuading Hyde. “Try to put yourself in my position,” he adds.

  “Are you kidding? Why should I want to do that!” Hyde snarls, while at that very moment Utterson, whatever position he is sitting or lying in, is telling one of his disciples that, if she listens carefully, she will learn how funny the Truth can be.

  The next morning, Hyde’s ivory-faced mother brings Jekyll an English muffin and a cup of Nescafé in bed. Meanwhile, Utterson is being served his breakfast by the sleepy-eyed Poole. Jekyll wants to ask about Hyde—is he awake? is he hung over?—but decides against it and rolls briskly onto his stomach, pretending to doze off again. Better not ask the old woman any questions and possibly get some in return. Jekyll remembers a rule of military history, best illustrated by Pearl Harbor, according to which it is difficult to hear the true signals because of the surrounding noise—that is, other messages.

  After she leaves the attic room, Jekyll gets out of bed, biting into the muffin. Tall sycamores rear above the sloping roof of faded slate outside the window; the gutter is clogged with leaves. Wearing a cashmere dressing gown, Utterson emerges into the corridor and shouts at one of the pupils to go outside and rake the leaves. Then Jekyll puts on his flannel pants and corduroy jacket, goes down the back stairs, through the kitchen (where Mrs. Hyde is immobilized in front of the TV, watching the war), and into the living room. Hyde is kneeling in the corner, fixing a bicycle. It seems strange to think of Hyde with a bike instead of his lethal Harley-Davidson.

  “Awake long?”

  Hyde looks up and grunts, a different creature from last night: clear-eyed, humanoid, more brutal, more youthful, more frightening. He scratches his bald spot with a screwdriver.

  “It’s a beautiful day, ain’t it?” Jekyll continues.

  “Don’t patronize me, pal,” Hyde says in a menacing tone. “If I want to, I can talk as good as you college boys any day.” He turns back to the bike and does something with the pliers.

  Jekyll pauses indecisively, then takes a step in Hyde’s direction. “What’s the Sunday train schedule?”

  “Want to leave, huh?”

  “I’ve got to get back by dinnertime.”

  Hyde slams the pliers on the floor and puts his hands on his razorlike hips. “You mean we’re not going to elope and live happily ever after, robbing banks together like Bonnie and Clyde?” Hyde pushes his voice up to a falsetto.

  “That’s right,” Jekyll says. “So what about the trains?”

  “There’s a local at 3:40 that’ll get hubby back home just in time.”

  Jekyll turns away, in irritation.

  “No, wait!” croaks Hyde, standing up and hopping over his tool kit and the bicycle chain. “I’ve been thinking about our rap last night …”

  Jekyll turns back.

  “Listen, I figured it out. You don’t need me. Do it on your own.”

  “Meaning what?” says Jekyll.

  “Do something! Violent.” Hyde hisses. “Rob a blind newsie. Molest a child. Mug a fag. Strangle Utterson. Put—” Hyde stops, seeing Jekyll’s face blanch, and slaps his stringy thighs. “I got you there, didn’t I?” he jeers. “Wow, that horny old geezer really has you by the balls. You should take what he’s got that’s good for you and run with it. Like me.” As if to illustrate what he is saying, Hyde is hopping spastically around the room on one foot.

  “Hey, man, didn’t you ever commit a crime?”

  Jekyll doesn’t answer. He is thinking of all the imaginary crimes he has committed, and of all the real crimes he has never imagined. If only he had the force, not the physical but the moral force, just to place his hands on Utterson’s heavy veined neck.

  “You know,” Hyde sneers. “Violence. V-I-O-L—”

  “I know how it’s spelled,” groans Jekyll. He feels a painful contraction around the heart. “What violence?”

  “Well …” Hyde pauses, giving a theatrical (or a gorilla’s) imitation of someone thinking. “You’re not up to offing Utterson, we got that. Right? So … so, how about something easy for a start? Like burning down the Institute. You could always hope that nobody’ll get killed.”

  “You think I’m capable of that?”

  “You could try.” Hyde has stopped moving, and is picking his nose. “Maybe you could get someone to help you.”

  “I don’t need any help.”

  “You don’t, huh? That’s not how you were coming on last night.”

  Jekyll, who wants to leave, is standing near the hook where his coat is hanging.

  “Suppose,” Hyde mutters, borne up by a new current of energy, “suppose I tell you someone’s already planning to trash the Institute.”

  “Are you telling me?”

  “You don’t believe me.” Hyde’s face flushes.

  “I might, if you explain how you know about it.”

  “I can’t reveal my sources.” Hyde clears his throat and spits on the floor. “But I’ll tell you when. This month, the night of October sixteenth.”

  Is it envy or terror that Jekyll is feeling? “Are you … going to tell Utterson?”

  Hyde doesn’t answer. He is prancing around his bicycle.

  “You’ve got to!”

  “Why?” rages Hyde. “He’s telepathic and clairvoyant and all that, ain’t he? Let the creep figure it out for himself.”

  Jekyll doesn’t have a reply for this. It seems like a cheap trick. Don’t we all inhabit the same space? Jekyll is thinking about crime. He is thinking about Utterson.

  A quotation from Utterson: “When the devil has been caged too long, he comes out roaring.” Jekyll has the feeling that something is coming to him from the patches of blue in the cloudy sky he sees through the broken windowpane, from the sounds, the smells, the temperature outside—something that he is trying to keep away. Then he abandons himself; a voice whispers over and over: “Free, free, free!”

  There is a scene that Jekyll once witnessed, which goes like this: An aged white-haired man is walking along Riverside Drive late one summer evening—he is probably a German-Jewish refugee scholar who teaches at Columbia University—and another man, young, very small, in a black leather jacket, is coming toward him. When they get near each other, the old man nods with stately, unfashionable politeness and stops. It looks as if he is asking directions: he is pointing. He has a complacent, beautiful face. The short youth stands facing him, tapping on a guitar that he carries. He doesn’t answer. Then, like the propeller of an old plane, he gradually begins vibrating with anger, stamping his booted muddy feet, brandishing the guitar. The old man takes a step back, looking more disgusted than surprised or fearful. He must have heard that madmen roam the streets, but may have counted on never meeting one. He takes another step back. The short youth clubs him to the sidewalk with his guitar. A flurry of blows fall upon the victim’s head and chest and legs. The old man groans, twitches once or twice, and lies still. The short youth goes on prodding and mauling the unresisting body, humming a nasal song.

  Watching from a doorway down the street, Jekyll felt that song on his lips, too. “What did it matter?” said the voice. He who had seen so many people die—poor, discarded—and always mustered without stint both compassion and indignation, he who had saved so many lives, patched innumerable bodies and restored them to health, might be pardoned for watching once, just once, without pity, without intervening—not confined to the better part of feelings—as if it were a dream. Who was breaking that old man’s bones? If that was Hyde, then he must be stopped.

  Jekyll seeks the energy to live out his own acts. Inwardly, he begins composing the new will that he would dictate to Lanyon tomorrow morning. Hyde’s aid seems ghostly now. Jekyll realizes that he is alone in a world of monsters, that the struggle between the good magicians and the bad ones is a distraction, if not an illusion. He must go after their chieftain, the master magician, the one beyond good and bad, who has c
onfused and tempted him. Let Utterson send him all his energy, by whatever conduits are open. This time, he won’t give it back.

  While Utterson is rolling around in his bed in Oyster Bay, watching Poole scrub the carpet, and Hyde is squatting down by the bike again in Plattsburg, Jekyll, also in Plattsburg, is getting his arms into his coat. Hyde looks up again. “Wait!” he howls. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  Jekyll, who is concentrating on certain sensations he may or may not be having in his chest, thinking about the blue light that may or may not be emanating from Utterson at this very moment, feels a stab of alarm. “What?”

  “Maybe you were right. That stuff you said last night.” There is a strange, repulsive insinuation in Hyde’s voice. “About going back to the city.”

  “What about your mother?” Jekyll is desperate.

  “Let her croak,” Hyde shouts jubilantly. “I’m coming with you!”

  Haunches against his heels, he dances around the bike Cossack-fashion, kicking one scrawny leg and then the other, his left arm high above his head, banging on the fenders with the hammer in his right hand. “I just have to fix this”—Hyde gives the rear fender a terrific smash with the hammer, making a big dent—“then I’ll get my other jeans and a sweater from upstairs …”

  “Don’t come!” Jekyll bellows.

  “Listen, buddy,” Hyde snarls, picking up a huge pair of pliers. He yanks out the front wheel spokes one by one. “I can take a train if I want to. It’s a free country.”