The Normals

by David Gilbert

  What happens—Billy starts running—when nothing happens at all?

  5

  AFTER BEING early for so long, Billy is now typically late. He runs across Forty-second Street, running with his suitcase awkward on his leg—Shit!—running running—Oh Jesus!—the crosstown block endless, running running, winded, walking now, okay, walking, but walking quickly through Times Square, bumping into the heavy afternoon crowd—Sorry, sorry—crossing Seventh Avenue, below that jumbotron, the envy of home media centers everywhere, the network anchor straddling the intersection like a modern colossus of Rhodes, Helios extinguished by the twenty-four-hour news cycle, waiting for the light on Broadway, on the heel print of Times Square, where his mother and father first met—at the Winter Garden theater—where his father once worked—Forty-seventh Street, the diamond district—where nearly thirty-eight years to the day they themselves sprinted west for the Port Authority and their lovers' escape from New York, Billy running again on the green, running as though he's being chased by a villain more frightening than Ragnar & Sons, passing the electronic tickers for various stock exchanges, running, uh-oh cramping—Shit!—cramping cramping, slowing down, thinking he really should exercise more, walking and still cramping, a stitch in his kidneys, a stitch and a cramp and now throbbing in his head, behind the left eye, surely a bad sign, an embolism, an aneurysm, shifting the suitcase to the other hand, should run, just run through the pain, but still walking, infive steps pledging speed, in fivesteps promising a hard kick for the finish, first step, second step, third step, fourth step, and noticing the traffic light on Eighth blinking Don't Walk, no point in running for the red, fifth step becoming a resignation toward the curb, swearing he's a fat man trapped in a thin man's body, his metabolism falsely advertised as athleticism.

  As promised, the HAM van is parked in front of the Port Authority. It's as glorious a sight as any multiple-occupancy vehicle can possibly be. Relief washes over Billy as well as sweat, uncontrollable sweat, delayed, like his glands have finally caught up from behind. The New York Post wilts under his arm. His sunglasses steam. His Cats T-shirt is alive with angrily sardonic claws. But no worry. There's the bright blue HAM van with a logo of a sun either setting or rising over the plains. But relief quickly turns to Fuck!—the hood is up—Fuck!—a person is slumped over the engine—Fuck! —a group of people, perhaps his fellow normals, are scattered around the van as if they're playing a childhood game and this is jail and they're waiting for their last remaining teammate who might set them free. All this planning, all this serpentine, and his getaway is fucked. Billy, deflated, crosses the street.

  As usual, a taxi bullies the crosswalk, nudging its fender with impunity and passing a few inches from his toes. Of course an immigrant is behind the wheel seeking the brutal dream one fare at a time, thirty-five cents a quarter mile, whatever tyranny they've escaped manifested on the road.

  Billy cuts toward the front of the van.

  "You William Schine?" asks the person tinkering with the engine.

  "Sorry I'm late, but I guess we're going nowhere soon."

  "No, you're late, my man, you're just lucky I'm patient."

  "Well, thanks."

  "Damn right thanks," says the head under the hood. "Now you can do me a favor and take a look here."

  "I'm sorry," Billy confesses. "But I know nothing about cars." Not that he doesn't wish he knew something about cars, cars and the piano and the French language and tap dancing and painting in watercolor.

  "Just take a look."

  "But I'm worthless."

  "All I need is an extra hand."

  Billy approaches the man. Upon closer inspection, he's lounging more than repairing. A magazine is open across the radiator, a can of soda balanced nearby. "I'm Corker," he says.

  "I'm Billy."

  "Well, Billy, what do you see?"

  "Like I said, I'm not mechanically inclined."

  Corker points towards the filter. "What you see is a traffic cop on your—don't look—right. He's over there and he's under the impression we're stalled because there's no standing around here, just pickups and drop-offs, so we're having engine trouble. He even tried to give me a jump but I disconnected the starter."

  "Clever," Billy tells him.

  "Nah, he's a dumbshit," Corker scoffs. "Right in front of his face, this loose line, and he goes for his cables like he knows what he's doing. Must be the battery, he says. Idiot."

  That would've been Billy's only guess.

  "So I told him I'd call a mechanic friend of mine. And here you are." Corker eyeballs Billy's outfit.

  "I'm the mechanic friend?"

  "No, you're the idiot who's ten minutes late." Corker either smiles or yawns or depressurizes his ears. He has a large muscular neck. Billy imagines his chin bench-pressing a couple hundred pounds. He looks the type who can shoot, clean, dress wild animals; build a shelter; fashion sticks into spears; survive in the wilderness for months; consequently, he also looks the type who is itching for the end of the civilized world. You might want his company on a deserted island, but he'd butcher you if things ever went bad.

  "So I should what?" Billy asks.

  "Just fiddle around, put on a show and tell me to give her a start."Corker grabs his soda and magazine (People of all things) and heads for the driver's seat.

  Okay. So what would a mechanic do? Billy taps the battery and checks its terminals. Uh-huh. He measures the oil with dipstick expertise. No problems there. He unscrews the radiator cap, peers inside. A-OK. He plucks the fan belt. Nice and tight. He rubs the distributor or carburetor or alternator, whatever that thing is, and finds nothing wrong. He inspects hoses and pipes. Hmm, baffling. Then he notices the washer fluid container—Aha!—and peels off the lid. "Here's your trouble," he says, showing Corker the lid. "The manifold was, um, elastically deformed.''

  Corker, his eyes rolling, smiles and nods from behind the wheel.

  "Now give her a try," Billy shouts.

  The van, of course, starts.

  An absurd sense of resourcefulness comes over Billy, the same sense he has when he changes a light bulb or plunges a toilet or hammers a nail, as if he briefly understands wiring and plumbing and carpentry. Before dropping the hood, he stares into the mystery of internal combustion. Though he's done nothing useful, his fingers are smudged with the evidence of hard honest labor, oil like dirt or paint or blood. The engine idles. It seems unnaturally exposed, a cracked sternum. Temptation floats a dare: reach deep inside one of those dark-churning cavities.

  Billy closes the hood. He wipes the grime on his pants, marking them a job well done. Per instruction, he tosses his suitcase in the back and goes around to the sliding door.

  Not including Corker, there are seven people inside, six men and one woman. They sit two by two in three rows, the lucky remainder in the front passenger seat. Only middle seats are free and they're discouraged by a tangle of elbows and ankles and carry-on bags. Nothing personal, but no one wants his company. Billy shuts the door and says, "Hello," with apology. Everybody avoids eye contact with him like he's the teacher asking a difficult question and they might be called upon for the answer. Please not here, please not here, please not here is the communal vibe. Billy stays crouched near the doorwell until he realizes he's simply heightening the tension.

  He goes toward the way back,

  There's a domino effect of relief ending in two defeated sags.

  "Sorry," he says as space is made.

  6

  DRIVING ALONG the West Side Highway or Joe DiMaggio Expressway or Henry Hudson Parkway—every few miles the name changes—Billy is relieved to be leaving. Yes, finally gone. As always he finds the sight of the river a surprise. The gray water resembles an extra swath of blacktop, a superloop around Manhattan inexplicably undeveloped. The fact that the Atlantic is nearby seems dubious. Any whiff of salt air on the street is more often mistaken for something tawdry. And from this vantage the skyline has a different spirit: the buildings are familiar y
et vaguely foreign, like Canadian architecture. Farther north, the city turns Gothic. Old apartment buildings loom like castles over bluffs.

  This flipside holds no strains of Gershwin, no postcard panoramas.

  Billy watches the city disappear and takes stock, an annoying expression but traveling always puts him in a pensive mood. Maybe movies are to blame, movies where the main character can be seen gazing from the window as the landscape is reflected against glass. It seems, when in motion, introspection is preprogrammed. It could be a new take on Newton: every onward action has an equally sappy reaction, especially when music is involved. The radio plays the latest teen sensation, the sexed-up granddaughter of a crooner who tells boys her pa-pa-pa-parameters. Perhaps not the best song, but regardless, a prickle of absence strikes Billy, as if he's leaving himself behind, the himself of his normal routine, the coffee cart, the diner, the bar, the movie theater, the bum on the corner, the record shop, the bookstore, the deli, the fixed portions of his day, the subway, the soda and hot dog for lunch, the old woman on the stoop passed every evening, and while there are variations in this schedule, momentary blips, the rare memorable event, they are by far the exception. His day is as spontaneous as TV Guide. Manhattan passing behind glass, Billy drifts away from the van and haunts the himself he's departed, a ghost going, "Ho hum."

  There he is, jammed in the alcove of the Signet Corp, the full-timers with their arrogant medical benefits and 401(k) stares bumping into his chair. All summer long he's been doing data entry for this market research firm. He punches in product warranty forms inlaid with valuable consumer information: marital status, income, education, hobbies. Mornings start with a stack on his left, afternoons end with a stack on his right. Somewhere in between the computer shuffles the deck into curves and profiles and distributions.

  No one will notice him missing.

  No doubt People Person Services has already filled his slot with one of their patented artistic types. The temp profession attracts an unsavory creative element who constantly remind Billy that this is just a job, nothing more, a paycheck. They're cultural fundamentalists: their career path is the only possible career path. Some conceal tattoos with the seriousness of sneaking freedom into a repressed country. Many become upset by Oscar snubs. Most only shop in independent stores. A handful praise vinyl, a few debate craft, a couple pass leaflets for their next show. Numerous use the term partner in a heterosexual context. Half have creative advanced degrees and the other have plans for creative advanced degrees. Nobody is in the least bit insincere. All discuss portfolios and manuscripts and screenplays and canvases and short films and tryouts with the allure of a dream described by a narcoleptic ten-year-old. And none of them like Billy. They're suspicious of anyone who follows a different bliss (their word), and as far as they can tell, Billy has no identifiable bliss. Twice he's been accused of blisslessness. But if they tied him down and tortured him to talk, they'd hear him squeal on beauty and rat out truth until he's bearing witness against himself. Because he wants to care, he just doesn't have the strength.

  Thoughts cruising over Midtown, Billy drops down on Sally, crunching her numbers and doing her due diligence, never suspecting how her day will end. She might leave work early, summer Fridays always slow, and run a few errands, maybe stop in the gym for a yoga class. Regardless, she'll call him and leave a message, telling him when she'll be home and asking what they should do for dinner. In her time-space, Billy still exists. She has no idea that their life is uncoupling by the minute, that waiting for her back home is a poorly written apparition. Strange, Billy thinks, how clocks can divide and run so differently, how in the meanwhile all assumptions can be rendered false without your knowledge. Tick tick tick. You're a walking talking anachronism waiting for the impact of a long thrown switch.

  So good-bye.

  Every few minutes he envisions Sally reading his note. Billy gives her arms a bag of groceries, the prop for domestic bad news, a carton of eggs, farm fresh, dropped on the floor. Oh God, gone! Billy cringes. How could he? Is he really this kind of person? Months, years from now, he'll probably still wonder, still weigh the evidence, like he still remembers hitting poor Jasper Moss in the face with a baseball, Jasper distracted by an airplane, "An L 10—11," he oohed right before the ball smacked his nose, unleashing blood, Jasper crying and Billy—Huh?—laughing—Huh! —though he quickly covered his smile and ran over and apologized like a fiend. No matter how lax his morals, such memories never leave Billy. Almost daily they pop into his head like random firings of synaptic shame. The note to Sally will remain in psychological place like a bookmark in one of the novels he should've finished. So many bookmarks. His mother and father are constantly dog-eared. His friends are always losing their page, the same chapter reread, until Billy shelves them by no longer returning calls or e-mails, whereupon he bemoans his lack of close friends. But Billy knows this about himself. Indeed, he knows himself too well, knows he knows himself too well. Etc.

  The van crosses the Henry Hudson Bridge and leaves Manhattan behind.

  Clouds hang in the sky like blooms of artillery flak.

  Only Ragnar will miss him, Billy thinks.

  He turns around and checks the back windshield for any tailing fenders.

  7

  FOR MUCH of the trip, the van is silent. Everybody hangs under banners of distraction—magazines, Walkmans, computer games, sleep—interspersed with bored glances at the landscape. City and suburbs are gone, farms and hills in their place. Towns are evident by exit alone. he weekend traffic moves well considering the volume. Corker stays primarily in the middle lane, a good enough driver, Billy supposes, except for his annoying habit of staring into passing cars as if he's searching for an ex-girlfriend. He'll match speeds, the lateral version of tailgating, and peer over for a few seconds longer than safe. He'll sneak into blind spots and hide there, stalking, the heel of his hand ready on the horn. "Caught you," he accuses when the car tries changing lanes. Conflicted emotions seem to arise concerning flashy sports cars driven too slow: They're effeminate matadors in jewel-encrusted outfits, their wasted aerodynamics as ostentatious as red capes. They incite in Corker a bullish road rage. All of a sudden he'll crouch forward and stamp hard on the gas and try to tarnish their pace and expose their purchase as a fraud.

  "Oh yeah, Mr. Porsche," he'll mutter, nearing seventy-five, eighty, miles per hour. "Passed by a van, what a joke. You should be lapping the field in that sweet rig. Proves money cannot buy balls."

  Corker drives a tale of jealousy and intrigue.

  Nobody in the van minds these outbursts except for Peter Swain. No introductions have been made, only roll call, which put a "Here" or "Yep" on the faces. Peter Swain is the "Yo" in the front seat who chain-smokes conscientiously, always asking if you mind, really, honestly, keeping his cigarette in the three inches of open-window jet stream. His brand of choice is Virginia Slims, though he used to smoke Silk Cuts, but these he finds more humorous. The back of the van despises his secondhand sarcasm as well as his legroom, bucket seating, and first pass with the air-conditioning. Whenever a convertible crosses their path and Corker insists on a romantic duel, Billy feels a small thrill of justice as Swain nervously retightens his seat belt.

  Brad Lannigan and Sameer Sirdesh sit behind Peter Swain. Lannigan reads Hamlet while Sirdesh snoozes against the window. Lannigan is somewhere in his mid thirties. His looks are pure trompe l'oeil, interesting only because he fools you into believing he's handsome when he's simply tan and in good shape and has nice hair. He's constantly glancing around, nodding like he's heard your thoughts and fully agrees and hey, I don't need Hamlet, wanna talk. But Lannigan has no takers. Certainly not Sirdesh, who's been sound asleep since the first mile. What with the sad pillow of two hands and the van's mattress of shitty shocks, he must be unspeakably tired.

  Behind them sit Bruce Ossap and Val Dullick. Billy guesses they're friends from before, buddies on an adventure together. They bump shoulders and share magazines—Play
boy, Guns and Ammo, Penthouse, Soldier of Fortune—and elbow inside jokes about tits and Uzis. Their body types seem inspired by comedic effect: Ossap, squat, Dullick, lanky. Between them lurks the physiology of a rolling pin. They both sport the same high and tight haircut, the same outfit of white T-shirt tucked into blue camo pants, the same fist-pumping attitude of me and you, pal. They could be commandos ready to hide themselves in a hot tub.

  And in the way back, on either side of Billy, sit Gretchen Warwick and Rodney Letts. Knees dangerously close, incidental contact threatened with every sharp curve, feet stay planted on the floor and eyes shun even the idea of company. Gretchen looks left, on the median strip, Rodney looks right, on the shoulder. They could be Janus in the backseat.

  Billy stealthily sizes up Gretchen. She plays computer solitaire, and as her thumbs deal the virtual deck, her tongue peeks between lips like the horror movie Blob oozing through a seam. She's neither fat nor thin, tall nor short, young nor old, though the less charitable might think otherwise. Three pockmarks are grouped in the center of her forehead like bullet holes in a rural Stop sign. Her head is similar in shape. But her face is far from that explicit. She's more of a Yield. From most angles she's ordinary, sometimes ugly, often severe, with her thin suspicious lips, large nose, wide critical eyes, almost Paleolithic brow, and square chin. Her skin is so pale you imagine her sweating skim milk. (DNA testing might place her genes in the foothills of the Caucasus.) Yet every turn of her head carries a single degree that refracts a strange beauty, her awkward features catching the light and suddenly becoming exotic, like a diamond with a single facet. Right there, right now, she shimmers. Then it's gone. Ninety-nine percent of the male population would probably pass her by, but the remaining one percent would be devastated. Billy, it seems, falls into the latter.