The Bend of the World: A Novel

by Jacob Bacharach

  the sexually aroused psychic was then lowered into a sensory deprivation chamber full of electrolytic fluids. Once inside, he was able to achieve full-conscious manifesting of his total priapo-orgonic field potential. Thus, the Project achieved a major breakthrough. Although not yet able to physically project ourselves into alternate quantum realities, our psychic operators were able to experience them, although they experienced them as a sort of dream. Their recollection was spotty. We began working on a recording technology that could automatically transform their visions into images on a computer screen.

  One unanticipated side effect, however, was the manifestation of silver craft above the testing site. Were they advanced beings? One theory held that they were in fact future versions of the very technology we were working on. They were literally coming back into the past to ensure their own eventuality.

  And herein at last the nub of it: suddenly something which had seemed at most, at worst, a hasty sketch now resolving into a more exact copy, and all those weird dreams and portents threatening to start seeming true, and if the party was already making me feel weird, dislocated, out of joint with time, now I felt all the more so. Then hearing someone come into the room and closing the book. Seeing it was Mark and saying, Interesting taste in science fiction, with a grin. Mark saying, Nonfiction. Me laughing. You sound like my friend Johnny, I said. That’s your buddy with the blog? Mark said. Me saying yes but thinking, I don’t think I ever mentioned Johnny’s blog. Mark saying, How’s he doing? Because I’d definitely mentioned his more recent hijinks and the night at the hospital. Mark saying, We tried to invite him, actually, but we never heard back. No surprise, I said. Not well, I said. To be honest, I said, I’m worried about him. He’s an addict, Mark said, and it may have been a question. Sure, I said. I guess. I mean, I don’t know that I believe in addiction, exactly. All deniers are faithful at heart, Mark said. You actually remind me of him sometimes, I said. You two are equally aphoristic. Well, look, he said, having lived with an addict, let me tell you, it’s for real. When did you live with an addict? I said. Seriously? he said.

  Looking for Lauren Sara. Bumping into some guy I knew from Global Solutions, whose name I forgot. Promising to talk him up to Mark. Grabbing another scotch. Eating some hors d’oeuvres. Stopping to listen to someone tell a joke. Catching some people doing blow in the guest bedroom. Laughing guiltily. Getting offered a line. Saying no thanks and feeling surprised I’d said no thanks. Seeing Mark maneuvering Assia—it was definitely Assia; I could smell the tobacco across the room—toward a guest bedroom. Following. Standing by the door. Hearing her say, Holy fuck, in her weird accent. Hearing him say, Turn over. Backing away. Hurrying off. Finding Lauren Sara with the Greek in the hallway. Lauren Sara asking, Hey, honey, will you be all right for an hour or so if I take off? Patra needs a ride to the studio and then needs to get over to the South Side. Thinking, Typical, then thinking I only thought that because I was drunk, then thinking that didn’t make it any less accurate. Saying, No problem, in a voice precisely calculated to mean the opposite. Annoyed that she ignored it. Fine, ’bye, I said. Back soon, she said. Wandering once more around the party. Seeing Nana to the elevator. You seem to have fallen in with a thoroughly self-satisfied crowd, she said. How are you getting home? I asked. I’m staying at the Renaissance, she said. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning in town. What for? I asked. On Sunday? I said. I’m a good customer, she replied. Then, having sent her down, seeing Jennifer Swerdlow lumbering through the crowd with a bottle of beer and a plateful of meats, I ducked, without thinking, through the nearest door.

  27

  Well, what went down was that I stumbled into Helen’s studio. It was the size of their whole rambling apartment, but without any walls or dividers except for a few concrete pillars here and there, the skeleton of the building itself. The walls were brick; the windows on the narrower side overlooked the river directly, while the long wall of them looked northeast along the water toward the Thirty-first Street Bridge. I mention this only to orient the room; because it was dark outside, the windows were black and mirrored. The floor was poured concrete. There were little sitting areas with the sort of thrift-store furniture that rich people like to buy, which is to say, probably not from a thrift store at all but only designed to look like it. There were a few rugs. There was a big metal drafting table with a stool and an articulated arm lamp. There was expensive track lighting, and on the two big blank walls without windows, there was the art, obsessively repeated, silvery ovals against a star field—abstracted but, to me, unmistakable. The canvases were very large. The room smelled like a recently smoked cigarette. I could hear the muffled party through the walls. I could hear the murmur of the air-conditioned air venting into the room.

  Then I heard Helen say, Where’s your pretty girlfriend? I turned around. She was stretched out on a couch across the room from me, her legs crossed at the ankles, her back and body propped up against some pillows, with a cheap plastic bottle of liquor in her hand. She had on a pair of cutoff jeans and a too-large, paint-stained Pittsburgh Steelers T-shirt. Several strands of her usually neat hair had escaped in the direction of her eyes. When I walked toward her, I saw a little pile—okay, not such a little pile—of powder on the glass table beside her.

  She left, I said.

  Seems to be a theme, she said. She wasn’t slurring, but she picked her way around the words carefully, as if they were the last solid footing on a narrow ledge.

  She’s coming back.

  Oh, is she?

  She is.

  Then I stood there and she sat there and neither of us said anything. It occurred to me that it was the first time I’d been alone with her since the first night we’d met. It occurred to me that I did not, in fact, know this woman. It occurred to me that I was very drunk. It occurred to me that she was very drunk, but nevertheless holding on to me with an amused, distant, almost dissipated smile, which reminded me so much of Mark that I imagined she’d subconsciously copied it from him. What’s so funny? I asked.

  Circumstances, she said.

  Why didn’t you come to my party? I asked.

  I’m having my own party, she said. Would you like some?

  Okay, I said.

  Besides, she said, while I helped myself, who says it’s your party?

  It happens to coincide with my birthday, I told her.

  Maybe it’s the other way around, she told me.

  My birthday predates the party, I said, and I handed her the straw.

  That’s one way of looking at it, she said. She pinched her nose.

  I said, I like your paintings.

  They’re shit, she said.

  No, I replied. I don’t think so.

  You just recognize the source material, she told me.

  We’ve still never talked about that, I said.

  She smiled again, but this time a little sadly. About the aliens? she said. No, maybe not.

  To be fair, I said, they might not be aliens. They might be from another dimension.

  Oh, another dimension?

  Is that funny? I said. How about: another reality?

  Another reality? That’s funny. There’s no other reality.

  You don’t think? I think there might be a lot of them.

  I think you’ll find, she said, that they’re all the same reality from a different perspective.

  You’ve given it some thought.

  Believe me, Helen said, I could use another reality.

  Why’s that?

  I’m not overly fond of this one.

  Maybe you should hitch a ride, I said, and I gestured toward a painting.

  Oh no. I’ve had enough of aliens. And other realities.

  What do you mean? I asked.

  Let me ask you a question, she said.

  Okay, I said.

  Do you like working for Mark?

  I don’t really work for him, technically speaking.

  I wasn’t technically speaking.


  I don’t know, I said. Sure. I guess.

  You should keep an eye out, she said.

  Haha, I said. Everyone keeps saying that. My best friend’s grandfather used to say it.

  Keep an eye out?

  Yeah. He was a cool guy. He was always trying to build a perpetual motion machine in the shed.

  Never worked?

  No. The perpetual was always the problem.

  She took a long drink. She stared past me at the paintings. I used to be so skilled, she said. I was really good.

  I really don’t think they’re bad at all, I said. I like them.

  You’re sweet, she said. Shit taste, but sweet.

  Um, thanks, I said.

  You remind me of a boy I used to date, she told me.

  That’s funny, I said. You remind me of a girl I used to date.

  What happened?

  To the girl? She broke up with me.

  Why?

  Infidelity.

  We’re two peas in a pod, she said.

  You cheated on him, too? I said.

  No, she said. Not him.

  28

  I couldn’t tell you which one of us started it, which willed it to happen, or how it came about. I can only tell you that, like the material universe itself, it was defined by the probability of it happening until it did happen; then all those caroming quanta collapsed and it was real, and, like reality, it was defined by the necessity of its own being. We did not, it turned out, need a sexually aroused psychic to choose our ideal reality; or maybe that was the joke; maybe in another room she didn’t touch my hand and I didn’t touch her face and it all went very differently; maybe the whole Project was an ornate description of what we did every day. And maybe we shouldn’t have, but we did.

  Then I went back to the party, and she went back to her drink.

  29

  The following Tuesday, Mark came into my office with lunch. While we were eating, I noticed him looking at me as if he were trying to make up his mind about something. What? I said.

  Oh, nothing, he said.

  Hey, I said, you’re not wearing your badge.

  My badge?

  I’ve never seen you here without a visitor sticker.

  Oh, that, he said. I’m no longer a visitor. He paused. Technically speaking, he said, and he narrowed his eyes a bit.

  You’re not? I said.

  No, he said. You’ve been assimilated. It’s going to be announced tomorrow, but the papers are signed and sealed.

  Huh, I said. So what happens now?

  We extol the virtues of the dearly departed, and then we bury the body.

  Has anyone ever told you that you have a violent mind?

  Pff. I abhor violence.

  I saw you kick the shit out of a guy the first time we met. You paid a stripper to bust your lip.

  Jus ad bellum.

  I sighed and shook my head. What was the point? I asked.

  Of what?

  Why did you buy us? What was it for? I can’t exactly see how anyone expected to make money in the deal.

  I never asked. Some of us made money. You made money. I made money.

  But, I said.

  Look, you’re trying to find a narrative where none exists. A corporation is not a person. The gods don’t oblige us with motives, but they sometimes reward obedience with good fortune.

  I’m not sure I’d call a corporation a god, I said.

  Of course it is. Created by man and superior to him. Magnificent in its infinite amplification of his flaws and powers. The very definition of a god.

  So, what, does that make us priests? I said.

  No, no. Avatars. Emissaries.

  Angels, I offered.

  Blow, Peter, Mark said. Blow.

  You’ve been waiting to use that one. I laughed. But it’s Gabriel.

  Is it? Speaking of which, and while we’re on the subject of transcendent amorality, Mark said, and then I knew what was coming.

  Before you say anything— I began.

  I trust, he said, that a good time was had by all.

  Things sort of just happened.

  His smile showed his sharp teeth. He crossed his legs. His eyes flicked across me, and I felt like a mouse in the presence of a bored cat, frightened, too, by the apparent absence of anger in his predation. I think it’s interesting, he said, that you find it easier to ascribe the absence of willful motive to yourself than to some big company. I’m not sure what that says about you. He shrugged. Frankly, I’m not sure what you expected to get out of it. Other than the obvious, of course, for which there were plenty of other drunken whores at the party.

  He said it flippantly, and although I had no right to be, it made me angry. I said, I’m not sure I was trying to get anything out of it.

  Well, that I really can’t understand.

  Well, and I’m not defending myself, but it’s not like it was some transaction.

  Of course it was. What do you fail to understand about its fundamentally transactional nature? You had a quid and she had a quo.

  Mark, I said, I wasn’t trying to get anything. I really am sorry, but I really wasn’t, not any more than you are.

  He closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose and shook his head and then said, But I am trying to get something.

  You know what I mean.

  No, he said. I mean literally. She’s the coinage of the realm; appearances are a kind of currency. I need someone like her. She’s of immense practical value. She’s a passport to a portion of society. Unlike you, Mr. Morrison, unlike her, I wasn’t born into this world. He sighed. What she does with herself when she’s off the clock is her fucking business, but the position carries certain requirements that do not include getting wasted in the dark when there’s a company event. So the next time you want to fuck my drunk girlfriend, Morrison, he said, and then he stood up, jumped to his feet, snatched the laptop off my desk, and hurled it past my head and against the wall, where it snapped and fell like a bird against a window, do it on your own fucking time. Understand?

  And quite suddenly, I was afraid that I did. I only nodded.

  I’ll send someone up from IT, he said over his shoulder as he left and slammed the door.

  30

  That night while I was sitting at home feeling the faint first tug of nausea, I heard the key in the door, and was surprised to see Johnny lumbering through with a huge rucksack and sleeping bag, which he deposited on my living room floor. Morrison, he said; I need to crash here tonight.

  When did I give you a key? I asked.

  You used to keep a spare in the kitchen.

  I still keep a spare in the kitchen.

  Not for about three years, he said. I borrowed it.

  Johnny, I said, I haven’t seen you in months, and why do you need to crash here?

  There’s someone in my apartment, he said. I think it might be a squatter, but I didn’t have the heart to kick him out. He seems to be feeding the cats, anyway. Plus, I’m on my way out of town.

  Yes, I said. You appear to be. Where are you going?

  The Knotty Pine.

  I’m sorry?

  It’s an old lodge in the state game lands up past Kittanning. One of Dr. Wilhelm’s associates owns it. We’re planning a happening. You ought to come. Have you got any eggs, by the way? I’m starving.

  Yes, I have eggs. I followed him into the kitchen. A happening? I said.

  Our own little Bohemian Grove. Art, music, revelry, and satanic rituals.

  I’ll pass, I said.

  You’re such a conformo. Where do you keep that faggy salt that I like?

  Cupboard to your right. Johnny, what the fuck have you been doing?

  I’ve been exploring the limits of human consciousness. When I died—

  I’m sorry, I said, when you what?

  When I died, before you found me in the hospital, an angelic being named Calsutmoran appeared to me in a vision and explained to me that I needed to find Winston Pringle and stop him. I tol
d you.

  So you’ve found him.

  Yes.

  Have you stopped him?

  Not yet. I’m, you know, taking temporary advantage of his access to high-quality research chemicals.

  Jesus, Johnny.

  Just dabbling, he said. This is my life’s work, brother. Pringle is dangerous. The Pittsburgh Project—he’s not some unwilling patsy; he is the project. His whole shtick is a double-fake. I’m on to him. I’m going to stop him before he destroys the world.

  You sound crazy, I said.

  Don’t worry, I’ve got it all worked out.

  Apparently.

  You have any beers?

  In the fridge.

  We sat at the table.

  It’s good to see you, I said.

  I missed you, too, honey pie, he told me.

  I may have made some poor professional choices myself, I said.

  Morrison, Johnny said, what have I been telling you?

  1

  You have 1 new friend request from Helen Witold.

  2

  Birthday dinner with my parents always came after my birthday had passed in order to commemorate, approximately, the date of our release from the hospital and therefore, my mother said, her own contribution to the accomplishment, which was—crunch of an ice cube—significant, you have to admit. So it was the Saturday after my birthday, the week after the party, that Lauren Sara and I met my parents at the Hyeholde, my parents’ favorite restaurant, a venerable fieldstone pile in a stand of willows on some farmland out by the airport. The menu consisted principally of creatures harvested from the forests nearby. I’d actually taken Lauren Sara there once before. This was during a period in which she’d rejected veganism as a first-world affectation that was intolerable in a world in which billions subsisted on a calorie-poor diet. She had a medium-rare rack of venison, and I do remember that we did actually have sex that night. Now, however, and despite our recent rounds with Mark and Helen, I suspected that she wouldn’t eat meat in front of my parents, which threatened to make the whole evening ridiculous. More ridiculous.