The Curiosity: A Novel

by Stephen Kiernan

  He placed the clipboard beside his kit, lining things up so they were tidy. At the doorway he turned halfway back to me. “I’ll see about the curtains, and your greater purpose, if you’ll stay out of the nightclubs.”

  “A fair bargain.”

  Even as I watched his clipped walk through the control room, I heard the security door open again. I felt so certain about who it would be, I did not immediately turn from the window.

  “Good morning, Dr. Philo.”

  She laughed a little melody. “Good morning, Judge Rice.”

  CHAPTER 24

  In the Front Row

  (Daniel Dixon)

  I found him. It wasn’t that hard, when he’s so handsome his face belonged on a coin. He might spend his days wrangling shouters and marchers and public praying types, our organizer of protesters, but the guy’s mug was like a cross between a surfer dude and a Canadian Mountie. Yours truly just plopped down with the wire services’ photos from large protests, and sure enough he started popping up like corn in a hot frying pan.

  There is a little thrill that never goes away, when I dig something up for a story. One time I convinced a city coroner to give me the blood type found on a murder victim, and it matched the dead woman’s own son. Gruesome, but to me it was a little jewel.

  So the first thing was hunting down this protest leader’s name. That took digging, and the better part of an afternoon. Finally I found a photo in the Washington Post, taken on the steps of the Supreme Court: four lawyers all wearing their best credibility, and beside them, in a Stetson ten gallons deep, stood our boy: Wade, T. J. Wade.

  This rabble-rouser had given me the creeps right from the start. And once I read his background, I knew why: a pro, a full-time pitchman from Kansas, Wade was an evangelical hell-raiser about two inches shy of the Klan. He specialized in nasty tactics. For example, using a hidden camera to trap liberal politicians into saying something breathtakingly stupid—a job, I have to say, they seemed to make awfully easy for him. But worse, too: making noise outside a soldier’s funeral to protest federal spending policies. Holding a news conference to blame bad weather on the queers.

  I could just guess what T.J. stood for. Maybe the initials of the third president?

  Twice Wade had come before the Supreme Court to test the limits of free speech, and neither time did he stand anywhere near the side of reasonableness. Somebody with a fat wallet liked keeping him in the noise-making game, I suppose. Lawyers who argue in front of the Supremes don’t come cheap.

  Wade had management skills, I grant him that. He’d pulled the motley sign wavers together, increased their numbers a little every day, worked up schedules so they could still hold jobs, and through it all, raised their rage about four notches higher. But it was the box lunches that impressed me most: all these people sitting on the lawn munching quietly between their regularly scheduled outbursts. Wade started timing the demonstrations to suit the news cycle, a dirty move just like we did with video releases.

  He had one trick I hadn’t seen before: each morning he’d hold a news conference to review the coverage from the day before. Was this headline fair? Did supporters of the project get more column inches than his group? One day Wade read quotes from reports about the prior day’s press conference and compared them with what he’d said, which he verified right then with a tape recorder. Of course most reporters made errors, here and there. It’s tough to catch every word when you’re taking notes at top speed. But Wade wasn’t much on excuses. Who, he demanded—grimacing as though wounded, while facing the TV cameras that could not get enough of his pretty mug—who in that shoddy press corps would have the courage to print corrections and retractions? Who among them would have the integrity to tell the story about how his innocent group of life-loving protester-citizens was being hammered by the godless and unfair media?

  Well, a gold star to you, Mister T. J. Wade, because making a spectacle over tiny details had exactly the desired effect. Which was that every reporter—and probably every damn editor back in every damn newsroom—became supercautious with quoting, and headlines, and making sure stories were balanced right down to the word. It was a masterpiece: the man was all but looking over people’s shoulders while they wrote.

  For some reason he left me out of it, just completely cut me slack. I knew better than to think it was because my stories were fair. Look, if someone hits an old lady on the head with a baseball bat, do I have to go out and get a balancing quote from the president of the Society in Favor of Hitting Old Ladies with Bats? Hell, no. Fair is for sissies, afraid to take sides. Likewise I had no intention of giving this flake a break, handsome pro or not. Which made it a pretty puzzle why he left me out of the press attack. Did he think yours truly wasn’t important enough? Well, fine by me. But he might regret it.

  Besides, it wasn’t his politics that made me dislike Wade. I’ve seen all kinds. It was his calculation. Each morning he’d harangue the protesters about bringing someone new with them tomorrow. At noon, while he handed out those lunches, he’d tell the crowd they were being ignored, they were making no difference, what were they doing about it?

  “Remember the impact of Martin Luther King,” he said, “and what he said about ‘the fierce urgency of now.’ ”

  That’s right, Wade was invoking a civil rights leader on behalf of his anti–Lazarus Project agenda. Each afternoon before the protest for the 6 P.M. news, he’d count heads, frowning with disappointment. During the taping, he’d stand to one side chewing on the inside of his cheek. Like he was thinking and gnawing at the same time.

  I had a bad feeling this Wade was just biding time, keeping the crowd frustrated while he dreamed up some new maneuver to win headlines and make things nastier. The man was a mess on wheels, just waiting for the opportunity to inflict itself.

  And when it all came down, I aimed to be sitting in the front row.

  CHAPTER 25

  Independence Day

  My name is Jeremiah Rice, and the world begins giving itself to me.

  Moving stairways lifted me into the innards of buildings without my taking one step. Music played in elevators, waiting rooms, even the bathroom of one hotel, though the melody was appallingly drab. People were fat, gelatinous flesh spilling out of their clothes, or fit as a draft horse, or so slender I wanted to sit them down somewhere for a good hot meal. In the aquarium I saw a turtle the size of a tabletop, sharks with expressions a mixture of malice and stupidity. I fed penguins, who stank. At the science museum I stood mesmerized by a motorized sculpture.

  And motion? Everywhere people jogged, they strolled, they rolled in mechanical chairs with motors on the back. Dr. Philo and I stood on a bridge over the Charles and watched the sleek rowing crews dragonfly up the river, while cars honked and trucks bellowed and jets roared overhead.

  One afternoon we visited a zoo with crowds of children. A toddler girl lost hold of her balloon, and while she wailed in despair it rose like a red beacon, dwindling in size irretrievably every second. That night in the privacy of the laboratory’s shower, I thought about Agnes, what a balloon of a father I had proved to be, and I wept.

  Mercifully, the world offered an endless supply of distractions. The next morning we entered a shop for Dr. Philo to buy coffee. A line of people waited their turn, and their requests took fully twenty seconds to declare, there were so many options, so many preferences, I was astonished. I wondered how much time they had spent trying the various flavors and sizes before finding the one they liked. Dr. Philo ordered a tall double-espresso mocha latte with skim. She laughed when I made her repeat it, as though I were learning to say hello in a foreign tongue. It was no compensation for Agnes, no such thing existed, but that laugh leavened my heart nonetheless.

  I received gifts. Security people at the Lazarus Project opened most of them, for safety’s sake, and stored the better portion in the basement. Carthage forbade me to write thank-you notes, saying it would only increase the cult of me.

  “What do
es he mean by that?” I asked Dr. Philo.

  “That he is narrow-minded,” she replied. “Ignore him.”

  There were clothes, books, trinkets, dolls, hand-thrown bowls, sunglasses, a woven blanket, on and on. One day in the control room I opened a box to find a long, tapered cone of hard material. It was bright yellow, with a space in the underside the width of a head.

  “Go ahead,” Dr. Philo said, “try it on.”

  I did so, the odd hat fitting awkwardly, the cone projecting in front of my face. “At least it matches my tie.”

  “Oh my God, that is spectacular,” Dr. Gerber said, rising from his desk and approaching.

  “I feel like a duck,” I said. “What is this object, anyway?”

  Dr. Gerber’s eyes were wide. “It’s a bicycle helmet, and it is a beauty.”

  “Are you kidding?” Dr. Philo laughed. “It’s grotesque. Gaudy, too.”

  He shook his head. “I love it.”

  “Then you may have it,” I said, removing the hat.

  “No way,” he said. “Nobody gives Gerber anything.”

  “That may be so. But I am giving this to you.”

  Dr. Gerber took the helmet reverentially, it seemed to me. He turned it halfway round and nestled it down on his head. The cone was in back; I now saw how it gave the helmet a tapered stern. “Thank you, Judge Rice. Thank you.”

  That hefty reporter smirked at his keyboard. “You look like an alien.”

  “You know, Dixon,” Dr. Gerber declared, “I am not a clown.” Then, with consummate dignity, he and his crown marched back to the desk.

  Often a gift came with a request: would I please take a photo of myself with the object and mail it? I knew where that would lead. I had seen what Franklin did in the newspapers with the pictures of me trying clothes on in his store.

  Not all gifts came from strangers. One afternoon Dr. Gerber repaid the helmet by presenting me with a metal object the size of a packet of matches. A cord in its side ran to two tiny buds, which he instructed me to place in my ears. Then he thumbed a button and music began, sounding almost inside my head, as clear as if the players were in the room with us.

  “It only holds two hundred songs, so I picked the essentials.” He counted off on his fingertips. “ ‘Jack Straw’ from Europe ’72, ‘Friend of the Devil’ from American Beauty, ‘Wharf Rat’ from Skull and Roses. The basics.”

  The other personal gift came on Independence Day. Promising a special evening, Dr. Philo brought me to a hotel beside Rowes Wharf. By this point the salt smell did not burn my throat as before. It seemed a fine, fancy place. We rode an elevator to the rooftop, where tables were arrayed as in a plaza. Dr. Philo spoke with a man at a podium by the door, and he led us to a table near the edge. There was a warm breeze, the sun was setting, and the city quarreled below. A waiter presented us with lists of the offerings.

  Until that moment I had remained under Dr. Borden’s dietetic dictates, lab gruel that nourished the body but not the palate. Yet my frequent indigestion had persuaded me that his approach was nonetheless prudent.

  “I am not sure I can eat any of this.”

  Dr. Philo nodded. “That’s why I chose this restaurant. These are raw foods, pure basics, all organic. This is as natural a meal as I could find with this view in the whole city. And you can have anything on the menu you want.”

  “Anything?”

  “Absolutely anything.”

  I ordered a slice of bread. Also a plate of tomatoes. Some bits of cheese. Dr. Philo smirked, encouraging me to be more adventuresome. But I demurred. After the first plates came, I took one bite and had to close my eyes a moment, the experience was so sublime: the pierce of sunshine, the malt of earth. When a man has gone a century without tasting a flavor, I explained to her, a simple slice of tomato, seasoned with salt, is a masterpiece.

  She gave me a wistful look. “Our time and culture take an awful lot for granted.”

  By way of reply, I tore into the bread, a huge bite. She laughed. I had wanted her to laugh.

  As night fell, the only light was a candle on the table. Hearing popping sounds down in the street, I imagined school boys playing with firecrackers. But at our table, there was quiet. For the first time, the very first since my reawakening, we lacked for things to say. Forks clinked, the ice in our glasses jingled, but conversation stalled. There had never before been a lull.

  I fooled with the candle. She gazed out over the water. Grand sailing ships stood at anchor in the harbor, tall masts and crews high in the rigging.

  Suddenly there was a report like a cannon. I jumped but Dr. Philo placed her hand over mine. “It’s all right. You’re in for a treat.”

  Credit her with understatement. I had seen fireworks in my former times, little red poppers we called ladyfingers, or a pinwheel of gunpowder atop a pole. In Lynn, too, we seized upon any excuse for a neighborhood bonfire. Agnes would ride my shoulders as on a pony while Joan held my arm and wished upon the rising embers. Here and now, that night, were marvels of a different order: great chrysanthemums of color, whistlers, drippers, bombs whose fragments exploded anew to spread more lights, orbs of one hue with rings of another like Saturns over the harbor, and my favorite, the white flash followed a moment later by a deep loud boom. At the end there was a chaos of rockets and noises, dozens of detonations in a matter of seconds. We cheered and clapped.

  Afterward, on the street, there were carts hawking balloons, flags, and little cloth animals. We had strolled past one cart loaded with trinkets when Dr. Philo veered back. I ambled up and saw that she had purchased something, the vendor was just giving her the change.

  “This is for you,” she said. “A reminder of our many walks through this city.”

  She handed me a raccoon. The same masked eyes as our trash-can friend, but made of plush cloth. I stood it in the palm of my hand.

  “Thank you, Doctor. I don’t know what else to say. Thank you.”

  Suddenly Dr. Philo snatched it back, holding it against her belly.

  “What’s the matter?” I said. “Have I done something wrong?”

  She shook her head. “I am such a silly girl. Here you are, a district court judge, and I give you a stuffed animal. What was I thinking?”

  “I am touched by it, though.”

  “It’s totally stupid. I apologize.”

  “It is not stupid,” I said. To prove my point, I took the raccoon back, and held it to my cheek. I put its head to my temple. “See? He looks like me.”

  She brightened. “You look ridiculous. Both of you.”

  The next day I felt an unfamiliar agitation. Partly it was indigestion, but this was also a galvanizing of the spirit. My nature is not a restless one, as a rule, but all that morning I could not content myself to wait in the chamber till Dr. Philo came to fetch me.

  The only person working in the control room was Dr. Gerber. He sat as ever, immersed in the world of his computer, with headphones on to shut out the world, and that bicycle helmet to protect him from whatever his imagination thought might strike him unawares. I rapped on the glass, but it had as much effect as if I’d been knocking on the front door of my old home in Lynn. He did not so much as turn his head.

  I put in the earbuds Dr. Gerber had given me, and listened to the first song that played. It was a sweet thing, quiet, almost a lullaby.

  There is a road, no simple highway

  Between the dawn and the dark of night.

  And if you go, no one may follow.

  That path is for your steps alone.

  Suddenly I missed Joan with all my heart. Her impatience with me, her humor, her strong hands. What was this infatuation with the here and now, compared with her loyalty and deep friendship?

  And what sort of man was I, to be awakened all this time and to have thought so lightly on her? My wife was forty-four when I sailed, and I left her neither reserves nor fine estate. How had she fared? Could she afford to remain in our home? If Agnes married, one fine day, who escorted her dow
n the aisle? Which friend of mine had performed that lonely office? How had I been so foolish, to leave them for even one minute? What had become of my conscience? How had I dared to risk so much?

  During the Arctic expedition I missed Joan and Agnes constantly, wishing to share the adventure’s every detail with my wife, yearning to feel my daughter’s fierce animal strength. But those desires had been eased by the knowledge that I would see them in a few months’ time. Now I lacked any such comfort. Now I ached. I had considered asking Dr. Philo to take me to Lynn, to visit my former home. Yet I also feared that the sight would rend my heart.

  Oh, my loves. I ceased the music, fighting tears of shame and regret and loss. I sat on my bed in that chamber, and experienced pangs as though I were being stabbed.

  Banal as it is, nature’s call aided me, for it caused Dr. Gerber to stand and make for the washroom. From the edge of my vision I noticed the silly helmet still on his head. I waited at the window, wiping my face dry with my sleeve. As he returned I pounded the glass with both hands. He looked at me with surprise, then came to the window.

  “Please,” I said, pointing toward the security door. “I beg you.”

  He marched over and poked the combination numbers. I expected him to enter, like everyone else. The rather, Dr. Gerber stepped back and held out his hands. “Well? Are you coming?”

  For the first time I strode through the security door unescorted. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “Took you long enough.” He moved toward his desk. “I’ve been wondering when you would wise up about that whole secure-chamber thing.”

  “What is the combination, then?”

  That pulled on his reins. He stopped, digging a finger under the helmet to scratch his hair. “Now there is a question to get a man in hot water.”

  “I have been patient,” I answered.

  “Too patient. Rules were meant to be broken.”

  “That’s not a maxim a judge would normally endorse.”