The Experiment

by John Darnton

  "I do, of course. But it's strange—all those twin studies. I've read them and understood them. But when it happens to you, it's different. It's not science anymore. It's personal. It goes right to the core of who you are."

  She played with the wax from the candle, peeling it off and rolling it into a ball in her fingers. It reminded him of the cave—could that have been only five hours ago?

  "You know what I've been thinking? My parents—they love me a lot. They would do anything for me. They clearly thought that what they were doing was wonderful—doubling my life span. But all those years, they didn't tell me the most important part—about Julia—and there was a reason."

  She took a sip from Jude's scotch before continuing.

  "They didn't know how to tell me. They were ashamed on some level. They were ashamed because they knew it was wrong. They're not... you know, they're not immoral people. They did leave the Lab. What's going to happen to them now?"

  "Maybe they can help us somehow. They know more than they told you."

  "They're not well. It's not going to be easy."

  She threw the ball of wax down on the table. "God, why did they do it? Didn't they think it through? I feel so used, so violated. I feel like one of those primitive people you hear about—someone's taken my photo and I feel they've stolen my soul."

  "But they haven't."

  "But I feel it."

  Jude's words came out in a sudden rush, like a declaration.

  "It's not the same. There's no one else like you, Tizzie. You're unique, your soul is intact and... and you also just happen to be extraordinarily beautiful."

  She looked at him and smiled—a wonderful smile that cracked wrinkles around her mouth.

  "Well, that sounded pretty good. Is there more where that came from?" she asked.

  "A bottomless pit."

  He put his hand on her knee under the table.

  The waitress came by with a pot of coffee, but they refused. Tizzie went to the bathroom, and Jude signaled for the check with air writing. He got it, and as he rose to leave, he spotted the Mexican busboy and walked over to him to say good-bye and talked some more, slipping him a twenty-dollar tip. The broad face registered surprise, and the dark eyes followed Jude on the way to the cash register, where Tizzie joined him. He paid the bill and they left.

  "What were you two talking about?" she asked.

  "Nothing much."

  It was late now. Tizzie drove because she was the sober one. The gas station and fast-food signs were extinguished, and there were not many cars. The highway stretched before them like a dark river and the moon was up, and they felt as if they were the only two people still awake.

  * * *

  Every light in the motel was out. Their door cards were waiting for them in the office, sitting in mailboxes. Someone had closed Skyler's door, and the banister had been cleaned. It smelled vaguely of disinfectant.

  "Want a nightcap?" Jude asked, opening his door.

  Tizzie refused. More than anything, she said, she needed a bath.

  They went to their separate rooms. But a minute later, he heard a rap at his door. His pulse quickened.

  She was standing there, one hand on her hip.

  "Wouldn't you know it—my tub doesn't work. Stopper's broken."

  He let her in. Moments later, through the bathroom door, which was opened a crack, he heard water cascading into the tub. He turned on the television: a late night black-and-white movie. He let it roll on, but he didn't pay it any mind. From the mini-bar, he got a Budweiser and sipped it from the bottle.

  Eventually, after much splashing about, she emerged in a cloud of steam, wearing two towels, one tied around her waist, the other draped across her breasts. She was carrying her clothes in a bundle.

  Jude patted the bed and motioned for her to sit down. She did, without putting down her clothes. He leaned over toward her and kissed her gently on the neck, which smelled fresh and damp. He felt her wet hair on the back of his neck.

  She pulled away slightly and sat upright. "Jude."

  The sound of his name was the sound of a door closing.

  "It's been a long day."

  He nodded defensively.

  "Mountain roads, cave-ins, a near-death experience. I'd say that's a lot for one girl. I'm ready to turn in."

  "Funny—you didn't mention Skyler."

  "That's because that one is still hanging. And I can't bear to think of it."

  After she left, and he heard her door open and close, he sat up some more in bed, sipping the beer and watching the movie, whose plot he never quite caught.

  The next morning, they got up early, had a quick breakfast and went to the hospital. Skyler's door was open, but the curtain was drawn. They saw a breakfast tray on the bedstand, a plate with half-eaten pancakes sitting in a pool of syrup. Tizzie pulled the curtain back.

  The patient was sitting up in bed, looking alert. He was overjoyed to see them and gave them both hugs. It seemed clear from the reception he gave them that he had been through a harrowing time.

  Skyler remembered almost nothing of his illness—only certain moments, he said, like staring at his blood on the motel room wall, stumbling down the stairs, the frightening wail of the ambulance.

  "Has a doctor been by? Dr. Geraldi?" Tizzie asked.

  "No."

  He asked them where they had been yesterday.

  So they told him what had happened to them in the Gold King Mine—how they had been trapped in the tunnel and dug their way out and lost the car and were then followed by a mysterious car.

  "Christ," said Skyler. "I had it easy compared to you guys."

  They also told him about their talk, about Tizzie's confession.

  Skyler looked at Jude—uncertainly, but also a little defiantly.

  "So now you know—about Julia?" he asked.

  "Yes," replied Jude, thinking it strange that Skyler had said "about Julia" and not "about Tizzie."

  Skyler looked away and said nothing, which bothered Jude. He's feeling half sad, he thought, and half guilty for keeping it a secret from me.

  And it dawned on Jude that he was extrapolating from the way he would feel.

  Tizzie fussed over Skyler, getting him an extra pillow and fresh ice for his water. Then she went off in search of coffee for herself and Jude, and while she was gone, the two of them felt awkward together, Skyler propped up against the headboard, Jude leaning back against a window ledge. They couldn't think of much to say, and the silence was uncomfortable.

  Tizzie returned with two styrofoam cups containing black water with a hint of coffee. She had cornered Dr. Geraldi.

  "He's gotten some of the tests back. He's less worried—though he still doesn't know what it was. He's convinced it was some sort of mystery virus and says the most important thing is if you're feeling better. He's going to stop by later—I think he'll discharge you."

  Jude left Tizzie at the hospital to look after Skyler. He had things to do.

  He stopped off in the lobby and found a bank of telephones with a phone book, in which he checked the government listings and the yellow pages. He scribbled the addresses. First, he drove to the Motor Vehicles Bureau and stood in line for a full five minutes, sizing up the operation. Then he stepped outside to have a cigarette, got back in the car and pulled away.

  He found the photographer as advertised at a mall not far away. The studio was at the top of a staircase over a deli, a cramped office with a wall plastered with heavily airbrushed photos of smiling children and happy families.

  The secretary was chewing gum with her mouth open. She took his name—a false one, naturally—and gestured for him to sit down. Five minutes later, he was posing for the photographer, a scrawny young man who couldn't understand why Jude passed up all the alluring backdrops—a bookcase crammed with leather-covered volumes, a bosky scene with a waterfall, a New England autumnal setting—in favor of a simple red background. That one, he remarked, was as dull as the Arizona licenses. He was doub
ly confused when, halfway through the session, Jude insisted upon exchanging shirts and combed his hair straight back.

  While waiting for the photos to be processed, Jude had a cup of coffee in the deli and read the papers. Nothing much happening. But one brief item caught his eye: a body had been discovered in Georgia, maimed beyond recognition and with the visceral organs missing. It was the second such murder there within the week. Police were searching for what the papers had dubbed "the body-snatcher." Jude wondered: more maiming of dead bodies. Was it just one more coincidence?

  He picked up the photos and drove across town, back to the Big Bull restaurant. Now for the hard part. He parked and walked around the back to the kitchen entrance. The door was open, next to an outdoor air-conditioning unit that was humming in high gear but not pumping cold air where it would do any good for the help. The cooks and dishwashers were pouring sweat. They watched him with curiosity, and when he stepped inside, no one stopped him and no one spoke to him. He found the Mexican busboy, and he could tell by the look on his face that he remembered him from the night before. Jude took him outside for a talk.

  It lasted all of ten minutes. A cigarette offered and accepted, some chitchat and finally the request, gently but firmly made: surely you must know where something like that can be done—for a friend, you understand, someone perhaps in the same boat as friends of yours. The exchange was sealed with two more twenty-dollar bills, the new kind that still looked fishy.

  An hour later, Jude was in a slum village on the outskirts of Phoenix. Dirt roads crossed other dirt roads and skirted trailer parks and dusty lots packed with shacks and lean-tos overflowing with children and chickens. It looked like parts of Mexico City.

  He had to stop every five minutes to ask directions; he thought some of the locals were feigning ignorance. At last, he spotted the small handwritten sign he had been told to look for, reading DOCUMENTOS. He parked the car and started to walk inside, but his path was blocked by a heavyset Mexican who leaned across the doorway with a ham-sized forearm. Over his shoulder Jude spotted a large Xerox machine, incongruous against the chicken-coop whitewashed wall.

  It took him forty-five minutes, six more cigarettes, a hundred and forty dollars and all the persuasive power of his inadequate Spanish to get what he wanted. He sat sipping a warm beer while the machine did its work and the man sat at a makeshift workbench like a master craftsman, wielding the knives and scissors and pieces of plastic that were his trade.

  "But why two?" he had asked. "And why with the same surname but two different Christian names?"

  "Family reasons" was all that Jude had replied, and that had settled the matter.

  Driving away, Jude came to a small ravine that was banked on one side by rocky cliffs. He spied openings high up on ledges and wondered if they were caves once inhabited by desert Indians. They would have used them as the last redoubt, farming in the valley and then retreating up there with as much food as they could carry during times of siege.

  Farther on, he came to civilization—a gas station and a cement factory. The road widened and turned to black tarmac. He saw a sign that caught his attention and started him thinking—thinking about something that had been bothering him, like a name he couldn't remember. He had been first struck by the memory, unformed but strong, when he'd gone up to the Indian reservation in the mountains. He had had it several times since.

  He checked his watch. It was hours out of the way, but if he hurried, he would have time. When he reached the main highway, he turned south—toward Tucson. Farther on the rolling gray hills were dotted with saguaro cacti, their arms raised like hold-up victims.

  The Sonora Desert Museum on Kinney Road was set in a valley down a steep, winding road through Gates Pass in Tucson Mountain Park. At the entrance was a landscaped patio with shaded spaces and ramadas made from saguaro ribs. Behind, like an adobe dwelling, was the terra-cotta stucco of the main building.

  He parked next to a charter bus disgorging junior high school students. On the sidewalk, they formed into cliques self-segregated by sex. The girls skittered ahead whispering and conspiring. The boys hung back, lunging into one another and trading the occasional punch.

  Jude paid $8.95 admission and waited for them to pass. He spent the time in the gift shop, looking at postcards, silver bracelets, beaded necklaces and Indian sand paintings. On a rack was a stack of papers; by reflex he checked the headlines. Nothing big happening.

  He hoped the visit would be worth the money. He was beginning to worry about the bankroll. They would run through it quickly if Skyler had to stay in the hospital for any length of time. He could switch identities and put the bill on his own health insurance, but that meant he could be traced. And the longer they stayed there, the more clues they left for their trackers.

  He went outside where the museum began, a series of paths connecting low-slung terra-cotta buildings. The coast was clear, so he headed straight for the tan building to the right with the flat roof and thick walls, clearly marked REPTILES & INVERTEBRATES. Inside, it was dark and he was momentarily blinded. His nostrils were assaulted by the acrid smell of urine and sweat. His eyes gradually adjusted. To his right was a glass-enclosed pen of worn, compacted earth interspersed with tree branches and barkless logs. Here and there were large turtles, motionless under their thick, humped shells. To his left was another picture window containing foot-long Gila monsters, their dull black bodies spotted with reddish-orange markings.

  Then farther on came the snakes, sleeping or slithering around rocks and branches. A cluster of young children clutched the railing and stared, as motionless as the turtles had been, fascinated by the lure of a diamond-back rattler splayed along a log. Its head was raised and poked in slow motion at the air.

  Finally, Jude came to the lizards. There were scores of them, all different sizes, in browns and greens and speckled shades in between. Some were stump-tailed, others long-tailed. Some had spiny necks standing up like a row of teeth; others had thin, scaly flaps of skin hanging down from their chins like beards. Some disappeared against the mud, others stood out in silhouette, standing on logs like sentinels. The more he looked into the glass-enclosed cages, the more he saw. Most of them stayed where they were, as immobile as scenery, but others occasionally darted here and there, seemingly without purpose, moving with a speed that was somehow alarming.

  He could stand close and look them in the eye. There was a Texas horned lizard (Phynosoma cornutum) with a flattened body trimmed around with spikes and a devilish cast to the skull. And a two-foot-long green iguana (Iguana iguana) clinging to a tree with delicate speckled fingers that ended in long black nails. And the iguanid chuckwalla (Sauromalus obesus), sixteen inches long, with a strange two-tone luminescent body, which as the sign informed him, had the habit of hiding in crevices and, when sensing danger, puffing itself up so that it could not be extricated. Not a bad defense, thought Jude.

  Still he had not found what he was looking for.

  He wandered outside and followed a winding path. He walked through a mineral gallery, under ground caves, an amphitheater. He passed by open pens separated by dry moats—mountain lions, black bears, porcupines, Mexican wolves, white-tailed deer.

  Then, he saw it—on an island all by itself in a corner that was arid and hot as blazes.

  The lizard was just like the one that had watched him balefully two days ago at the office on the reservation. It gripped a log, just as that one had, and it looked back at him with a single unblinking eye.

  Jude stepped closer. He looked at the thick skin, the diamond-shaped scales piled in layers like shingles, the curvature of the mouth. The mouth looked cruel. He saw the sides expanding slowly, barely perceptibly. He looked straight into the eye, into the spherical black pupil. It seemed to spiral inward, bottomless in its blackness.

  And suddenly it called to him. He knew it. He knew it from his childhood, had seen it close by for years. Of course, he said to himself. That was it. We had lizards. We kept these lizard
s. An image floated up from somewhere—himself as a young boy, his hands pressed against glass, staring at the lizards, at those deep black pupils.

  His reverie was interrupted by a figure that appeared on his left, so suddenly he was startled. He turned to look at a woman in her thirties, blonde hair tied in a ponytail, a pair of large-rimmed glasses perched jauntily on her nose. She smiled.

  "I see you're engrossed," she said. "They're my favorites."

  He saw now that she was wearing a trim suit jacket. Above her left breast was a tag: CURATOR OF REPTILES.

  She followed his eyes. "It's a better job title than 'reptilian curator,'" she said. "That's what they wanted to call me."

  Now he smiled. "Why are they your favorites?"

  He realized there were more than the one he had been looking at on the island, a half dozen or so of them. For the first time he read the sign attached to the railing, which said: DESERT GRASSLAND WHIPTAIL.

  "Some peculiar characteristics," she replied.

  "Like what?" he said. "What's he do?"

  "She, actually."

  "How can you tell? How do you know which one I'm talking about?"

  "That's just it." Her smile had a triumphant edge to it. "They're parthenogenetic. That's the salient characteristic."

  "And that means?"

  Out of the corner of his eye Jude could see the horde approaching, the band of noisy, overly hormoned teenagers.

  "It means she reproduces without fertilization of an egg. In other words, all extant members of the species are female."

  Jude's mouth opened. "No males at all? How do they survive?"

  "Quite well, in fact. They replicate themselves perfectly—through a primitive form of cloning. As a result, each one is exactly identical to every other one. In many ways it seems to make life easier. I'd say they have a happy little colony there."

  She tugged the bottom of her jacket and leaned against the railing.

  From behind came a giggling, a chorus of chuckles and snorts that grew louder as the boys and girls elbowed one another and pointed to a corner of the island. There were two whiptails, one on top of the other, clinging for dear life, locked together in a coital embrace.