The Mere Future

by Sarah Schulman

  The boys, however, knew otherwise. They agreed, soft heads together over a crumbling book, that the phrase had a far more sinister meaning.

  You see, they had been punished, but they had not done anything wrong.

  As a result, they knew for a fact that there was no justice.

  This gave them knowledge that the unpunished did not possess.

  They knew that the most qualified is not necessarily the most recognized. And that if he is the most recognized, it may not be because of his qualification. It may be because of who he knows, his skills being of secondary consideration. He may just be the right caste. A born winner. Even if he’s not really good enough.

  In other words, the fastest may not win the race, even though he is the fastest. The less skilled may reap the reward. And their winning may mean nothing about merit.

  A-ha!

  The boys took this phrase as a confirmation of a profound, unmovable corruption at the center of social life. That was why they knew to flee.

  When they settled in their new faraway home, one passed as a woman. This was to avoid more punishment. When she accidentally died, thirty years later, by slipping on a wet tile and cracking her skull against the floor of the mikva, the villagers realized that she was a man. And being villagers, they sought out his lover and murdered him. The villagers thought this was appropriate. Then both bodies were thrown outside of the cemetery walls to rot.

  17. LONGEVITY

  FREDDY PUT DOWN this story. Sadly, he had to return to the reality of life outside those pages. But something inside him had been stirred.

  Unlike the boys, Freddy was not a homosexual. But he longed for unity with another man, his brother. He wished they could run away together and share everything.

  And he saw the arrival of “Two” into his life as a positive omen, because this was the very day that he and his brother Dominick were graduating from the halfway house.

  The truth of the matter was that Dominick was the real junkie. He was the one who had the brain chemistry requiring more and more dope. Freddy just wanted to be with him, so he went along with it. Freddy took the minimal amount of narcotics necessary to keep the two of them together. But, actually, he didn’t need drugs one way or the other. He just needed a brother.

  This is why the story “Two” affected Freddy so deeply. Once someone has been kicked out of society, they are forced into a situation that may not be safe. That consequence was part of the punishment.

  The boys in Singer’s story had been together for thirty years. Isn’t that much too long for any romantic relationship to remain healthy? What if it is with your own brother? That’s for life, right? Freddy was pretty sure that if the two boys in the story got sick of each other, there would be no way out. The shitty other people had trapped them inside a mutual box.

  Oh God, there he goes in that dress again, one of them probably thought about the other. But still they could not separate. Why exactly? It would involve some kind of pretending about all they had suffered. That it didn’t bond them when it did.

  People were allowed to feel things in books that they could never feel in real life. If you even tried in real life to approximate the feelings found in a book, someone would object. But actual people wrote those books, right? Where were they? Freddy didn’t know. He just wanted some understanding.

  For example, in a book, two people are having an argument. One says,

  “I’m leaving!” and heads for the door.

  The other says, “Wait!”

  The first stops and waits. He hears what the other is saying and realizes that they belong together after all.

  In real life, whenever he was in this situation, Freddy would yell “Wait!”

  But the person would leave anyway. They never stayed to hear the life-changing news.

  I want to live in a book, he cried. And buried his worried face in his dirty hands.

  This was one of those self-esteem issues that his counselor, Ginette, kept bringing up. All of Freddy’s life he had been told that he was bad and wrong. That he was strange. So when he claimed to be a junkie in order to be near his brother, everyone believed him immediately. No one checked to see if it was actually true. They were relieved he had finally failed so they could stop waiting for it to happen. What had his father, Jeff, threatened him with, night and day, all of his life?

  You, you’re gonna be alone.

  And then Jeff would abandon Freddy to make his threat come true.

  If Jeff had been kind instead, Freddy would not be alone. He would have had a father. But the old man wouldn’t shut up, thereby making happiness impossible.

  If you don’t do what I tell you to do, you will be alone. Jeff repeatedly promised.

  And yet, when Freddy did try to obey his dad, he discovered that his father’s wishes were based on a vague fantasy of who Freddy was and what his life was like. A fantasy that was all about his father being right, and not at all possible for Freddy to fulfill. It was a trap. Dad needed Freddy to be wrong. And so, being a loving son and brother, he was.

  You will be alone.

  Brothers are for life. Therefore, Freddy had to be with his brother, just to prove his father had made a mistake. Same for those two guys in the book. They had to be together in defiance. Is that any way to live?

  Freddy’s hair was bright and orange and overgrown. His eyes, deeply green. His jaw was so slack that saliva should have poured forth, but he sucked on his own tongue all day long to avoid those problems. He was fidgety and it embarrassed him. He knew that he could never have a love relationship with a boy or girl because he was so fidgety, he couldn’t sleep. He’d hang around whenever he wanted to have sex, and when he was through he would leave. Everyone uniformly hated that about him. It was just not acceptable. Even one special girl would rather that he stayed up all night, keeping her awake talking about whatever was on his mind and fucking. But he would not.

  She tried to make him love her in the day and he refused. He said that it would deplete him of his essential energies. She thought he was just too shy to make love in the day and that he could not believe how beautiful she thought he was.

  This was her fantasy.

  The real deal was that he just did not want to walk around in a haze of lust, all dreamily dysfunctional and strange. He didn’t want to feel contented. It was too painful. Then he’d want to commit to her and live with her, sit on a chair with his arms around her, see how beautiful her breasts were, visualize her cunt, sit in two chairs next to each other and read while listening to music. He couldn’t stand the pain of imagining that, because when it disappeared, he’d know he was the failure his father had always threatened he would be. His father would be right because he, Freddy, would be alone.

  18. HAIR

  AS COLORFUL AND deeply characterized as Freddy was, his brother Dominick had a very different demeanor. He was plucked. His hair and beard never existed—he had only three eyelashes.

  Dominick had pale blue eyes, which provided the only protection for his otherwise defenseless face. He smoked incessantly. His legs had no hair. The only shaggy place on his body was around his genitals, and even there it was five thin strands of silver.

  Orange-haired Freddy, on the other hand, was outwardly tormented. His face was wrong. Wrong kinds of expressions popped up at all moments. He chewed his jaw, which set all his facial muscles in discomforting directions. Dominick was quiet, different. He barely spoke. His body was flaccid. He would stand still and quiet, bringing the cigarette to and from his lips. The boys were aware that the entire society had changed while they were in treatment, and that the Outside had become a world of more possibility than either of them had ever known. They each feared the opportunity for opportunity. They were shaky.

  That is how each of these guys greeted his new life in the New World.

  Freddy and Dominick stood outside the gate, the halfway house behind them. Each had their belongings in the tell-tale vinyl bag that was provided. As they stood still, t
ogether, and looked out on the newly transformed city, Freddy paced and rubbed his arms, making strange movements with his mouth and teeth. Dominick stood plastically, smoking another cigarette with even, predictable motions.

  Before them unfolded a marvel, beyond what either had expected or imagined. It was a city with no advertising, no logos, no mass-produced images of any kind. Not on buildings, not on buses, not on people. All the color was the natural color of living. People’s faces were the focus.

  It was raining. They stepped forward into a wet, slicked, muted city with no pictures of life, only real life. They saw the red of car lights and a sacred purposefulness in the movements of the people, briskly careening. There were no fake humans doing fake things to sell products. Every image was real.

  Dominick wondered if his cigarette was done. Then he wondered how many other cigarettes were still waiting in the pack. He decided to hold off until he heard a human voice before checking his pack one more time. Then he heard a passerby say “ouch,” but decided to wait a bit longer anyway. The dread of dealing, of feeling, without having enough cigarettes, was so overwhelming that he could not take in the changes all around.

  Freddy, however, was enthralled.

  The two different brothers looked at each other and then turned down the block, together, tramping off to their new apartment.

  The fact that these two conflicted men could have had fairly humane and effective drug treatment and then walk away, in the rain, to an assigned apartment, was amazing. It seems reasonable, but it had always been unattainable unless the person in question could pay through the nose. But, through the miracle of politics, all the services had been provided. In the old days, they would have never gotten off their drug habits, and would be copping on the street in a matter of minutes, with nothing else to look forward to except that familiar, engrossing hustle. A home would have been an impossibility.

  Now, though, with THE CHANGE, these boys had everything going for them that society was newly capable of giving. They still had to provide the hope, but that’s why they had each other.

  Their new apartment cost sixty-five dollars a month. Each brother had his own chair and his own bed. They shared a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. There was a long window at the foot of each bed, and when Dominick slid down, slowly, onto his and smoked a cigarette, he looked out over his shoes at the window. A permanent television set. There was a tree out there, and it was moving. The branches were singing. The rain slid off the leaves. It was always changing. He lay there for years, watching the leaves age, revive. The snow would rest on the branches, and then ten new buds, and then a new green.

  While Dom stared, Freddy paced back and forth, fearing the effects of a cup of coffee and hating himself for not being able to appreciate being alive.

  “I feel that deep inside myself I am right,” Freddy said. “Therefore I am trapped. Because if I thought I was wrong, I could change and avoid being slapped.”

  “Right about what?” Dominick stared. He didn’t get it.

  But Freddy was too upset to answer. Any attempted clarification would fail to hit the nail on the head, and he did not ever again want to say anything without fully believing every dimension of it.

  “Right about the fact that you are not wrong?” Dominick suggested as he puffed.

  “Yeah,” Freddy answered, crying over the stove. “Don’t ever leave me.” Fred’s grief was his only self. “I love you so.”

  Long before this moment, Fred realized that if he were ever to betray Dominick, he might have a normal life. He could have all those rewards that people get for letting their brothers down, for avoiding the Black Sheep. He knew exactly how that process worked. As long as he allowed Dominick to be the Black Sheep on his own, Fred could be superb. If he worked at it, he could have all the status Dom lacked. But Fred would have to collude with everyone else’s attitude of disdain towards his only brother. Cluck-cluck, stab in the back, exclude, and condemn—that sort of thing. Then he, Freddy, would be considered superior by all. Not only did his father want it that way, everyone else did too. The bribery was incredible. They begged him to be better than Dom. But Fred stood by his brother because he needed someone to stand by.

  Now, with this New Way of Life, the rest of the city was following Freddy’s lead. They were officially standing by each other too. Look at this great apartment! It only existed because others cared. And yet, Freddy also knew that a social structure couldn’t do all the work of being humane. It could only make a suggestion. Individuals still had to be nicer in order for it to work. Someone still had to sit with a lonely person in a stark apartment holding his hand while the two of them, together, stared out the window.

  If Freddy had been someone’s wife, others would have considered that kind of loyalty to be the highest virtue. But when it’s your brother, you’re supposed to throw him to the wolves so that you are free to hold the hand of your lovely wife. Why is a wife better than a brother? Fred did not make up any false, self-justifying theories about why he chose his real brother over a nonexistent wife. He knew the real reason. Fred chose Dominick because his brother was the only true witness to Fred’s real history. His true cause.

  Only Dominick had seen Fred’s real experience and stared it in the face.

  No one else could ever know him, and Freddy wanted to be known.

  19. SELL ME YOUR RIGHTS

  SOPHINISBA HAD SOME explaining to do, and she eschewed television as a way to meet the peeps. She would rather repeat something she believed, over and over again to people’s faces, than to say it once in a slick and impersonal way. So Madame Mayor set up a little store-front office and invited the neighbors to stop by for a chat.

  The citizens, not being used to this method, were not stopping by in numbers sufficient to be effective, so she moved outside and sat in front of the subway at a little folding table, hoping to catch the folks on their way to THE MEDIA HUB.

  “Hey you,” she would shout, showing everyone how much she wanted to communicate. Once they realized what was going on, people stopped off for a few minutes and had a mayoral chat. It was refreshing.

  Nadine and I happened to pass by one morning while Sophinisba was on an explanation junket. Of course, we stopped to talk, since we liked her so much. We thought she was doing a great job. I mean, we both felt that way at the beginning. I still loved Sophinisba, but at this point Nadine was feeling suspicious about everything in life, including the government.

  “Sophinisba is still doing good stuff,” I said. “Everyone can see it.”

  “Well,” Nadine murmured. “I don’t know.”

  She was being crabby.

  “Ms Mayor?” she said, as we approached the card table where SB presided. “There is something I do not understand.”

  “That’s why I’m here,” Sophinisba smiled encouragingly as she simultaneously ran the city through her Finger Pilot.

  “All these great changes, all these services. All these humanitarian transformations, Lady Mayor ...” Nadine inhaled. “They cost money! And yet you have dismantled all corporate megaculture from the city’s streets. So tell me, how are you paying for all this?”

  “Well,” Sophinisba gleamed, seemingly ecstatic that someone was paying attention and not just passively receiving. “What a great question.” She offered each of us a glass of fresh-squeezed peach juice. “You see, taxing the rich, etcetera, etcetera … while a great idea, is a concept from a less complex past.”

  This relieved Nadine, and she dropped her guard. She did not identify with the rich, nor did she want to protect them. But the idea of building a better society by taxing the rich and using their money to help the poor was not a new idea. And this era was supposed to be brand spanking new only.

  “Taxing the rich,” Sophinisba continued from under her wired pink-brimmed hat. “This can no longer work for a couple of complex reasons.”

  “Like what?” Nadine asked.

  “Basically, the rich would never allow it.” Sophinisba shru
gged the inevitable. “History has proven this.”

  We both nodded.

  “The rich would rather destroy the universe’s atmosphere, beat others to death, starve and humiliate all living creatures, and poison the water supply, than use their extra cash to help others. It just ain’t gonna happen.”

  Nadine was completely impressed. I could tell by the way her lips softened, and her tongue darted in and out.

  “And the other reason it can’t work ...” A couple of people started hanging around listening. It was getting kind of interesting having a mayor lay it on the line. “... is that the poor are too disorganized to force such a thing. Historically, they have only been able to make progressive change temporarily, usually with the aid of some former prince or kid who went to Harvard. It just never pans out in the long term. The obstacles are too tough. Would you like some pink chocolate?”

  We all had two pieces each, all forty of us gathered by the entrance to the Free BMT. It was good, like red chocolate milk. Calm and relaxing and somewhat narcotizing.

  All the way to work, Nadine and I talked over Sophinisba’s message.

  Redistribution of the wealth was a solution from another time. That was true. And therefore, impossible. One of the most long-lasting effects of long-term rapid fire marketing on the New York psyche was that anything that smacked of a previous moment was no longer palatable. Like last month’s egg. Unless it was nostalgic. But Retro-Socialism hadn’t yet been reintroduced in designer colors. So far, the only thing that Capitalism couldn’t contain was Socialism. But everyone knew that it would find a way. Perhaps this was it.

  Lenin had promised that the Capitalists would sell us the rope with which we hang them. But he was wrong. The Capitalist sells us the rope with which we hang ourselves. It’s direct marketing. No middle-man.

  Feeling toasty, with the sweet and sticky chocolate in our guts, we floated off, soothed by the personal touch and reasonable explanation. And yet, that night Nadine woke up angry and afraid.