The Mere Future

by Sarah Schulman

  Jeff was tripping on all of this. He stared and mulled. He stepped outside and looked at things differently. He saw that those dressed as trendsetters were walking down the streets reading, feeling free about it. Flaunting their books. He knew that they were probably buying stock in book companies, automatically, as they walked. This made them double-cool—and richer.

  Jeff was sure that books were another invented fad. They stunk of it. He recalled the good old days when trends started in someone’s living room and happened to catch on. Those days were long gone. But that’s the price everyone has to pay if they want low rents. Right?

  Jeff hated himself. He could have pulled out his own beard. That’s how sad he was. He’d spent the last three months smashing his fists down on his own skull and still he deserved more punishment. He’d fucked up the whole thing with Claire. Claire. Claire. Claire. Claire. And it was all over those stupid letters she’d sent him. He should have just appreciated them. He should have just kept them happily, as a sign that someone loved him once, even if not enough. But, instead, he had to over-interpret. He didn’t know. He didn’t know that lots of people spoke so intimately to lots of other people at the same time. He was terrified.

  How was Jeff to know that all around him people were sharing intimacy as if it were nothing? They were sharing praise and what they appreciated about each other, what they loved about each other. He had no idea that that was normal—to own the love that you feel. How could he? He’d rather kill her than have that happen. Rereading those letters made him want to fuck her again. But when he told her so, she didn’t want to. Then she said that she did think he was sexy, but that relationships are about more than two people. They’re also about the world. And, while she was sure that he would be so kind and loving to her on a personal level, she didn’t think that the relationship would work “socially.”

  Claire let him go.

  Socially? SOCIALLY?

  SOCIALLY?

  He wasn’t fucking society. He was fucking her.

  That’s why Jeff loved Trueblood, because Trueblood did what he had to do, and then he could explain it. Of course, those were the days before the twenty-four-hour Incest Channel. Ladies with big hair from Milwaukee came on around-the-clock and told how their parents’ Satanic cult committed ritual abuse. They described how their mothers poked their vaginas with knitting needles, killed babies, and made their daughters eat the livers of the dead babies before boarding alien space ships.

  Jeff never wanted to take one step out of Manhattan. Here, when people kill their own children, there is no Martian involved.

  He preferred the Defense of Incest Channel, where men with expensive haircuts, and also some regular Joes, defended their rights to rape their children. They believed that the bad Puritans wanted to ruin everything.

  Anyway, there was a lesson to learn from Trueblood. Even after three months, Jeff could win back Claire’s love, SOCIALLY, if only he could become persuasive.

  28. MAIL

  DOMINICK QUIETLY tended the bonfire out back behind the store. That’s how he spent his days now. He’d wake and smoke a cigarette, lying in bed in his undershorts while Freddy cooked up a bowl of oatmeal. Then they would walk across the street to their store and make some coffee. Then Dominick would light up another smoke.

  They liked their store.

  Freddy loved to sit at the front desk and wait for dispatchers to come in. Then he’d pay them by the bag.

  It had not taken many days of apartment living in The New Era for the brothers to start paying attention to the mail. It came at least five times a day, often more. Each time, their box would be full. But Fred and Dominick didn’t have any friends, nor were they doing any business. Besides the occasional postcard from their counselor, Ginette, their mailboxes were stuffed to the brim with ads.

  At first, Freddy dutifully brought the stacks of paper into the house with regularity. Some of them had nice pictures and designs and others had special smells, sounds, and textures related to specific products. But the paper quickly overtook their lives. They tried pasting layers of it onto the walls as decorations, but soon the size of their apartment was greatly diminished. Freddy made some shelves out of it, but soon the shelves overflowed with mail. That’s when Freddy got the idea of opening up a dump. Within hours many of their neighbors were paying a small fee to have a dispatcher (Freddy) clean out the stuff on a regular basis, and Dominick’s job was to burn it all in a ditch out back.

  The ad producers were upset at first by this unforeseen development, but since the number one rule of advertising is that “people and systems act on and transform each other,” they quickly recognized that a new market was dawning. So they started producing “Mail Dumper” Teach-shirts, baseball caps, and tote bags, which advertised the wearer’s rebellion against the mail system. These new items were first produced in small quantities and sold only in specialty shops, but then they started to appear in knock-off versions and could be purchased through any website. A condom was produced called “The Male Dumper.” All needs were met. Before he knew it, Freddy found a newspaper headline trumpeting: MAYOR, A MALL DUMPER, when Sophinisba banned shopping malls from the island of Manhattan. Then some dispatcher mumbled it to Fred when referring to his old lady, never realizing that he was repeating an ad.

  It was a crazy autumn day. At first, the big tree out back had slowly revealed a bright orange underbelly and then a kooky red surface. It cascaded into bright gold, which had now become as crispy and brown as a shoe, brown as a single piece of singed mail.

  Dominick was quiet, neither constant nor desiring. He was numb. He smoked. He feared any tension. He was self-medicating by staring at the flames. He feared any strong emotions. Fred, on the other hand, loved his job. He loved chatting with the dispatchers, carrying the stacks of paper out back. He loved the way the sacks pulled on the sinew of his back and created unsightly, outof-character lumps of hard tissue at the same weird points on both arms. He knew from TV that most people paid for their lumps with their lives. They spent every last cent on gym clothes, and then on gyms. They spent their most important years trudging up machines. He knew that there were actually writers, sitting at home, trying to decide between writing a book or going to the gym. When that didn’t work, they had plastic surgery. Most New York bodies were extremely expensive. But his was for free. Besides, he could never use those machines. He didn’t know how to program.

  Having a function blunted his compassion. He had goals now, which prioritized actions and took him outside of the realm of unity with all mankind. He’d had a good idea, and clearly no longer wanted a lover, now that he’d achieved something. No use risking failure when success felt so fine. Why get wrapped up in the promise of a pleasure he wouldn’t be able to feel secure about until he was already sick of it? Like his father. Jeff. His father was lovesick for someone he was so mad at, he would have spent the entire relationship getting back at her, or getting her back, if she’d give him either chance. Fred did not want that life. He’d rather burn the mail.

  29. LAKE

  “THAT’S SOME fire you’ve got there.”

  Dominick didn’t even blink. Three or four times a day someone said, “Hey, that’s some fire you’ve got there.” It was a sign. A sign of the other person’s loneliness or lack of purpose, of a superficial desire to connect without the ability to offer something more. It was a clue of banality, of a person who just repeated what they had heard someone else say. It was a symbol of emptiness or a search for a blank conversation to fill a blank afternoon.

  “Son,” Jeff said, squatting down next to his son, “that’s some fire you got there. You’ve grown up to be a pretty good fire tender after all.”

  Oh no, thought Dominick, panicking as a terrible excitement took over his being. His father had returned to destroy him.

  “I remember when you were a boy and I took you to a lake. Do you remember?”

  Dominick nodded, wishing, wishing, that the old man would go back to igno
ring him.

  “We did all kinds of things. Right, my son?”

  “Right.”

  “When you were six we went for a walk. When you were seven I took you to the park, remember? They say that the first seven years of a boy’s life are the most important. Don’t they? Don’t they?”

  “I don’t know,” Dominick whimpered.

  “They do! Voices carry over lakes. Did you know that? Son? Two fellows can be out on a boat fishing and sharing a couple of secrets and the next thing you know, the women back on shore, unwrapping those tuna fish sandwiches, well, they know every detail. The guys come to land and the little ladies are gone. They packed up the picnic lunch and threw it in the trash. People think that nature keeps their secrets, but it don’t. Listen to me, Dom. The old man’s got some experiences that can help you out. Let me be the wise old one and you’ll have an easier time of it. I’m warning you.”

  Jeff picked up a perfume sampler and threw it on the fire.

  “Now the whole world will smell of perfume,” Jeff said. “Ain’t that nice?”

  Many people before him had made the same assumption, but actually nothing smelled stronger, when it was burning, than ink.

  30. TITANIC

  WHEN GINETTE finished her lettuce lunch, she settled on a carrot-dipped cucumber for dessert. All day she planned her strategy for how to get out of her second job at the clinic. She was so sick of drug addicts. Sick of doing “good works” for others. Blech. She was sick of checking their rectal cavities, sick of hearing their lies, their pain. She was sick of sitting in offices with people who had wasted a lot or most of their time. And she hated taking care of them because no one else would. They were mostly weak, shafted by the social structure, or had genetic predispositions that were so ingrained, even amputation wouldn’t have changed anything. What she really wanted out of life was to climb at THE MEDIA HUB, get a better design job, and have a bit more status in the scheme of things. She wanted to do something with her life that really mattered, like be an Art Director.

  For three years Ginette had secretly been working on a master mock-up for a design idea to break into the big time. It was a four-dimensional makeup case with an Indian bedspread motif, chrome plating, and scratch-n-sniff. She knew it was a winner. Every week she sent it out to a different art director and hoped desperately for a reply. To date, she had sixty-five rejections out of 380 submissions. She knew that the other remaining 315 art directors would probably never get back to her. They had already stolen her idea or thrown it away. This was all because she was a nobody and didn’t come from the right family. Her father was a shoe salesman and her mother was a CPA. In order to get in with an art director, you needed to have a father who was Idi Amin and a mother who was Peggy Lipton.

  But one day, while glancing at the Scan, she saw a spotlight on Nadine, art director at the CAN-BC Autodimension Design Division of THE MEDIA HUB. Ginette recognized her from the street. Nadine had really cool lip gloss. She was gay, and those girls tended to be nicer to Ginette, plus Nadine said, in the spotlight, that she was “open to new dimensions.” Ginette sent her a really slick qmail, and a prototype with an anti-Xerox coating. No point in taking any chances. Nadine called her two minutes later, apologizing for the delay. She said she’d seen Ginette “around” many times, and would “love” to get together. She apologized twice again.

  Why is she apologizing when these types are usually real cunts? Ginette thought.

  So they got together for water, to talk things over.

  “This is the best design I have ever seen in my life,” Nadine said. “And I am so honored to be working with you. Let’s get together again next week.”

  “You know,” Ginette said at their second meeting, “I had a dream about you.”

  “I’m so honored to be in your dreams,” Nadine said. “Now, let me tell you that I have just been put on retainer by Sophinisba herself to develop a new design for the city crest. If you can turn this makeup case into a city crest, we’ve got a deal.”

  “Oh, wow,” Ginette said, calculating. She had approached 380 art directors. Nadine was the only one who wanted to rescue her from social work. “It’s a deal. Do you think the city crest could be a makeup case?”

  “Hold that thought,” Nadine said. “Call me on Thursday and we’ll set up a meeting.”

  When Nadine went home that night, she looked at her girlfriend, me. She knew that she loved Ginette in a way that she could never love me. After all, I was there and Ginette was a fantasy. But that if she pursued Ginette, everything would be a disaster. Showing your desire is an invitation for pain.

  She had to think it over.

  She thought and thought.

  Ginette called and called, called and called. She called every day for thirteen months.

  Nadine thought and thought. Thought and thought. Finally, Nadine called her back. “I really apologize,” Nadine said. “Let’s meet four months from Thursday at 1:13.”

  “Okay,” Ginette said. “My house would be fine.”

  Nadine felt that that extension would give her time to decide.

  That day Ginette scrubbed and scrubbed. She needed this job, and no one else had called her back. Ginette spent the last of her paycheck on smoked mozzarella from Pittsburgh, slicing the cheese lovingly, arranging it beautifully on the most precious platter.

  Nadine decided at the last minute that this was ridiculous. She had to get rid of me before she started dating someone else. But how? In the meantime, she blew off the date.

  This predictable no-show by Nadine created a weird obsession in Ginette’s mind, as all withholding always does. All Ginette could think about night and day was why Nadine lied to her. What Nadine had said to her. What Nadine promised her. All the ways Nadine recreationally misled her, and why? Why? Why?

  Nadine became her air and water. She couldn’t think about anything else except for this chick who’d fucked her over, who’d taken away her dream. As always happened, this kind of hatred was deeply erotic. How else can you feel about the person who has what you want? Who goes out of her way to offer it to you, and then won’t show up? It’s a cock tease, and it works. Night after night, Ginette tossed and turned in her sweaty little bed, imaging Nadine’s luscious body. Fucking her with a tree. Whenever she had sex with a man, Ginette imagined it was Nadine, especially at the moment of pain. She’d walk down the street always looking for Nadine. Every room she entered, she was prepared. Even when her beeper sounded that a client was in trouble, she had her hand around Nadine’s neck and her underpants stuffed firmly into Nadine’s petulant mouth.

  31. THE CITY THAT NEVER LISTENS

  RIGHT AFTER THE CHANGE, Sophinisba worried that all shops would cease. Americans had gotten into the habit of ordering items off the Scan. They’d think of what they wanted, tell the Scan, and charge it. Since nothing was made in the US anymore, the computer would order the thing from production plants in the Democratic Republic of Congo and keep the profits. They didn’t have to stock inventory or make selections. It was an interesting process that intrigued everybody because they had to rely on their imaginations to understand what they would like. The consumer had to project an image, instead of cathect with a displayed object. And therein lay the fatal flaw.

  At first, everyone delighted their own fancy, dreaming up boxes of dried boysenberries and goat milk soufflé, reversible cars, instant intimidation machines, automatic sneaker scrubbers, and see-through jockstraps. But after a while, the rusty imaginations felt taxed. Only Africans knew how to make things, and Americans could barely think. This shopping system required the consumer to constantly come up with something desirable, and this was impossible to achieve with regularity while simultaneously multitasking and doing Pilates. Consumers wanted limits, perfection, parameters of selection.

  So, ever responsive, the Scan started providing leading suggestions to make the process less taxing on the consumer. To give her the illusion of creativity without actually having to come up with anyt
hing.

  For example:

  DO YOU WANT SOMETHING:

  1. groovy 2. funky 3. tasteful 4. demure 5. kitsch 6. chic 7. hung 8. decent 9. mysterious 10. organic 11. dependable 12. pan-Asian 13. high carb 14. raw

  But even that degree of specificity never turned out to meet the consumer’s expectations. Most of the items got returned. Shopping was not fulfilling its potential in a world where personality still reared its ugly head. So shops were born again. Shops and books. Ultimately, the market always returns to the basics.

  We always return to the basics, Freddy read, heard, and then thought as he watched his father’s lying face spewing all that bullshit. Yet, suddenly, something unspeakably cruel happened. Freddy’s father stood up, threw up his hands, showed Fred his disgust, and beckoned casually in Dominick’s direction.

  Shockingly, as Freddy’s world fell, Dominick stood mechanically, dusted ash off his pants, and left his brother behind to follow his father down the street.

  Fred stared.

  Dominick staggered behind Jeff.

  How could this happen?

  The problem was that Fred had invested his entire heart in a helpless addict who had no resistance. Freddy had depression; that was his resistance. Dominick had no such brakes.

  As Fred watched his soul be demolished, Dom did what his father said because he had cravings, cravings that could not be defied. He was addicted to the hope that someday his father would be interested in him, that someday he would have protection and guidance. This was his Jones.

  When Fred watched his darling brother going off with Pop, he slowly got moving and lumbered along. He didn’t have to. It wasn’t a compulsion. He followed anyway, because to abandon Dominick, in Dominick’s moment of abandoning him, would have been grotesque. Historically, every time Dad let Dominick down, Fred stood by Dom’s side. He had promised himself, early on, that only when his father was kind to Dominick would Freddy allow his father to be kind to him too. Paternal love should not be exclusive to one child.