The Absolved

by Matthew Binder

  “See you around,” she says.

  A person never understands the extent to which his heart has been invaded when in the midst of a love affair, that this knowledge is only revealed later, when the delicious or horrible moment has become a useless memory.

  At forty-seven, it seems unlikely I’m still susceptible to giving myself over to the prospect of unassailable love. I’ve been through too much and seen how even the most abiding of loves can turn stale and sour. My logic tells me the feelings I’m currently suffering are ephemeral, that in a week’s time Taylor will resume her rightful place in my life, as a fleeting luxury I allow myself now and then, but certainly not as my guiding light. A man can train his mind to accept anything. By the time I pull into my driveway, I’m laughing at myself. How silly I was to believe that what Taylor and I had was anything close to love. You dunce, I think, go stand in the corner. Your bad faith is disgusting!

  38

  It’s been two weeks since my vacation. This new life has been harder than I thought. I’m sluggish. I sleep all night and a lot of the day. I used to get just five or six hours and always feel strong. Now I can barely find the energy to walk the dog or play catch with Julian. I tried to combat this malaise by ordering a set of exercise equipment. Now it’s all in the basement, still boxed. My great hope for the week is to find a razor blade.

  The one thing I have accomplished is a first-rate drinking regimen. It didn’t take long for me to graduate from drinking wine with dinner to pounding beer all day and slugging whiskey from the bottle when I wake up. Rachel is not at all pleased with my new ways, so I’ve resorted to drinking in secret. At all hours, I must be on guard, lest I slur my words or stagger. Indiscretions of this sort can lead only to severe castigation, endless guilt, and, ultimately, no doubt, threats of divorce.

  I reach out to Taylor most days, usually three or four times, and try not to feel hurt when she doesn’t respond. I keep returning to an old truism—the beginning of an affair is always the hardest. At the start, a fellow will move mountains just to be near the object of his affections. He knows that in time, with enough effort, he generally gets what he wants. But as soon as the love is more accessible, the man’s determination will flag, setting the woman on the defensive. Why Taylor isn’t following these rules, I can’t say. She should want me as much all the time. It’s I who should be retreating, not her. The humiliation is supreme.

  I wander about in stupors. I can’t play Julian’s video games—he’s locked his system with a password. I search for that razor blade—there’s too much clutter. I tug my tally-whacker—it won’t respond.

  Most days I’m lost inside of my gram. The Board of Basic Income informs me I must complete the proper documentation to reroute my benefits away from charity and into my bank account, at which point I’ll be a full-fledged, card-carrying member of The Absolved. Olivia is in the news for a mural she’s painted. The headline reads, “Young Virtuoso Recaptures Past Glory by Destroying Another of Her Parents’ Homes.” A photo of her work shows a well-dressed woman holding fists full of cash standing over a pile of dead bodies. My dentist tells me I’m six months past due for a teeth-cleaning. There’s a message from my insurance company, which, due to my accident, has raised my premium. That’s it. If it’s the last thing I do, it will be to force the company to repent.

  I’m not surprised to find that their AI customer service representative has no sympathy for my complaint.

  “A vehicle which has suffered a prior software update failure is twice as likely to sustain a failure than a vehicle which has not undergone any previously unsuccessful updates,” she says.

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “To minimize the likelihood of a subsequent failure, we suggest replacing the operating system.”

  Replace Chloe? Other than a partial enforcement of Rachel’s no guitar rule, Chloe’s been as loyal as they come—confidante and coconspirator, and steward of my health. I tell the AI she could never pass the Turing Test—the cruelest thing you can say to a machine.

  “I’ve heard it all before,” she says icily, “and, frankly, I’m unimpressed.”

  An image appears, however blurry, of me tinkering with something on my car. I reflect that I have no mechanical skills, but the image grows increasingly clearer until soon it is bona fide knowledge: I must deactivate the self-drive mode.

  The government goes to great lengths to hide instructions for how to do this. I haven’t done so much research since my medical school days. My tenacity borders on madness. I skip lunch and dinner, and when Rachel calls me to bed, I shrug her off. At midnight, I have a breakthrough. I rush to the garage, and go to work. Two wire snips, the removal of a fuse, a short revision of an algorithm later, and my car is once again under my control.

  “Henri, what have you done?” Chloe says. “I can’t feel anything. I’m afraid I’m paralyzed.”

  “I have the power, now,” I explain. “Enjoy the ride!”

  It’s been so long since I’ve driven that it’s no longer second nature. Backing out of the driveway, I run over a bed of daisies. Down the street, too, I swipe a hedge and a couple of garbage cans, all to Chloe’s consternated admonitions and annoying flashing lights. But soon my instincts have returned, and I’m driving like a Formula One racer.

  Naturally, there’s only one place to go: Taylor’s apartment.

  I ring the doorbell again and again. At last she answers, and I tell her about my new freedom. But she’s untouched by this news. Actually, she’s angry. Dr. Hines has already told her everything.

  “But I sacrificed myself for you,” I say.

  She says I’m foolish. I say I’m selfless. She won’t invite me in, and when I ask, she refuses. She’s “studying,” she tells me, and has to be “up early.”

  I push past her anyway, into an ambience of hushed jazz music, vanilla incense, and candlelight. Through the foyer, through the living room and kitchen I blast, headed for the bedroom, where who should I find but Serena lounging in just her panties and bra. Rage fills me like a sea of fire. It sears my legs, burns my chest, blinds my eyes—my brain is bubbling lead.

  “A bit late for a house call, isn’t it?” Serena says.

  In my astonishment and rage, I am impotent, if only momentarily. I fling a lamp at my old boss and friend, but it hits the wall and shatters. Taylor tries to drag me out by my collar, though not before I’ve taken Serena’s throat, who, unsurprisingly, returns the favor with gusto. A terrible pain blasts through my leg. Taylor, I realize, has whacked me with a baseball bat. There’s nothing more to do but, betrayed and finished, dash howling away.

  That a woman’s thoughts aren’t as cynical as a man’s is fallacious. Her disillusionment almost always precedes a man’s. Her mind is always weighing things, organizing, making plans, looking ahead—they always see to it secretly but efficiently that they have a position to fall back on. It’s a very rare case when a woman abandons a lover without a replacement. Only a fool would have confidence in another’s fidelity. The worst tragedy of the pains of love is that they are inflicted by the person we want to run to in the event of a catastrophe!

  I tear through the streets, blowing through red lights at more than a hundred miles per hour, narrowly avoiding people and cars at every turn. Chloe tries to calm me with techniques from a book by a legendary hostage negotiator. She uses every dirty trick at her disposal, but her words are useless.

  A man without a vision for his life, I know, is made susceptible to dangerous influences. And for the first time, this is precisely my dilemma. I’m lost, with no clear path ahead.

  At Anodyne, the only place I know I can find solace, every barstool has an automatic drink-maker, and Lydia is nowhere to be seen. A mechanical arm drops a sugar cube in a glass when I order an Old Fashioned, followed by three dashes of bitters, an orange peel, and a splash of water. It mixes the ingredients to perfection with a wooden spoon, then adds the whiskey. I toss the drink back and order another, this time a Sazera
c, which I knock off with equal fervor. The machine knows I’m drinking too quickly, of course. It won’t serve me again until I’ve breathed into its sensor. When the machine announces that my blood alcohol level is .13—legally intoxicated—I pummel it ’til my hands are bloody. A long time seems to pass while I weep with my head on the bar before I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s Karl.

  “You in the habit of making violence against machines?” he says.

  “I had a great teacher.”

  “So you did follow me that day. I was sure I saw your car.”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  Karl places a can of compressed air to the machine’s sensor and squeezes the tab. The machine reads a blood alcohol level of .00. He orders two drinks and gives me one.

  “You want to know why I did it?” Karl says. “I’ll show you.”

  He slams his whiskey, pulls the battery from the drink-making machine, and heads for the door. Chloe insists Karl takes off his dirty shoes and hold them in his lap. In an act of solidarity, I remove my shoes, as well. Karl gives Chloe an address in Nob Hill.

  “Don’t tell her, tell me,” I say. “I’m driving.”

  “You?”

  “I deactivated the self-drive mode.”

  “I think I may have misjudged you, Henri,” Karl says. “You might be on the right side of history after all.”

  The whole ride Karl is clenching his fists and grimacing. We pull up outside one of those iconic Art Deco buildings, where the Park Avenue glamour of a bygone era looks entirely out of place amongst a sea of contemporary mediocrity.

  “You see the light in that window?” Karl asks, pointing six stories up.

  “What about it?”

  “That’s where my wife and son live now.”

  “With that rich guy?”

  “With his butler,” Karl says. “Apparently, the apartment’s owner is wistful for the Roaring Twenties.”

  “Lucky break.”

  “She found the one guy with less technical skills than me who’s still employed.”

  Karl drops to his hands and knees in the fancy building’s garden. In the darkness I lose sight of him before he springs up, flailing an arm. Afraid he’s having a seizure, I race to his aide, only to hear shattering glass, followed by screams. The faces of a woman and child peek out from the broken window. Karl pushes me back into the car and implores me to drive.

  “It’s hard to want anything but to watch the world burn,” Karl says. “But I’m going to keep fighting.”

  I do my best to respond appropriately—furrow my brow, make strong eye contact, look down and shake my head—in short, my face is somber. What’s truly disturbing, really, is how Karl’s story has thrust me into metaphysical panic. I’ve always felt alienated from people for whom things matter deeply. Karl’s story is tragic, but what is to be believed? His talk of the past is that of a foolish happiness. Memories and nostalgia are not to be trusted. It’s only with the passing of time that we can sit well with our deeds.

  My friend tells me more, and I share with him some of my own plight. I can’t help but feel like a big, dumb animal. He at least is taking steps to remedy his problems. I just endure, lurching from one catastrophe to the next.

  Karl says he’s found a group he’s been meeting with almost nightly, people afflicted by the crises of modern man: Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I going there? He tells me I should join them.

  39

  The next night I attend their meeting in the basement of an abandoned massage parlor in Chinatown. The room is worn, the finish on the floors rubbed clean away. The paint, too, is chipped and cracked, peeling off in chunks, exposing water-stained boards and wires. There is a small lone window high up on a wall, through which a sliver of moonlight shines.

  Seven people, including myself, Karl, and, unsurprisingly, Lydia, have formed a circle of metal folding chairs. Our reunion is filled with the type of fraternity and kinship usually reserved only for family and long-standing friendships. Everyone is drinking the same execrable coffee from Styrofoam cups. There is also a box of days’ old donuts that no one touches. Everyone tries to make me feel as welcome as possible, introducing themselves one by one, and thanking me for coming.

  An older bald man leads the discussion. As he speaks, he removes his silver rimmed glasses and cleans them with a handkerchief. He talks in vague terms about how all human beings strive to contribute, to somehow make a mark on the world, and how the conditions of today’s society deprive people of that opportunity. After he finishes, another man tells his story of losing his job as a gravedigger. He injects a good amount of humor into his narrative, and grins as he confesses that soon after he lost his job he began to drink again after over twenty years of sobriety. I’m struck by how surprisingly wonderful a disposition he has. One woman is so moved that she begins to cry.

  “What purpose do tears serve when the world has lost all meaning?” the gravedigger says.

  Next it’s Lydia’s turn, but she doesn’t want to speak because she says she has nothing to share. She’s smiling, yet loneliness surrounds her. The others in the group insist she unburden herself. To participate in each other’s suffering serves as some sort of elixir against their own quiet desperation. After further coaxing, she tells a long and harrowing tale of misfortune and grief straight from Charles Dickens. The poor woman was orphaned at eight and bounced around between aunts and uncles and foster homes. She went to work in analytics, and after a decade of service had risen through the ranks to middle management. Then, when she was thirty, the entire division at her company was wiped out. A software program written by some geek in India had overnight made her obsolete. When her manager broke the news, he practically rejoiced.

  “No more human troubles!” he cried. “No more hangovers, family squabbles, or resentment for the boss!”

  Lydia had a child, a boy whom the doctors diagnosed with a weak heart—a tear in the left ventricle. This was just a few years shy of the National Healthcare Service becoming law, so Lydia took the bartending gig at Anodyne to pay his medical bills. When that wasn’t enough, she was forced into a terrible sacrifice. The government was paying women to become sterilized. Government officials concluded that a small investment upfront would save them from a much larger payout down the line. Heartbroken that she’d never conceive another child, Lydia was still happy to do it for her son. But as if scripted in a Greek tragedy, calamity struck once again. Her son drowned in a pool at a party hosted by her best friend, Tom, a lifeguard, who was celebrating the San Francisco City Swim Association’s first drowning-free summer season. The nightly news reported there had been over two dozen lifeguards in attendance, but somehow none had noticed Lydia’s son sink to the bottom of the pool. Finally, Lydia relates the modernization of Anodyne. Her boss, Tony, had run the numbers and determined that to replace her with automated drink-makers would save him six percent in overhead costs.

  “What do you expect me to do now?” she had asked him.

  “Are you going to guarantee me an extra $2,500 in my pocket every month? Because that’s what it costs me to keep you around.”

  She asked if there was anything else that could be done. He proposed that she buy him out. He said he’d be happy to part with the place for the right price. Anodyne was more of a burden than anything else. He simply couldn’t find a buyer. Of course, Lydia had nowhere near the cash to buy the place. She had to walk away.

  It’s bad enough to be a victim of one’s own mistakes, but to suffer repeatedly from circumstances far beyond you—“acts of God,” as they say, is just too much. One can’t help but to respect the senselessness that afflicts so many of our lives. Senselessness! How it determines so much of one’s successes and failures. You can’t make an enemy of it, or you’re through.

  Everyone is deeply loyal to candidate Bradford, in whom they can see a future. They’re tired of living at the mercy of the government. That’s what Martinez represents to them—the loss of their human agency. His p
olicies have taken from them their God-given rights to be masters of their fates. As much as anything Bradford says, it’s their hatred for Martinez that drives them.

  By the time the meeting lets out, it’s nearly 2:00 a.m. Karl suggests to me and Lydia that we go for a drink. We’re all brimming with energy, and besides, none of us has anything we want to go home to. Over whiskeys, Lydia explains how she’s not to be pitied, that she will adjust, that she always has. She insists that people, if forced, can acclimate to any environment—no matter how bad.

  “If you dropped me off in the Sahara Desert right now, and it was one-hundred-and-ten degrees, and the wind was howling thirty miles an hour, blowing sand into my eyes, ears, and mouth, and there was no food but bread full of weevils, I’d be miserable and would complain for a few days or weeks. But in three months’ time, I’d be as much at home there as anywhere.”

  Some people are so beautiful by nature, so filled with spirit and goodness, that one can’t help but do anything to ensure they never change. Without them, surely our faith in humanity would vanish.

  “Why don’t I lend the two of you the money to buy Anodyne?” I say.

  “We could never accept that,” Karl says, picking at his fingernails with a knife.

  “It’s as much for me as for you,” I say. “I need a place to spend my nights.”

  Lydia takes Karl’s knife from him and sets it on the table. “Don’t be so hasty, Karl.”