by John Gould
“Sir?”
What’s infuriating is that I’m the one who’s always loved stages and steps and so forth. Jerry hated them, any attempt to box him up, move him out of exactly where he was at that exact moment. Six times I proposed to him before he’d even talk to me about marriage. When he finally said yes it was only because that was more random and ridiculous than saying no again. He still gave himself hell, though, for not following the stages over his mum, for being angry when he should have been in denial, for bargaining when he should have been depressed. And for feeling good, almost giddy, when that’s no stage at all.
I kind of get it now, the feeling good bit. Jerry’s only been gone three months and just yesterday I had a decent time with Oscar at Good Dawg, where I’ve been taking him for sessions once a week since he started acting out. There’s another guy, Niklaus, who’s got a schnoodle named Socrates, and not romantically or anything but we’ve connected. I half had Niklaus in mind when I masturbated last night. Wanking, would that come before Anger or after it? Niklaus keeps asking me how I’m doing, the emphasis to let me know he really wants to know, but does he?
“Sir?”
Annika doesn’t want to know, I’m confident of that. Maybe I should tell her anyway. Back when there were stages you talked about it all the time. Jerry was forever rattling on about his mum, just exactly when her heart began to fall behind, what he wished he’d said to her. In those days your sadness was a foreign body you had to expel or it would fester, and what if that’s still true? My gay husband died and I’m alone — I could jump right in. Never just husband, always gay husband. Jerry’s joke and I’ve kept it going, immortality and so on. My gay husband died and I’m alone, just stark like that. Or I could go into a little more detail. My gay husband died of an aneurysm eighty-seven days ago at a performance of a piece he wrote called “Nowhere,” which was basically a recording of him playing Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ on the kazoo, piped in through forty-two speakers wrapped all around you, which adjusted digitally to where you were as you moved around on this big blacked-out stage so it always came evenly from everywhere, which meant you were nowhere. You were always nowhere. It was a concert for one so he died alone, which wouldn’t be true, his sister was there with him, but sometimes the truth isn’t what happened.
“Um, sir?”
But now it’s bad for you, getting it out. So says Doctor Deb. What you’re doing is digging yourself deeper and deeper into the rut of your own horror. I already went over the story once today anyway, with Butcher Bob. He knows it well enough. Knows to laugh at gay husband, go quiet at love of my life.
“Hello, sir?”
And really, how can I be so sure? Was Jerry the love of my life? Am I dead yet? Do I want to be?
“Sir? I’m calling because you and your wife have supported us in the past.”
I say, “My gay husband.” Oscar’s tugging at his leash — he keeps forgetting there’s nobody at home. Perfectly natural, say the folks at Good Dawg, and he’ll get over it, or at least he’ll look as though he has, and what’s the difference?
“Sir? Would there be a better time for me to call?”
“Yes,” I say. “No,” I say. “You know what? Now’s good.”
Many Worlds
It’s the woman in the floral blouse, the older guy in the jean jacket, the Frida Kahlo look-alike, then you. Grab a Newsweek from the pile on the coffee table and pretend to pore over it. How lipstick saved lives at Bergen-Belsen. Climate change passes point of no return. Keep looking at the magazine but think about something else. Think about how hard it is not to think about something you don’t want to think about. Think about the bizarre song you heard on the way over, Pink Floyd but with the Bee Gees in there too, somehow. Strange. Remember back to when strange was good. Remember back to when strange was fun because normal was always there when you needed it.
The woman in the floral blouse is up — the nurse, or maybe she’s a receptionist, is guiding her into the doctor’s office. Now it’s just the older guy in the jean jacket, the Frida Kahlo look-alike, then you. Frida Kahlo in her mid-thirties, about the time of that self-portrait with the third eye that turns out to be a skull. Or a little later, the self-portrait as a deer shot full of arrows — Frida Kahlo at your age. Think positive, or rather think negative since that’s what you need to hear, is negative. Is there something you can still do, some prayer or incantation that might still change the outcome of a test that’s already been completed? The world is odd, remember. World, or worlds. Remember your physics. Remember you don’t have any physics, but remember shooting the shit with the physics guys in the grad lounge, Sylas and Anoop. You quoting your Kierkegaard, them scribbling their math on beery napkins. “It is a lingering death, to be trampled to death by geese.” Is this really the best bit of Kierkegaard you can conjure up? The point was that the equations only worked if there was more than one world, in fact if there were all possible worlds, if everything that can happen does happen. There’s a world in which you remember a better bit of Kierkegaard. There’s a world in which you remember that pithy bit about the absurd as the object of faith, in fact there’s a world in which you not only remember that bit but recite it to the howled approval of the others here in the waiting room, including the receptionist who in many worlds has hair the colour of a smoggy sunset.
There goes the older guy in the jean jacket. Now it’s just the Frida Kahlo look-alike, then you. She shrug-grimaces at you. Shrug-grimace back. Remember that in most worlds you don’t exist, never have. Remember that in many of the worlds in which you do exist Allyson’s here with you, since you didn’t leave her just before your first symptom, if that’s what that spell of weakness was. In countless worlds you met the Frida Kahlo look-alike at a previous appointment, and went out afterwards for Mexican food — your clever idea — though she turned out to be Chilean. In some of those worlds you were suave yet authentic, yourself but somehow more than yourself, and the Frida Kahlo look-alike, long dark hair loosed from its braid, smiled as Frida Kahlo never did in any of her paintings, smiled as though the grief in her had been transformed into exaltation.
Hm. Some sort of mix-up here — the receptionist has called you first, ahead of the Frida Kahlo look-alike. Fine. Stroll, or better yet stride across the waiting room. En route, catch the eye of the Frida Kahlo look-alike. Determine to ask her her name when you come out. Paula? Sofia? Valentina? She bears all these names, and all others. All possibilities are realities, the thinkable ones and the unthinkable.
Creatures
Is it messed up to want my son to be the reincarnation of a man instead of a woman? Or small-minded or homophobic or something. It’s too soon to say for sure whether or not he’s gay, but the signs point the other way. I caught him Googling “big boobs” on my phone last weekend (though how big can they really be on that puny screen?), and his pajamas were crusty next morning. I called his mum with the news and she had a little cry over it, her baby no longer a boy. Then she said I could keep him for an extra couple of hours if I wanted to, and I said thanks, that would mean a lot. It’s as though we forgot how to fight for a bit there, me and Philomena.
I love Max for who he is and everything, and of course I don’t care if he’s queer, but the animal thing is odd. Philomena hates animals, and not that it really matters but I do too. Us both not wanting pets was one of the things that made us imagine we could live together. When Max isn’t around I put food down for his cat Elsie, and I scoop her litter box, but I make sure she knows I bought and spayed her only to impress Max (about a week after I moved out of the house and into this dinky apartment), and that if not for him she’d be back on the street.
Elsie was my idea, actually. The name “Elsie.” I thought it was funny, a cow’s name for a cat, certainly better than the froufrou names Max kept coming up with, like “Sheba” and “Scheherazade.” Then he saw Born Free at school one day (they were doing Africa in socials, with a teacher old enough to think that’s what you s
how), and the lioness’s name is Elsa. Elsie, Elsa. Philomena got hold of that coincidence, and combined it with Max’s lifelong devotion to bugs and snakes and so on, and the whole reincarnation business just started rolling. Phil’s a believer. She did a past life regression once that said she was a witch back when witches were being burned. For a while there, when things were extra bad between us, she fingered me for one of the priests who interrogated and tortured and roasted her alive for the sin of healing people. That was a rough patch. Anyhow, Max kept whistling the theme song from Born Free (which actually is kind of catchy), and getting more and more obsessed with nature, and Phil “put two and two together,” as she says.
There are some pretty cool bits of evidence, if you were looking to be convinced. Max has these two bladelike birthmarks on his chest, and apparently Joy Adamson, the woman who raised Elsa and then let her back into the wild, was stabbed to death by an angry employee. Joy was almost a concert pianist, Max is bizarrely good on the tuba. Joy spoke English with a German accent, Max could do a perfect Colonel Klink after like one Hogan’s Heroes rerun. Joy painted African wildlife, Max draws Spider-Man. Joy was ten when her parents divorced, which is how old Max was when I finally moved out.
Most of this stuff we discovered together, Max and me hunched at the computer with a couple of Cokes on the go. Last night we read about the time Joy was cajoled into killing a deer (she grew up on the kind of estate where you do that), how horrible it made her feel, how it firmed up her commitment to creatures. They say you forget about your last life when you’re still little, so it’s no surprise Max doesn’t remember this stuff even if he actually is Joy.
But the time I took him fishing? Why doesn’t he remember that? It’s almost exactly the same as Joy’s thing with the deer. We were up on Mabel Lake going for rainbows, and after about four hours we finally got one. As part of his Learning Experience I had Max bash it over the head with a wrench. Like most of my lessons it backfired, didn’t toughen him up so much as soften him even further. In a way it’s my fault he’s so loopy over living things.
Should I remind him about that day, and how it fits with him being Joy? Probably. It’s better to have him believing this bunk than even wondering about the truth. I thought I might remind Philomena too, when she called after bedtime tonight to gripe about too much TV (I guess Max got jonesing over there), but I decided against it. I was getting angry again.
“But why not George?” I said.
“What?” Phil wanted to keep talking about the many ways I continue to fail as a father. “Father” always in quotes.
“Why Joy Adamson?” I said. “Why not George, her husband? He’s the one who brought Elsa home. He was the real animal guy.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t feel right,” said Phil. “Joy just feels right to me, you know? Max is so gentle, so —”
“He was murdered too,” I said. “George Adamson was. Which fits with the reincarnation thing, right? And hey, why is that?”
A weary sigh. I’m always at my worst the day Max moves back to Phil’s place, it’s a mistake for her to call. “Why is what?”
“Why is it everybody’s last life was so dramatic. Everybody was the beheaded queen, nobody was, I don’t know. Nobody was the handmaid.”
“You were the handmaid, Mark.”
I gave her a laugh for that one. That’s one thing with me, I can laugh. It’s always been bizarre to me that Max can’t see what’s funny. I said, “And what about karma?”
“Karma?”
Elsie watched me from her usual spot, Max’s comfy chair. She was wishing I was smaller so she could kill and eat me. She was thinking, You’re a creature too. Don’t forget it. “Well, I mean, shouldn’t Joy have some good stuff coming? For taking care of Elsa, and all the pain she went through last time? Why would she be reborn to somebody like you?”
A pretty good silence.
I’ve often tried to picture Max’s real dad, the dude Phil cheated with when I was away that one time the year we were married. A gentle giant (Max is almost my size already), musical, creative, crazy about his fellow beings. A little over-serious and slow, like Max. Soft-spoken. I’ve tried to be more like him, the gentle, life-embracing bit, but not much luck yet. Maybe Max will help me with that one day. “Why would she get reborn,” I said, “to a hurter like you?”
Another good silence. Then, “Twelve years, Mark. How long is this going to last?”
And me, “Forever, Phil. Remember?”
Bones
penumbra
I don’t know if this is the right place to post this, but I’m stuck. I’m writing a story about the first man, how he lived but mostly how he died. “The Birth of Death” — pretty good, no? The thing is, I’m usually okay at empathizing with my protagonist, but how do I get inside this guy’s head? We’re talking a million years ago! Help!
aliass
It’s about turning off the right side of your brain, the logical side, and waking up the creative side. Maybe go for a walk and look at things, or do some tai chi. I listen to really loud music, mostly nu metal. Check out Touch This.
minimaestro
Start a conversation with your character. Write a question — What’s your favourite movie? — except something that fits for a million years ago. Then just let the answer come. Use two different fonts.
blair
Wasn’t the first man a woman? Otherwise where did he come from?
opie
Not so sure about your dates, penumbra. The first Homo sapiens lived 250 thousand years ago, and the first member of the genus Homo lived two million years ago. What do you mean “first man”?
zas
Homo is right, lol. Just what we need on this forum, another f**king pedant.
dozer
Put your character in a situation and see what he does. He’s sitting there at his campfire and he hears a growl, and it’s a saber-toothed tiger. What does he do? Or did they have fire yet?
genjok
The first man is you, and you are the first man. Separation is an illusion, so you have no problem.
opie
Zas, gtfoti.
penumbra
Thanks, minimaestro, that’s a great suggestion!
backslash
Yeah, cool title, penumbra! The only thing is, what about everything else that dies? I don’t want to be critical — I know how hard it is to get going! — but aren’t you being a little anthrocentric? Even carrots die.
opie
It stands for get the f**k off the internet, zas. Which by the way is what you should do if you don’t know what it stands for, and even if you do.
rosebud
Hang on, isn’t the left side the logical side?
mediumisthemess
You have to find your way in through the details. Think about, what would he have in his pocket? A bone maybe? What type of bone? Or a rock, or a berry, you have to research it and then imagine it. Let those details lead you to the overall sense of who he is. Then figure out how to kill him.
puck
The first humans, if they were humans, to bury themselves were Neanderthals. In the graves with the bones were stone tools and flowers. What tools was your guy good with? But also, you’ll need the second man so he can bury the first one. Room for dialogue, if they talked. Did they talk?
zas
Did your mummy never listen to you, opie? Get help man.
penumbra
Good question, dozer. No, they didn’t have fire, I just looked it up. I guess that’s one of those research details! Btw, great suggestion, mediumisthemess! Thanks!
walserfan
The first human death by robot was thirty-two years ago, at a Ford plant. Just thought you might like to know.
shawnanana
Do a monologue. You’re the first man, and you have five minutes to tell us everything important about yourself.
Go.
queery
Actually, puck, the first burial goes back to Homo heidelbe
rgensis in Spain, where they found a pink stone ax buried with bones, the first evidence of ritual and symbolic thinking. If that’s the first burial, maybe the guy in it is the first man? And maybe pink was his favourite colour? Something to work with.
aliass
You’re right, rosebud, sorry. It’s left.
carl
The movie Quest for Fire was set eighty thousand years ago and they talked. The language was created by Anthony Burgess, the guy who wrote A Clockwork Orange, and then Stanley Kubrick made a movie of that.
ojo
Right, queery, the first man was a poof and the rest of us came from where? Try making sense lol.
sweetthing
The first man was Adam, and he lived for 930 years (Genesis 5:5). If you mean the first man to die, you mean Abel, who was killed by his brother Cain because God accepted Abel’s sacrifice but not Cain’s, which wasn’t really a sacrifice because it was the fruit of the ground (Genesis 4:3). The first death is a murder. This story has been told, but everyone has their own version. Maybe you should write yours. :)
fallenangle
The first person to die was Lilith, Adam’s first wife. She wasn’t made out of Adam’s body, like Eve was, and she refused to lie under Adam, or any other man, if there were any.
timtime
I’m not trying to be funny, but hasn’t death been sort of done to death? From the Bible and Shakespeare, which are full of death, right down to today’s news? I’m just saying maybe you should find something new to write about.