Transcendent 3, page 25
Rachel feels frozen solid. Ice crystals permeate her body, the way they would frozen dirt. This woman is touching between her legs, without looking her in the face. She cannot bear to breathe. She keeps trying to get Jeffrey’s attention, but he always looks away. As if he’d rather not witness what’s going to happen to her.
Lucy and a man in scrubs wheel in something gauzy and white, like a cloud on a gurney. They bustle around, unwrapping and cleaning and prepping, and they mutter numbers and codes to each other, like E-drop 2347, as if there are a lot of parameters to keep straight here. The sound of all that quiet professionalism soothes Rachel in spite of herself, like she’s at the dentist.
At some point they step away from the thing they’ve unwrapped and prepped, and Rachel turns her head just enough to see a dead man on a metal shelf.
Her first thought is that he’s weirdly good looking, despite his slight decomposition. He has a snub nose and thin lips, a clipped jaw, good muscle definition, a cyanotic penis that flops against one thigh, and sandy pubic hair. Whatever (whoever) killed this man left his body in good condition, and he was roughly Rachel’s age. This man could have been a model or maybe a pro wrestler, and Rachel feels sad that he somehow died so early, with his best years ahead.
Rachel tries to scream. She feels Lucy and the other one connecting her to the dead man’s body and hears a rattling garbage-disposal sound. The dead man twitches, and meanwhile Rachel can’t struggle or make a sound. She feels weaker than before, and some part of her insists this must be because she lost an argument at some point. Back in the Safe Space, they had talked about all the friends of friends who had gone to ground, and the Internet rumors. How would you know if you were in danger? Rachel had said that was a dumb question because danger never left.
The dead man smiles: not a large rictus, like in a horror movie, but a tiny shift in his features, like a contented sleeper. His eyes haven’t moved or appeared to look at anything. Lucy clucks and adjusts a thing, and the kitchen-garbage noise grinds louder for a moment.
We’re going to get you sorted out, Lucy says to the dead man. You are going to be so happy. She turns and leans over Rachel to check something, and her breath smells like sour corn chips.
You are violating my civil rights by keeping me here, Rachel says. A sudden victory, except that then she hears herself and it’s wrong. Her voice comes out of the wrong mouth, is not even her own voice. The dead man has spoken, not her, and he didn’t say that thing about civil rights. Instead he said, Hey, excuse me, how long am I going to be kept here? As if this were a mild inconvenience keeping him from his business. The voice sounded rough, flinty, like a bad sore throat, but also commanding. The voice of a surgeon, or an airline pilot. You would stop whatever you were doing and listen, if you heard that voice.
Rachel lets out an involuntary cry of panic, which comes out of the dead man’s mouth as a low groan. She tries again to say, This is not medicine. This is a human rights violation. And it comes out of the dead man’s mouth as, I don’t mean to be a jerk. I just have things to do, you know. Sorry if I’m causing any trouble.
That’s quite all right, Mr. Billings, Lucy says. You’re making tremendous progress, and we’re so pleased. You’ll be released into the community soon, and the community will be so happy to see you.
The thought of ever trying to speak again fills Rachel with a whole ocean voyage’s worth of nausea, but she can’t even make herself retch.
Jeffrey has wondered for years, what if he could talk to his oldest friend, man to man, about the things that had happened when they were on the cusp of adolescence—not just the girl, but the whole deal. Mrs. Hooper’s scooter, even. And maybe, at last, he will. A lot depends on how well the process goes. Sometimes the cadaver gets almost all of the subject’s memories and personality, just with a better outlook on his or her proper gender. There is, however, a huge variability in bandwidth because we’re dealing with human beings and especially with weird neurological stuff that we barely understand. We’re trying to thread wet spaghetti through a grease trap, a dozen pieces at a time. Even with the proprietary cocktail, it’s hardly an exact science.
The engineer part of Jeffrey just wants to keep the machines from making whatever noise that was earlier, the awful grinding sound. But the project manager part of Jeffrey is obsessing about all of the extraneous factors outside his control. What if they get a surprise inspection from the Secretary, or even worse that Deputy Assistant Secretary, with the eye? Jeffrey is not supposed to be a front-facing part of this operation, but Mr. Randall says we all do things that are outside our comfort zones, and really, that’s the only way your comfort zone can ever expand. In addition, Jeffrey is late for another stakeholder meeting, with the woman from Mothers Raising Well-Adjusted Children and the three bald men from Grassroots Rising, who will tear Jeffrey a new orifice. There are still too many maladjusted individuals out there, in the world, trying to use public bathrooms and putting our children at risk. Some children, too, keep insisting that they aren’t boys or girls because they saw some ex-athlete prancing on television. Twenty cadavers in the freezer might as well be nothing in the face of all this. The three bald men will take turns spit-shouting, using words such as psychosexual, and Jeffrey has fantasized about sneaking bourbon into his coffee so he can drink whenever that word comes up. He’s pretty sure they don’t know what psychosexual even means, except that it’s psycho and it’s sexual. After a stakeholder meeting, Jeffrey always retreats to the single-stall men’s room to shout at his own schmutzy reflection. Fuck you, you fucking fuck fucker. Don’t tell me I’m not doing my job.
Self-respect is the key to mutual respect.
Rachel keeps looking straight at Jeffrey through the observation window, and she’s somehow kept control over her vision long after her speech centers went over. He keeps waiting for her to lose the eyes. Her gaze goes right into him, and his stomach gets the feeling that usually comes after two or three whiskey sours and no dinner.
More than ever, Jeffrey wishes the observation room had a one-way mirror instead of regular glass. Why would they skimp on that? What’s the point of having an observation room where you are also being observed at the same time? It defeats the entire purpose.
Jeffrey gets tired of hiding from his own window and skips out the side door. He climbs two stories of cement stairs to emerge in the executive wing, near the conference suite where he’s supposed to be meeting with the stakeholders right now. He finds an oaken door with that quote from Albert Einstein about imagination that everybody always has and knocks on it. After a few breaths, a deep voice tells Jeffrey to come in, and then he’s sitting opposite an older man with square shoulders and a perfect old-fashioned newscaster head.
Mr. Randall, Jeffrey says, I’m afraid I have a conflict with regards to the latest subject and I must ask to be recused.
Is that a fact? Mr. Randall furrows his entire face for a moment, then magically all the wrinkles disappear again. He smiles and shakes his head. I feel you, Jeffrey, I really do. That blows chunks. Unfortunately, as you know, we are short-staffed right now, and our work is of a nature that only a few people have the skills and moral virtue to complete it.
But, Jeffrey says. The new subject, he’s someone I grew up with, and there are certain…I mean, I made promises when we were little, and it feels in some ways like I’m breaking those promises, even as I try my best to help him. I actually feel physically ill, like drunk in my stomach but sober in my brain, when I look at him.
Jeffrey, Mr. Randall says, Jeffrey, JEFFREY. Listen to me. Sit still and listen. Pull yourself together. We are the watchers on the battlements, at the edge of social collapse, like in that show with the ice zombies, where winter is always tomorrow. You know that show? They had an important message, that sometimes we have to put our own personal feelings aside for the greater good. Remember the fat kid? He had to learn to be a team player. I loved that show. So here we are, standing against the darkness that threatens to consume everything we admire. No time for divided hearts.
I know that we’re doing something important here, and that he’ll thank me later, Jeffrey says. It’s just hard right now.
If it were easy to do the right thing, Randall says, then everyone would do it.
Sherri was a transfer student in tenth grade who came right in and joined the Computer Club but also tried out for the volleyball team and the a cappella chorus. She had dark hair in tight braids and a wiry body that flexed in the moment before she leapt to spike the ball, making Rachel’s heart rise with her. Rachel sat courtside and watched Sherri practice while she was supposed to be doing sudden death sprints.
Jeffrey stared at Sherri, too: listened to her sing Janelle Monáe in a light contralto when she waited for the bus, and gazed at her across the room during Computer Club. He imagined going up to her and just introducing himself, but his heart was too weak. He could more easily imagine saying the dumbest thing, or actually fainting, than carrying on a smooth conversation with Sherri. He obsessed for ages, until he finally confessed to his friends (Rachel was long since out of the picture by this time), and they started goading him, actually physically shoving him, to speak to Sherri.
Jeffrey slid up to her and said his name, and something inane about music, and then Sherri just stared at him for a long time before saying, I gotta get the bus. Jeffrey watched her walk away, then turned to his watching friends and mimed a finger gun blowing his brains out.
A few days later, Sherri was playing hooky at that one bakery cafe in town that everyone said was run by lesbians or drug addicts or maybe just old hippies, nursing a chai latte, and she found herself sitting with Rachel, who was also ditching some activity. Neither of them wanted to talk to anyone, they’d come here to be alone. But Rachel felt hope rise up inside her at the proximity of her wildfire crush, and she finally hoisted her bag as if she might just leave the cafe. Mind if I sit with you a minute, she asked, and Sherri shrugged yes. So Rachel perched on the embroidered tasseled pillow on the bench next to Sherri and stared at her Algebra II book.
They saw each other at that cafe every few days, or sometimes just once a week, and they just started sitting together on purpose, without talking to each other much. After a couple months of this, Sherri looked at the time on her phone and said, My mom’s out of town. I’ll buy you dinner. Rachel kept her shriek of joy on the inside and just nodded.
At dinner—a family pasta place nearby—Sherri looked down at her colorful paper napkin and whispered: I think I don’t like boys. I mean, to date, or whatever. I don’t hate boys or anything, just not interested that way. You understand.
Rachel stared at Sherri, even after she looked up, so they were making eye contact. In just as low a whisper, Rachel replied: I’m pretty sure I’m not a boy.
This was the first time Rachel ever said the name Rachel aloud, at least with regard to herself.
Sherri didn’t laugh or get up or run away. She just stared back, then nodded. She reached onto the red checkerboard vinyl tablecloth with an open palm, for Rachel to insert her palm into if she so chose.
The first time Jeffrey saw Rachel and Sherri holding hands, he looked at them like his soul had come out in bruises.
We won’t keep you here too long, Mr. Billings, the male attendant says, glancing at Rachel but mostly looking at the mouth that had spoken. You’re doing very well. Really, you’re an exemplary subject. You should be so proud.
There are so many things that Rachel wants to say. Like: Please just let me go, I have a life. I have an art show coming up in a coffee shop, I can’t miss it. You don’t have the right. I deserve to live my own life. I have people who used to love me. I’ll give you everything I own. I won’t press charges if you don’t sue. This is no kind of therapy. On and on. But she can’t trust that corpse voice. She hyperventilates and gags on her own spit. So sore she’s hamstrung.
Every time her eyes get washed out, she’s terrified this is it, her last sight. She knows from what Lucy and the other one have said that if her vision switches over to the dead man’s, that’s the final stage and she’s gone.
The man is still talking. We have a form signed by your primary care physician, Dr. Wallace, stating that this treatment is both urgent and medically indicated, as well as an assessment by our in-house psychologist, Dr. Yukizawa. He holds up two pieces of paper, with the looping scrawls of two different doctors that she’s never even heard of. She’s been seeing Dr. Cummings for years, since before her transition. She makes a huge effort to shake her head, and is shocked by how weak she feels.
You are so fortunate to be one of the first to receive this treatment, the man says. Early indications are that subjects experience a profound improvement across seven different measures of quality of life and social integration. Their OGATH scores are generally high, especially in the red levels. Rejection is basically unheard of. You won’t believe how good you’ll feel once you’re over the adjustment period, he says. If the research goes well, the potential benefits to society are limited only by the cadaver pipeline.
Rachel’s upcoming art show, in a tiny coffee shop, is called Against Curation. There’s a lengthy manifesto, which Rachel planned to print out and mount onto foam or cardboard, claiming that the act of curating is inimical to art or artistry. The only person who can create a proper context for a given piece of art is the artist herself, and arranging someone else’s art is an act of violence. Bear in mind that the history of museums is intrinsically tied up with imperialism and colonialism, and the curatorial gaze is historically white and male. But even the most enlightened postcolonial curator is a pirate. Anthologies, mix tapes, it’s all the same. Rachel had a long response prepared, in case anybody accused her of just being annoyed that no real gallery would display her work.
Rachel can’t help noting the irony of writing a tirade about the curator’s bloody scalpel, only to end up with a hole in her literal head.
When the man has left her alone, Rachel begins screaming Jeffrey’s name in the dead man’s voice. Just the name, nothing that the corpse could twist. She still can’t bear to hear that deep timbre, the sick damaged throat, speaking for her. But she can feel her life essence slipping away. Every time she looks over at the dead man, he has more color in his skin and his arms and legs are moving, like a restless sleeper. His face even looks, in some hard-to-define way, more like Rachel’s.
Jeffrey! The words come out in a hoarse growl. Jeffrey! Come here!
Rachel wants to believe she’s already defeated this trap, because she has lived her life without a single codicil, and whatever they do, they can’t retroactively change the person she has been for her entire adulthood. But that doesn’t feel like enough. She wants the kind of victory where she gets to actually walk out of here.
Jeffrey feels a horrible twist in his neck. This is all unfair, because he already informed Mr. Randall of his conflict and yet he’s still here, having to behave professionally while the subject is putting him in the dead center of attention.
Seriously, the subject will not stop bellowing his name, even with a throat that’s basically raw membrane at this point. You’re not supposed to initiate communication with the subject without submitting an Interlocution Permission form through the proper channels. But the subject is putting him into an impossible position.
Jeffrey, she keeps shouting. And then: Jeffrey, talk to me!
People are lobbing questions in Slack, and of course Jeffrey types the wrong thing and the softcore clown porn comes up. Ha ha, I fell for it again, he types. There’s a problem with one of the latest cadavers, a cause-of-death question, and Mr. Randall says the Deputy Assistant Secretary might be in town later.
Jeffrey’s mother was a Nobel Prize winner for her work with people who had lost the ability to distinguish between weapons and musical instruments, a condition that frequently leads to maiming or worse. Jeffrey’s earliest memories involve his mother flying off to serve as an expert witness in the trials of murderers who claimed they had thought their assault rifles were banjos, or mandolins. Many of these people were faking it, but Jeffrey’s mom was usually hired by the defense, not the prosecution. Every time she returned from one of these trips, she would fling her Nobel medal out her bathroom window, and then stay up half the night searching the bushes for it, becoming increasingly drunk. One morning, Jeffrey found her passed out below her bedroom window and believed for a moment that she had fallen two stories to her death. This was, she explained to him later, a different sort of misunderstanding than mistaking a gun for a guitar: a reverse-Oedipal misapprehension. These days Jeffrey’s mom requires assistance to dress, to shower, and to transit from her bed to a chair and back, and nobody can get Medicare, Medicaid, or any secondary insurance to pay for this. To save money, Jeffrey has moved back in with his mother, which means he gets to hear her ask at least once a week what happened to Rachel, who was such a nice boy.
Jeffrey can’t find his headphones to drown out his name, which the cadaver is shouting so loud that foam comes out of one corner of his mouth. Frances and another engineer both complain on Slack about the noise, which they can hear from down the hall. OMG creepy, Frances types. Make it stop make it stop
I can’t, Jeffrey types back. I can’t ok. I don’t have the right paperwork.
Maybe tomorrow, Rachel will wake up fully inhabiting her male body. She’ll look down at her strong forearms, threaded with veins, and she’ll smile and thank Jeffrey. Maybe she’ll nod at him, by way of a tiny salute, and say, You did it, buddy. You brought me back.
But right now, the cadaver keeps shouting, and Jeffrey realizes he’s covering his ears with his fists and is doubled over.
