Collected Short Fiction, page 838
Lissa seemed troubled by the Hamlin group too. Remembering a jollier past, perhaps. The happy days of first love. The awesome sensation of being chosen by Nathaniel Hamlin for his bed, for his studio. A world of endless sunrises before her. All highways open. And to have come to this. How great the contrast. Macy could see the bleakness spreading across her face. A mistake to inflict Hamlin’s art on her? Or maybe she merely felt oppressed by the museum’s Sunday throng. We will go now, I think.
Midmorning, Monday, Macy hard at work. Griswold had just assigned him to a new story. Preliminary charisma-level statistics for the 2012 election came out last night, late; let’s do a feature on all the candidates, run up a chart of pulse-figures, hormone-counts, recognition profile, the whole multivalent works, right? Right. And so to the task. Research assistants scurrying madly. Their pretty pink boobies hobbling. Stacks of documents. Fredericks stopping by to offer bland, useless suggestions. Loftus staggering in with a load of simulations and color overlays for his approval. The hours whisking swiftly by; the mind fully engaged in purposeful activity. And then an unscheduled interruption. Someone down here to see you, Mr. Macy. No appointment. A visitor for me? Who? Image of Lissa, bedraggled, obsessed, freaking out in the reception hall. Please, I must see him, matter of life and death, I’m going to snap, I’m going to blow, let me go upstairs! A messy scene. Only his visitor wasn’t Lissa, His visitor turned out to be a Dr. Gomez.
Panic. Gomez, here? Hamlin’ll kill me!
After the first quick surge of fright, some rethinking. Hamlin had warned him not to go to the Rehab Center, or to telephone his doctors, yes. But the doctor had come to him. Was that covered by the threat? A debatable point. In any case, Hamlin didn’t seem to be raising objections. Macy waited a long troubled moment, expecting a sign from within, a squeeze of his heart, a pinching of his nerves, some sort of don’t-fool-around signal. Nothing. He sensed Hamlin’s presence like a dull heavy weight in his gut, but he got no specific instructions about seeing Gomez. Perhaps Hamlin wants to find out what Gomez will say. Maybe he’s still recovering from the jolt Lissa gave him. Anyway. Tell Dr. Gomez he can come up.
Gomez, out of context, looked unfamiliar. At the Rehab Center, surrounded by his phalanxes of computers and his electronic pharmacoepia, Gomez was dynamic, formidable, aggressive, indomitable, confidently vulgar. Entering Macy’s sleek office he was almost meek. Without his throne and scepter a king’s but a bifurcated radish. Gomez came slipping hesitantly through the fancy sliding door. Dressed in excessively contemporary business clothes, greens and reds, much too young for him, instead of the customary monochrome lab outfit. Looking shorter and more plump than in his own domain. His thick drooping mustache seedy and in need of trimming. The weakness of his chin somehow mattering much more here. Ten feet apart; eyes meet eyes. Gomez moistening his lips. How strange to see him on the defensive. Macy said, “I guess you’ve decided to believe me after all.”
“We’ve been discussing your case nonstop for three days,” said Gomez hoarsely. “But I had to have first-hand data. And since you wouldn’t come to us—”
“Couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t.” Gomez nodded. Scowled, Not at Macy but at himself. His distress was apparent. Coming here today was a considerable gesture. The cocky doctor eating crow. He said, voice ragged, “I didn’t want to chance phoning you. In case it might provide too much time for the former ego to build up negative reactions. Is my presence here causing any repercussions?”
“Not so far.”
“If it does, tell me and I’ll leave. I don’t want to endanger you.”
“Don’t worry, Gomez, I’ll tell you fast if anything begins.” Checking to see if Hamlin is stirring. All calm. “Hamlin hasn’t been very active since Thursday night.”
“But he’s still there?”
“He’s there, all right. Despite your loud assurance that it wasn’t possible for him to come back.”
“We all make mistakes, Macy.”
“That was a pretty fucking big one.
I asked you to run an EEG. You said no, I was merely hallucinating, merely having a fantasy, there was no chance in the world that Hamlin was intact and surfacing. And then you said—”
“All right. Let’s not go into that now.” Dabbing at his sweaty forehead. “I’m concerned with therapy for this, not with placing blame. When did it start?”
“The day I left the Center. When I met the girl, Hamlin’s old model, mistress, the one you spoke to a couple of times on the telephone.”
“Miss Moore.”
“Yes. Bumped into her, literally, on the street. I told you all this. She kept calling me Nat, ignoring my badge—you remember?”
“I remember.”
“I saw her again, last Monday. She said she was in trouble and wanted me to help her. I didn’t want to get involved and started to leave. She hit me with a two-pronged blast of telepathy. Which woke him up fully, completing the job of arousing him that had started when—”
“Telepathy?”
“ESP. Communication between minds. You know.”
“I know. This girl’s a telepath?”
“I’m trying to tell you.”
“You knew she was a telepath, and also that she was a figure out of Hamlin’s past who you therefore were under instructions not to see, and nevertheless you arranged to meet her and—”
“I didn’t know she was a telepath. Until it was too late. Not that I’d have had any particular reason to avoid her because of that. You never said anything about telepaths, Gomez. I didn’t even know there were such things as telepaths, not real ones, not walking around in New York City.”
Gomez closed his eyes. “All right. I get the picture. What we have here is an apparent case of induced identity-reestablishment under telepathic stimulus. Of all the shit. A minute theoretical possibility, but who ever expected to run into an actual case of—no fucking literature on the whole subject—no tests, no background, no data—”
“You can write a wonderful paper on me some day,” Macy said bitterly.
“Spare me the crap. You think I’m happy about this?” Indeed genuine agony was visible in Gomez’ fleshy features. “Okay, so she woke Hamlin. Meaning what? Give me the symptomology.”
“He talks to me.”
“Out loud?”
“In my head. A silent voice, but it doesn’t seem silent. Twice now he’s tried to grab my speech centers. All he can say is gibberish, though, and I knock him away. He also took hold of the muscles of the right side of my face once. I made him let go. Two or three times he’s given me a physical shock, a jolt, knocked me down. Last Tuesday, when I set out to the Rehab Center, he staged a little heart attack for me, telling me that he’d give me a niftier one if I persisted in going to the Center. This is no goddamn hallucination, Gomez. I’ve had conversations with him, long rational conversations. He’s got very ambitious ideas. He’s been inviting me to let him finish me off so he can have his body back.”
“Obviously we can’t allow that.”
“Obviously there isn’t a fucking thing you can do. If I let you make any hostile moves toward him at all, he’ll kill me. It’s like I’m carrying a bomb inside me.”
“He’s bluffing.”
“You’re very sure of that,” Macy said.
“If your body dies, he’ll die with it. Whatever he is, he can’t survive the decay of your brain cells.”
“He can’t survive another round in the Rehab Center, either. So he’d be willing to take any step to keep me from going there, right up to and including killing us both. If I go to you, he dies. Why shouldn’t he kill me anyway and take me along? Or at least threaten to, knowing it’ll stop me from going to the Center?”
Gomez considered that. He didn’t seem to arrive at any immediate conclusions.
Macy said. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. One of two things. He’ll knock me out and take over the body, or I’ll find some way of chopping him up so he can’t hurt me.”
“You’re playing dangerous games, Macy. Come to the Center. I know Hamlin better than you do: he won’t carry out his threat, he won’t do anything ultimately to harm you. Killing you would mean the decay and ruin of his own physical self, the last legitimate vestige of Nat Hamlin in the world. He wouldn’t do it. He’s always been body-proud.”
“Balls. Pm no gambler. He said keep away from you and I’m going to keep away.”
“We can’t let you remain at large with the ego of a condemned criminal in partial control of your brain,” Gomez said.
“What will you do, then? Order my arrest? He’ll kill me. I believe him when he says that. Do you want to take the chance? It isn’t your life on the line, Gomez. You’ve been wrong in this case once already.”
Twitchings of the mustache-tips. The tongue moving restlessly between teeth and lips. Gomez in a pickle. Macy staring across the desk at him. He felt his heart hammering. Was it Hamlin, waking up? Or just the excitement, the adrenalin flow?
Gomez said finally, “We’ll have to put you under surveillance. The legal problems, the presence of a potentially dangerous criminal in you. But we’ll keep our distance. We won’t jeopardize you.”
“How will you know whether you’re jeopardizing me or not?”
“A signal,” Gomez suggested. “Wait.” Frowning. “Let’s say that when Hamlin is threatening you, you clap your right hand to your left shoulder. So.”
“So.” Clap.
“That’ll tell us to back off, so we don’t provoke him. And when you want us to withdraw from the vicinity entirely, that is, when you feel that you’re in extreme danger, you also clap your left hand to your right shoulder. So.”
“So.” Clap. Clap. Idiocy. “How about a secret password, too?”
“I’m trying to help you, Macy. Don’t be clever.”
“Is there anything else you want to tell me, or can I get back to my work now?”
“One more signal, if you don’t mind.”
“The one that I use in asking for permission to take a crap?”
“The one to tell us that Hamlin is dormant and that it would be safe for us to seize you. Do you agree that it’s possible such a situation might arise? All right, then. That would be our opportunity to grab you and try to exorcise him completely, fast. But only when you give the signal.”
“Which is?”
Gomez thought a moment. Deep concentration. All this Boy Scout stuff must really strain his mind. Finally: “Hands locked together behind neck. Like so.”
“So,” Macy said, imitating. “You won’t let your goons mix up the signals, will you?”
“Just keep them straight in your own head and we’ll manage to look after ourselves,” Gomez said. He moved toward the door. Looking back, shaking his head. “A case of demonic possession, that’s what this is. Holy shit. The seventeenth century rides again! But we’ll get this corrected, Macy. We owe you an uncrapped-up life, a life without these complications.” Pausing by the exit. “If you want to know what’s good for you, by the way, I recommend you stop screwing around with Miss Moore. You’re living with her, aren’t you?”
“More or less.”
“You were strongly advised not to get into any entanglements linked to your body’s former identity. Specifically including picking up Nat Hamlin’s old mistresses, telepaths or not.”
“Should I boot her out on her ass? She’s a human being. She’s got problems. She needs help.”
“She’s the cause of all your problems, too. It’s about ten to one you wouldn’t be saddled with Hamlin in the first place if you hadn’t gotten involved with her.”
“That’s easy to tell me now. But I have Hamlin, and I feel a responsibility toward her, too. She’s a wreck. She needs an anchor, Gomez, somebody to keep her from drifting away.”
“What’s the matter with her?”
“The ESP. It’s driving her out of her mind. She picks up voices—half the time she doesn’t know who she is—she has to hide from people, to shield herself—the telepathy comes and goes, random, not under her conscious control at all. It’s like a curse.”
“And this you need?” Gomez asked. “You’re such a solidly established individual yourself that you can keep company with dynamite like this?”
“It wasn’t my idea, believe me. But now that I’m involved with her, I’m not going to toss her out. I want to help her.”
“How?”
“Maybe there’s some way of disconnecting this ESP of hers. It’s burning out her mind. What do you say, Gomez? Could it be done?”
“I don’t know item one about ESP. I’m a Rehab specialist.”
“Who does know?”
“I suppose I could find out if there are any hospitals in the metropolitan area with experience in this. Some neuropsychiatric division must be pissing around with ESP. If she hates it so much, why hasn’t she gone in to be examined?”
“She’s afraid to let anyone fool with her mind. Afraid that she’ll end up losing her whole personality if they try to rip out the telepathy.”
“Shit. You tell me you want to help her, and two seconds later you tell me she’s scared of being helped. This is crazy, man. The girl is poison. Get her into a hospital.”
“Tell me where to send her,” Macy said. “I’ll see if I want to do it. And if she does.” He gave Gomez a sudden savage grin and clapped his right hand to his left shoulder. A moment afterward he put his left hand on his right shoulder. Gomez stared at him, blinking, not moving at all. “Well, dummy?” Macy asked. “You forgot your own signals? That’s the one for withdrawing from the vicinity.”
“Has Hamlin begun to threaten you?”
“Don’t stand there asking stupid questions. You got the signal. Go. Go. I have work to do. Let me be, Gomez.”
“You poor schmuck,” Gomez said. “What a lousy thing this is. For all of us.” And went. Macy cradled his head in his hands. An ache behind each ear. An ache in his forehead, as though the front of his brain is swollen and pushing against the bone. Practice the signals. Right hand to left shoulder. Left hand to right shoulder. Lock hands behind back of neck. Surveillance. The friendly Rehab Center haunting me too. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. He thought he could hear Nat Hamlin’s ghostly laughter reverberating through the interstices of his frazzled mind. Hey, are you awake, Nat? Did you listen to what Gomez said? Listening now? They’re out to get you, Nat. Gomez is after you. To finish the job that he didn’t do right the first time. Scared, Nat? I don’t mind telling you I am. Because only one of us is going to come out of this whole, at the very best. At the very best, only one of us.
ELEVEN
IF THEY REALLY did have him under surveillance, he wasn’t aware of it. He went through his daily routines. Finished preparing the script for the charisma story on Monday. Taping on Tuesday. Everything smooth. Back and forth from apartment to the office without trouble. Hamlin, surfacing coherently early Tuesday evening for the first time since Thursday, had a pleasant little chat with him, saying nothing about his conference with Gomez or about the abortive takeover attempt of that stoned Thursday evening. Fair is fair, Macy thought. You try to finesse me, I try to sandbag you, but we don’t talk about such sordid things. Hamlin chose to turn on the charm, reminiscing a bit about his life and good times. Selected segments of his autobiography come dancing along the identity interface. With subtitles.
THE ARTIST DISCOVERS HIS GIFT
1984, Orwell’s year, the global situation quite thoroughly fucked up on schedule, although not quite as fucked up as the pessimistic old bastard had imagined, and in this small town is twelve-year-old Nat Hamlin, barely pubescent, full of ungrounded wattage and churning unfocused needs. Which small town, where? Mind your own business. The boy is slim and tall for his age. Long sensitive fingers. Father wants him to be a brain surgeon. It’s a good living, son, especially now, with all the psychosis flapping in the breeze. You open the skull, you see, and you stick your long sensitive fingers inside and you hop this and you splice that and you amputate this, three thousand dollars, please, and put your money in good growth stocks. The boy isn’t listening. In the attic he models little clay figurines. He has never been to a museum; he has no interest in art. But there is sensual pleasure in squeezing and twisting the clay. He feels a lusty tickle in his crotch and a delicious tension in his jaws when he works with it. Filling the attic with grotesque little images. You sure see the world a funny way, boy. You been looking at some Pee-cas-so, hey? Pee-cas-so, who he? He that old mother from France, he make a million bucks a year turning out this junk. No shit? Where can I see some? And going to the museum, two hours away. Pee-cas-so. That’s not how it’s spelled. He’s pretty good, yeah, yeah. But I’m just as good as he is. And I’m just starting out.
SOLITARY PLEASURES
The first major piece now adorns the attic. Three and a half feet high. Adapted from one of Picasso’s paintings: woman with two faces, body twisted weirdly on its perpendicular axis, a veritable bitch of a challenge for a fourteen-year-old boy no matter how good he is. The creator lies naked before it. Straggly mustache. Pimples on his ass. Act of homage to the muse. Seizes rising organ in left hand. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Oooh and ahhh. Sixty seconds: close to his record for speed. And accuracy of aim. He baptizes the masterpiece with jets of salty fluid. Ah. Ah. Ah.
