my head was between her breasts, where it seemed to be spending a lot of time lately. she stroked my shoulder.
"murray says the problem is that we don't repress our fear.""repress it?""some people have the gift, some don't.""the gift? i thought repression was outdated. they've been telling us for years not to repress our fears and desires.
repression causes tension, anxiety, unhappiness, a hundred diseases and conditions. i thought the last thing we weresupposed to do was repress something. they've been telling us to talk about our fears, get in touch with our feelings.""getting in touch with death is not what they had in mind. death is so strong that we have to repress, those of us whoknow how.""but repression is totally false and mechanical. everybody knows that. we're not supposed to deny our nature.""it's natural to deny our nature, according to murray. it's the whole point of being different from animals.""but that's crazy.""it's the only way to survive," i said from her breasts.
she stroked my shoulder, thinking about this. cray flashes of a staticky man standing near a double bed. his bodydistorted, rippling, unfinished. i didn't have to imagine his motel companion. our bodies were one surface, hers andmine, but the delectations of touch were preempted by mr. gray. it was his pleasure i experienced, his hold overbabette, his cheap and sleazy power. down the hall an eager voice said: "if you keep misplacing your ball of string,cage it in a barney basket, attach some organizer clips to your kitchen corkboard, fasten the basket to the clips.
simple!"the next day i started carrying the zumwalt automatic to school. it was in the flap pocket of my jacket when ilectured, it was in the top drawer of my desk when i received visitors in the office. the gun created a second realityfor me to inhabit. the air was bright, swirling around my head. nameless feelings pressed thrillingly on my chest. itwas a reality i could control, secretly dominate.
how stupid these people were, coming into my office unarmed.
late one afternoon i took the gun out of my desk and examined it carefully. only three bullets remained in themagazine. i wondered how vernon dickey had used the missing ammo (or whatever bullets are called by peoplefamiliar with firearms). four dylar tablets, three zumwalt bullets. why was i surprised to find that the bullets wereso unmistakably bullet-shaped? i guess i thought new names and shapes had been given to just about everything inthe decades since i first became aware of objects and their functions. the weapon was gun-shaped, the little pointedprojectiles reassuringly bullet-shaped. they were like childhood things you might come across after forty years,seeing their genius for the first time.
that evening i heard heinrich in his room, moodily singing "the streets of laredo." i stopped in to ask whetherorest had entered the cage yet.
"they said it was not humane. there was no place that would let him do it officially. he had to go underground.""where is underground?""watertown. orest and his trainer. they found a public notary there who said he would certify a document that saidthat orest mercator spent so many days incarcerated with these venomous reptiles blah blah blah.""where would they find a large glass cage in watertown?""they wouldn't.""what would they find?""a room in the only hotel. plus there were only three snakes. and he got bit in four minutes.""you mean the hotel let them place poisonous snakes in the room?""the hotel didn't know. the man who arranged the snakes carried them up in an airline bag. it was a whole massivedeception except the man showed up with three snakes instead of the agreed twenty-seven.""in other words he told them he had access to twenty-seven snakes.""venomous. except they weren't. so orest got bit for nothing. the jerk.""suddenly he's a jerk."'they had all this antivenom which they couldn't even use. the first four minutes.""how does he feel?""how would you feel if you were a jerk?""glad to be alive," i said.
"not orest. he dropped out of sight. he went into complete seclusion. nobody's seen him since it happened. hedoesn't answer the door, he doesn't answer the phone, he doesn't show up at school. the total package."i decided to wander over to my office and glance at some final exams. most of the students had already departed,eager to begin the routine hedonism of another bare-limbed summer. the campus was dark and empty. there was atrembling mist. passing a line of trees, i thought i sensed someone edge in behind me, maybe thirty yards away.
when i looked, the path was clear. was it the gun that was making me jumpy? does a gun draw violence to it, attractother guns to its surrounding field of force? i walked on quickly toward centenary hall. i heard footsteps on gravel,a conspicuous crunch. someone was out there, on the edge of the parking area, in the trees and the mist. if i had a gun,why was i scared? if i was scared, why didn't i run? i counted off five paces, looked quickly left, saw a figure movingparallel to the path, in and out of deep shadow. i broke into a shambling trot, my gun hand in my pocket, clutchingthe automatic. when i looked again, he wasn't there. i slowed down warily, crossed a broad lawn, heard running, themeter of bounding feet. he was coming from the right this time, all-out, closing fast. i broke into a weaving run,hoping i'd make an elusive target for someone firing at my back. i'd never run in a weave before. i kept my headdown, swerved sharply and unpredictably. it was an interesting way to run. i was surprised at the range ofpossibilities, the number of combinations i could put together within a framework of left and right swerves. i did atight left, widened it, cut sharply right, faked left, went left, went wide right. about twenty yards from the end of theopen area, i broke off the weave pattern and ran as fast and straight as i could for a red oak. i stuck out my left arm,went skidding around the tree in a headlong cranking countermotion, simultaneously using my right hand to pluckthe zumwalt from my jacket pocket, so that i now faced the person i'd been fleeing, protected by a tree trunk, my gunat the ready.
this was about as deft a thing as i'd ever done. i looked into the heavy mist as my attacker approached in littlethudding footfalls. when i saw the familiar odd loping stride, i put the gun back in my pocket. it was winnierichards, of course.
"hi, jack. at first i didn't know who it was, so i used evasive tactics. when i realized it was you, i said to myselfthat's just the person i want to see.""how come?""remember that time you asked me about a secret research group? working on fear of death? trying to perfect amedication?""sure—dylar.""there was a journal lying around the office yesterday. american psychobiologist. curious story in there. such agroup definitely existed. supported by a multinational giant. operating in the deepest secrecy in an unmarkedbuilding just outside iron city.""why deepest secrecy?""it's obvious. to prevent espionage by competitive giants. the point is they came very close to achieving theirobjective.""what happened?""a lot of things. the resident organizational genius, one of the forces behind the whole project, was a fellow namedwillie mink. he turns out to be a controversial fellow. he does some very, very controversial things.""i'll bet i know the first thing he does. he runs an ad in a gossip tabloid asking for volunteers for a hazardousexperiment. fear of death, it says.""very good, jack. a little ad in some rinky-dink newspaper. he interviews the respondents in a motel room, testingthem for emotional integration and about a dozen other things in an attempt to work up a death profile for eachperson. interviews in a motel. when the scientists and the lawyers find out about this, they go slightly berserk, theyreprimand mink, they put all their resources into computer testing. berserk official reaction." "but that's not the endof it.""how right you are. despite the fact that mink is now a carefully observed person, one of the volunteers manages toslip through the screen of watchfulness and begins a program of more or less unsupervised human experimentation,using a drug that is totally unknown, untested and unapproved, with side effects that could beach a whale. ahunsupervised well-built human.""female," i said.
"very correct. she periodically reports to mink in the very motel where he originally did his interviewing,sometimes arriving in a taxi, sometimes on foot from the shabby and depressing bus terminal. what is she wearing,jack?""i don't know.""a ski mask. she is the woman in the ski mask. when the others find out about mink's latest caper, there is a periodof prolonged controversy, animosity, litigation and disgrace. pharmaceutical giants have their code of ethics, justlike you and me. the project manager is kicked out, the project goes on without him.""did the article say what happened to him?""the reporter tracked him down. he is living in the same motel where all the controversy took place.""where is the motel?""in germantown.""where's that?" i said.
"iron city. it's the old german section. behind the foundry.""i didn't know there was a section in iron city called germantown."'the germans are gone, of course."i went straight home. denise was making check marks in a paperback book called directory of toll-free numbers.
i found babette sitting by wilder's bed, reading him a story.
"i don't mind running clothes as such," i said. "a sweatsuit is a practical thing to wear at times. but i wish youwouldn't wear it when you read bedtime stories to wilder or braid steffie's hair. there's something touching aboutsuch moments that is jeopardized by running clothes.""maybe i'm wearing running clothes for a reason." "like what?""i'm going running," she said. "is that a good idea? at night?""what is night? it happens seven times a week. where is the uniqueness in this?" "it's dark, it's wet.""do we live in a blinding desert glare? what is wet? we live with wet.""babette doesn't speak like this.""does life have to stop because our half of the earth is dark? is there something about the night that physically resistsa runner? i need to pant and gasp. what is dark? it's just another name for light.""no one will convince me that the person i know as babette actually wants to run up the stadium steps at ten o'clockat night.""it's not what i want, it's what i need. my life is no longer in the realm of want. i do what i have to do. i pant, i gasp.
every runner understands the need for this.""why do you have to run up steps? you're not a professional athlete trying to rebuild a shattered knee. run on plainland. don't make a major involvement out of it. everything is a major involvement today.""it's my life. i tend to be involved." "it's not your life. it's only exercise.""a runner needs," she said.
"i also need and tonight i need the car. don't wait up for me. who knows when i'll be back."i waited for her to ask what mysterious mission would require me to get in the car and drive through the rain-streakednight, time of return unknown.
she said, "i can't walk to the stadium, run up the steps five or six times and then walk all the way back home. you candrive me there, wait for me, drive me back. the car is then yours.""i don't want it. what do you think of that? you want the car. you take it. the streets are slippery. you know whatthat means, don't you?""what does it mean?""fasten your seat belt. there's also a chill in the air. you know what a chill in the air means.""what does it mean?""wear your ski mask," i told her.
the thermostat began to buzz.
i put on a jacket and went outside. ever since the airborne toxic event, our neighbors, the stovers, had been keepingtheir car in the driveway instead of the garage, keeping it facing the street, keeping the key in the ignition. i walkedup the driveway and got in the car. there were trash caddies fixed to the dashboard and seat-backs, dangling plasticbags full of gum wrappers, ticket stubs, lipstick-smeared tissues, crumpled soda cans, crumpled circulars andreceipts, ashtray debris, popsicle sticks and french fries, crumpled coupons and paper napkins, pocket combs withmissing teeth. thus familiarized, i started up the engine, turned on the lights and drove off.
i ran a red light when i crossed middlebrook. reaching the end of the expressway ramp, i did not yield. all the wayto iron city, i felt a sense of dreaminess, release, unreality. i slowed down at the toll gate but did not bother tossinga quarter into the basket. an alarm went off but no one pursued. what's another quarter to a state that is billions indebt? what's twenty-five cents when we are talking about a nine-thousand-dollar stolen car? this must be howpeople escape the pull of the earth, the gravitational leaf-flutter that brings us hourly closer to dying. simply stopobeying. steal instead of buy, shoot instead of talk. i ran two more lights on the rainy approach roads to iron city.
the outlying buildings were long and low, fish and produce markets, meat terminals with old wooden canopies. ientered the city and turned on the radio, needing company not on the lonely highway but here on the cobbled streets,in the sodium vapor lights, where the emptiness clings. every city has its districts. i drove past the abandoned cardistrict, the uncollected garbage district, the sniper-fire district, the districts of smoldering sofas and broken glass.
ground glass crunched under the tires. i headed toward the foundry.
random access memory, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, mutual assured destruction.
i still felt extraordinarily light—lighter than air, colorless, odorless, invisible. but around the lightness anddreaminess, something else was building, an emotion of a different order. a surge, a will, an agitation of the passions.
i reached into my pocket, rubbed my knuckles across the grainy stainless steel of the zumwalt barrel. the man on theradio said: "void where prohibited."
