Mr. Aldrin makes a sound I do not understand; his voice is hoarse when he speaks again. “Thank you, Lou,” he says. “You’re—you’re a good man.”
I am not a good man. I am just a man, like he is, but I like it that he thinks I am good.
Tom and Lucia and Marjory are all in the living room when I arrive. They are talking about the next tournament. Tom looks up at me.
“Lou—have you decided?”
“Yes,” I say. “I will do it.”
“Good. You’ll need to fill out this entry form—”
“Not that,” I say. I realize that he would not know I meant something else. “I will not fight in this tournament—” Will I ever fight in another tournament? Will the future me want to fence? Can you fence in space? I think it would be very hard in free fall.
“But you said,” Lucia says; then her face changes, seems to flatten out with surprise. “Oh—you mean… you’re going through with the treatment?”
“Yes,” I say. I glance at Marjory. She is looking at Lucia, and then at me, and then back. I do not remember if I talked to Marjory about the treatment.
“When?” asks Lucia before I have time to think about how to explain to Marjory.
“It will start Monday,” I say. “I have a lot to do. I have to move into the clinic.”
“Are you sick?” Marjory says; her face is pale now. “Is something wrong?”
“I am not sick,” I say to Marjory. “There is an experimental treatment that may make me normal.”
“Normal! But, Lou, you’re fine the way you are. I like the way you are. You don’t have to be like everybody else. Who has been telling you that?” She sounds angry. I do not know if she is angry with me or with someone she thinks told me I needed to change. I do not know if I should tell her the whole story or part of it. I will tell her everything.
“It started because Mr. Crenshaw at work wanted to eliminate our unit,” I say. “He knew about this treatment. He said it will save money.”
“But that’s—that’s coercion. It’s wrong. It’s against the law. He can’t do that—”
She is really angry now, the color coming and going on her cheeks. It makes me want to grab her and hug her. That is not appropriate.
“That is how it started,” I say. “But you are right; he could not do what he said he would do. Mr. Aldrin, our supervisor, found a way to stop him.” I am still surprised by this. I was sure Mr. Aldrin had changed his mind and would not help us. I still do not understand what Mr. Aldrin did that stopped Mr. Crenshaw and caused him to lose his job and be escorted out by security guards with his things in a box. I tell them what Mr. Aldrin said and then what the lawyers said in the meeting. “But now I want to change,” I say, at the end.
She takes a deep breath. I like to watch her take deep breaths; the front of her clothes pulls tight. “Why?” she asks in a quieter voice. “It isn’t because of… because of… us, is it? Me?”
“No,” I say. “It is not about you. It is about me.”
Her shoulders sag. I do not know if it is relief or sadness. “Then was it Don? Did he make you do this, convince you that you weren’t all right as you were?”
“It was not Don… not only Don…” It is obvious, I think, and I do not know why she cannot see it. She was there when the security man at the airport stopped me and my words stuck and she had to help me. She was there when I needed to talk to the police officer and my words stuck and Tom had to help me. I do not like being the one who always needs help. “It is about me,” I say again. “I want not to have problems at the airport and sometimes with other people when it is hard to talk and have people looking at me. I want to go places and learn things I did not know I could learn…”
Her faces changes again, smoothing out, and her voice loses some of its emotional tone. “What is the treatment like, Lou? What will happen?”
I open the packet I have brought. We are not supposed to discuss the treatment since it is proprietary and experimental, but I think this is a bad idea. If things go wrong, someone outside should know. I did not tell anyone I was taking my packet out, and they did not stop me.
I begin to read. Almost at once, Lucia stops me.
“Lou—do you understand this stuff now?”
“Yes. I think so. After Cego and Clinton, I could read the on-line journals pretty easily.”
“Why don’t you let me read that, then? I can understand it better if I see the words. Then we can talk about it.”
There is nothing to talk about, really. I am going to do it. But I hand Lucia the packet, because it is always easier to do what Lucia says. Marjory scoots closer to her and they both begin to read. I look at Tom. He raises his eyebrows and shakes his head.
“You’re a brave man, Lou. I knew that, but this—! I don’t know if I’d have the guts to let someone mess with my brain.”
“You don’t need to,” I say. “You are normal. You have a job with tenure. You have Lucia and this house.” I cannot say the rest that I think, that he is easy in his body, that he sees and hears and tastes and smells and feels what others do, so his reality matches theirs.
“Will you come back to us, do you think?” Tom asks. He looks sad.
“I do not know,” I say. “I hope that I will still like to fence, because it is fun, but I do not know.”
“Do you have time to stay tonight?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“Then let’s go on out.” He gets up and leads the way to the equipment room. Lucia and Marjory stay behind, reading. When we get to the equipment room, he turns to me. “Lou, are you sure you aren’t doing this because you’re in love with Marjory? Because you want to be a normal man for her? That would be a noble thing to do, but—”
I feel myself going hot all over. “It is not about her. I like her. I want to touch her and hold her and… things that are not appropriate. But this is…” I reach out and touch the upright end of the stand that holds the blades, because suddenly I am trembling and afraid I might fall. “Things do not stay the same,” I say. “I am not the same. I cannot not change. This is just… faster change. But I choose it.”
“Fear change, and it will destroy you; embrace change, and it will enlarge you,” Tom says, in the voice he uses for quotes. I do not know what he is quoting from. Then in his normal voice, with a little joking voice added, he says, “Choose your weapon, then: if you aren’t going to be here for a while, I want to be sure to get my licks in tonight.”
I take my blades and my mask and have put on my leather before I remember that I did not stretch. I sit down on the patio and begin the stretches. It is colder out here; the flagstones are hard and cold under me.
Tom sits across from me. “I’ve done mine, but more never hurts as I get older,” he says. I can see, when he bends to put his face on his knee, that the hair on the top of his head is thinning, and there is gray in it. He puts one arm over his head and pulls on it with the other arm. “What will you do when you’re through the treatment?”
“I would like to go into space,” I say.
“You—? Lou, you never cease to amaze me.” He puts the other arm on top of his head now and pulls on the elbow. “I didn’t know you wanted to go into space. When did that start?”
“When I was little,” I say. “But I knew I could not do it. I knew it was not appropriate.”
“When I think of the waste—!” Tom says, bending his head now to his other knee. “Lou, as much as I worried about this before, I think you’re right now. You have too much potential to be locked up in a diagnosis the rest of your life. Though it’s going to hurt Marjory when you grow away from her.”
“I do not want to hurt Marjory,” I say, “I do not think I will grow away from her.” It is a strange expression; I am sure it cannot be literal. If two things close to each other both grow, they will get closer together, not apart.
“I know that. You like her a lot—no, you love her. That’s clear. But, Lou—she’s a nice woman, but as you say, you’re about to make a big change. You won’t be the same person.”
“I will always like—love—her,” I say. I had not thought that becoming normal would make that harder or impossible. I do not understand why Tom thinks so. “I do not think she pretended to like me just to do research on me, whatever Emmy says.”
“Good heavens, who thought that up? Who’s Emmy?”
“Someone at the Center,” I say. I do not want to talk about Emmy, so I hurry through it. “Emmy said Marjory was a researcher and just talked to me as a subject, not a friend. Marjory told me that her research was on neuromuscular disorders, so I knew Emmy was wrong.”
Tom stands up, and I scramble up, too. “But for you—it’s a great opportunity.”
“I know,” I say. “I wanted—I thought once—I almost asked her out, but I don’t know how.”
“Do you think the treatment will help?”
“Maybe.” I put on my mask. “But if it does not help with that, it will help with other things, I think. And I will always like her.”
“I’m sure you will, but it won’t be the same. Can’t be. It’s like any system, Lou. If I lost a foot, I might still fence, but my patterns would be different, right?”
I do not like thinking of Tom losing a foot, but I can understand what he means. I nod.
“So if you make a big change in who you are, then you and Marjory will be in a different pattern. You may be closer, or you may be further apart.”
Now I know what I did not know a few minutes ago, that I had had a deep and hidden thought about Marjory and the treatment and me. I did think it would be easier. I did have a hope that if I were normal, we might be normal together, might marry and have children and a normal life.
“It won’t be the same, Lou,” Tom says again from behind his mask. I can see the glitter of his eyes. “It can’t be.”
Fencing is the same and it is not the same. Tom’s patterns are clearer now each time I fence with him, but my pattern slides in and out of focus. My attention wavers. Will Marjory come outside? Will she fence? What are she and Lucia saying about the consent packet? When I concentrate, I can make touches on him, but then I lose track of where he is in his pattern and he makes touches on me. It is three touches to five when Marjory and Lucia come out, and Tom and I have just stopped for breath. Even though it is a cool night, we are sweaty.
“Well,” Lucia says. I wait. She says nothing more.
“It looks dangerous to me,” Marjory says. “Mucking about with neural reabsorption and then regeneration. But I haven’t read the original research.”
“Too many places it can go wrong,” Lucia says. “Viral insertion of genetic material, that’s old hat, a proven technology. Nanotech cartilage repair, blood vessel maintenance, inflammation management, fine. Programmable chips for spinal cord injuries, okay. But tinkering with gene switches—they haven’t got all the bugs out of that yet. That mess with marrow in bone regeneration—of course that’s not nerves and it was in children, but still.”
I do not know what she is talking about, but I do not want another reason to be scared.
“What bothers me most is that it’s all in-house with your employer, an incestuous mess if ever I saw one. Anything goes wrong, you have no patient advocate to speak up for you. Your Legal Aid person doesn’t have the medical expertise… But it’s your decision.”
“Yes,” I say. I look at Marjory. I cannot help it.
“Lou…” Then she shakes her head, and I know she is not going to say what she was going to say. “Want to fence?” she asks.
I do not want to fence. I want to sit with her. I want to touch her. I want to eat dinner with her and lie in bed with her. But that is something I cannot do, not yet. I stand up and put on my mask.
What I feel when her blade touches mine I cannot describe. It is stronger than before. I feel my body tightening, reacting, in a way that is not appropriate but is wonderful. I want this to go on and I want to stop and grab her. I slow down, so that I do not make a touch too quickly, and so that this will last.
I could still ask her if she will have dinner with me. I could do it before or after treatment. Maybe.
Thursday morning. It is chilly, windy, with gray clouds scudding across the sky. I am hearing Beethoven’s Mass in C. The light looks heavy and slow, though the wind is moving fast. Dale, Bailey, and Eric are already here—or their cars are. Linda’s car is not in place yet; neither is Chuy’s. As I walk from the parking lot to the building, the wind blows my slacks against my legs; I can feel the rippling of the fabric against my skin; it feels like many little fingers. I remember begging my mother to cut the tags out of my T-shirts when I was little, until I was old enough to do it myself. Will I still notice that afterward?
I hear a car behind me and turn. It is Linda’s car. She parks in her usual place. She gets out without looking at me.
At the door, I insert my card, put my thumb on the plate, and the door lock clicks and clunks to release. I push the door open and wait for Linda. She has opened her car’s trunk and is taking out a box. It is like the box Mr. Crenshaw had, but it has no markings on the side.
I did not think to bring a box to put things in. I wonder if I can find a box during lunch hour. I wonder if Linda bringing a box means she has decided to take the treatment.
She holds the box under one arm. She walks fast, the wind blowing her hair back. She usually has it tied up; I did not know it would ripple like that in the wind. Her face looks different, uncluttered and spare, as if it were a carving without any fear or worry.
She walks past me holding the box and I follow her inside. I remember to touch the screen for two people entering on one card. Bailey is in the hall.
“You have a box,” he says to Linda.
“I thought someone might need it,” Linda says. “I brought it in case.”
“I will bring a box tomorrow,” Bailey says. “Lou, are you leaving today or tomorrow?”
“Today,” I say. Linda looks at me and holds the box. “I could use the box,” I say, and she hands it to me without meeting my eyes.
I go into my office. It looks strange already, like someone else’s office. If I left it alone, would it look strange like this when I come back afterward? But since it looks strange now, does that mean that already I am living partly in afterward?
I move the little fan that makes the spin spirals and whirligigs turn, and then I move it back. I sit in my chair and look again. It is the same office. I am not the same person.
I look in the drawers of my desk and see nothing but the same old stack of manuals. Down at the bottom—though I have not looked at it in a long time—is the Employees’ Manual. On top are the different system upgrade manuals. These are not supposed to be printed out, but it is still easier to read things on paper where the letters are absolutely still. Everyone uses my manuals. I do not want to leave these illicit copies here while I am in treatment. I pull them all out and turn the stack upside down so the Employees’ Manual is on top. I do not know what to do with them.
In the bottom drawer is an old mobile that I used to have hanging here until the biggest fish got bent. Now the shiny surface of the fishes has little black spots. I pull it out, wincing at the jingly noise it makes, and rub at one of the black spots. It doesn’t come off. It looks sick. I put it in the wastebasket, wincing again at the noise.
In the flat drawer above the kneehole I keep colored pens and a little plastic container with some change for the soda machine. I put the container in my pocket and put the pens on top of the desk. I look at the shelving. All that is project information, files, things the company owns. I do not have to clean off the shelves. I take down the spin spirals that are not my favorites first, the yellow and silver and the orange and red.
I hear Mr. Aldrin’s voice in the hall, speaking to someone. He opens my door.
“Lou—I forgot to remind everyone not to take any project work off-campus. If you want to store any project-related materials, you can stack them with a label explaining that they must go in secured storage.”
“Yes, Mr. Aldrin,” I say. I feel uneasy about those system update printouts in the box, but they are not project-related.
“Will you be on-campus at all tomorrow?”
“I do not think so,” I say. “I do not want to start something and leave it unfinished, and I will have everything cleared out today.”
“Fine. You did get my list of recommended preparations?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Good, then. I—” He looks back over his shoulder and then comes into my office and shuts the door. I feel myself tensing; my stomach churns. “Lou—” He hesitates, clears his throat, and looks away. “Lou, I—I want to tell you I’m sorry this all happened.”
I do not know what answer he expects. I do not say anything.
“I never wanted… if it had been up to me, things wouldn’t have changed—”
He is wrong. Things would have changed. Don would still have been angry with me. I would still have fallen in love with Marjory. I am not sure why he is saying this; he must know that things do change, whether people want them to or not. A man can lie beside the pool for weeks, for years, thinking about the angel coming down, before someone stops to ask him if he wants to be healed.
The look on Mr. Aldrin’s face reminds me of how I have felt so often. He is scared, I realize. He is usually scared of something. It hurts to be scared for a long time; I know that hurt. I wish he did not have that look, because it makes me feel I should do something about it and I do not know what to do.
“It is not your fault,” I say. His face relaxes. That was the right thing to say. It is too easy. I can say it, but does that make it true? Words can be wrong. Ideas can be wrong.
“I want to be sure you really are—you really do want the treatment,” he says. “There’s absolutely no pressure—”
He is wrong again, though he may be right that there is no pressure from the company right now. Now that I know change will come, now that I know this change is possible, the pressure grows in me, as air fills a balloon or light fills space. Light is not passive; light itself presses on whatever it touches.
“It is my decision,” I say. I mean, whether it is right or wrong, it is what I decided. I can be wrong, too.
“Thanks, Lou,” he says. “You—you all—you mean a lot to me.”
I do not know what “mean a lot” means. Literally it would mean that we have a lot of meaning in us, which he can take, and I do not think that is what Mr. Aldrin is saying. I do not ask. I am still uncomfortable when I think about the times he talked to us. I do not say anything. After 93 seconds, he nods and turns to go. “Take care,” he says. “Good luck.”
I understand “Be careful,” but I do not think “Take care” is as clear. Care is not something you can take and walk around with, like a box. I do not say that, either. Afterward I may not even think about that. I should start now to think what afterward is like.
I notice he does not say, “I hope you are cured.” I do not know if he is being tactful and polite or thinks it will not go well. I do not ask. His pocket tagger bleeps, and he backs out into the hall. He does not shut my door. It is wrong to listen to other people’s conversation, but it is not polite to shut the door on someone in authority. I cannot help hearing what he says, though I cannot hear what the other person says. “Yes, sir, I’ll be there.”
His footsteps move away. I relax, taking a deep breath. I take down my favorite spin spirals and take the whirligigs off their stands. The room looks bare, but my desk looks cluttered. I cannot tell if it will all fit in Linda’s box. Maybe I can find another box. Soon begun, soonest done. When I get into the hall, Chuy is at the door, struggling to hold it open and carry in several boxes. I hold the door wide for him.
“I brought one for everybody,” he says. “It will save time.”
“Linda brought a box I am using,” I say.
“Maybe someone will need two,” he says. He drops the boxes in the hall. “You can have one if you need one.”
“I need one,” I say. “Thanks.”
I pick up a box that is bigger than the one Linda brought and go back to my office. I put the manuals in the bottom because they are heavy. The colored pens fit between the manuals and the side of the box. I put the whirligigs and spin spirals on top and then remember the fan. I take them out and put the fan on top of the manuals. Now there will not be room for everything else. I look at the box. I do not need the Employees’ Manual, and no one will be angry with me for having a copy in my office. I take it out and leave it on the desk. I put the fan in, and then the spin spirals and whirligigs. They just fit. I think of the wind outside. They are lightweight and might blow out.
In the last drawer, I find the towel I use to dry off my head when it is raining and I have walked in from the car in the rain. That will fit on top of the spin spirals and whirligigs and keep them from blowing away. I fold the towel on top of the things in the box and pick up the box. Now I am doing what Mr. Crenshaw was doing, carrying a box of my things out of an office. Maybe I would look like Mr. Crenshaw to someone watching, except that no security guards stand beside me. We are not alike. This is my choice; I do not think his leaving was his choice. When I get near the door, Dale is coming out of his office; he opens the door for me.
Outside, the clouds are thicker and the day seems darker, colder, fuzzy around the edges. It may rain in a little while. I like the cold. The wind is behind me, and I can feel it pushing on my back. I put the box down on the front of my car, and the towel starts to blow off. I put my hand on it. It will be hard to unlock the door while holding the towel down. I move the box to the passenger side of the car and rest my foot on the edge. Now I can unlock the door.
A first drop of icy rain flicks my cheek. I put the box on the passenger seat, then close the door and lock it. I think about going back inside, but I am sure I got everything. I do not want to put current project work in a stack for special storage. I do not want to see that project again.
I do want to see Dale and Bailey and Chuy and Eric and Linda again, though. Another flick of rain. The cold wind feels good. I shake my head and go back to the door, insert my card, and enter my thumb-print. All the others are in the hall, some with full boxes and some just standing.
“Want to get something to eat?” Dale says. The others look around.
“It is only ten-twelve,” says Chuy. “It is not time for lunch. I am still working.” He does not have a box. Linda does not have a box. It seems odd that the people who are not leaving brought boxes. Did they want the rest of us to leave?
“We could go for pizza later,” says Dale. We look at each other. I do not know what they are thinking, but I am thinking it will not be the same and also too much the same. It is pretending.
“We could go somewhere else later,” Chuy says.
“Pizza,” says Linda.
We leave it at that. I think I will not come.
It feels very odd to be driving around in the daylight on a weekday. I drive home and park in the space nearest the door. I carry the box upstairs. The apartment building is very quiet. I put the box in my closet, behind my shoes.
The apartment is quiet and neat. I washed the breakfast dishes before I left; I always do. I take the container of coins out of my pocket and put it on top of the clothes baskets.
They told us to bring three changes of clothes. I can pack those now. I do not know what the weather will be or if we will need outside clothes as well as inside clothes. I take my suitcase from the closet and take the first three knit shirts on top of the stack in my second drawer. Three sets of underwear. Three pairs of socks. Two pairs of tan slacks and a pair of blue slacks. My blue sweatshirt, in case it is cold.
I have an extra toothbrush, comb, and brush that I keep for emergencies. I have never had an emergency. This is not an emergency, but if I pack them now I will not have to think about it again. I put the toothbrush, a new tube of toothpaste, the comb, brush, razor, shaving cream, and a nail clipper in the little zipper bag that fits into my suitcase and put it in. I look again at the list they gave us. That is everything. I tighten the straps in the suitcase, then zip it shut and put it away.
Mr. Aldrin said to contact the bank, the apartment manager, and any friends who might be worried. He gave us a statement to give to the bank and apartment manager, explaining that we would be gone on a temporary assignment for the company, our paychecks would continue to be paid into the bank, and the bank should continue to make all automatic payments. I bounce the statement to my branch manager.
Downstairs, the apartment manager’s door is shut, but I can hear a vacuum cleaner moaning inside. When I was little, I was afraid of the vacuum cleaner because it sounded like it was crying, “Ohhhh… noooooo… oohhhh… nooooo,” when my mother pulled it back and forth. It roared and whined and moaned. Now it is just annoying. I push the button. The moaning stops. I do not hear footsteps, but the door opens.
“Mr. Arrendale!” Ms. Tomasz, the manager, sounds surprised. She would not expect to see me in midmorning on a weekday. “Are you sick? Do you need something?”
“I am going on a project for the company I work for,” I say. I have rehearsed saying this smoothly. I hand her the statement Mr. Aldrin gave us. “I have told the bank to make the payments for my rent. You can contact the company if it does not.”
“Oh!” She glances down at the paper, and before she has time to read all of it, she looks up at me. “But… how long will you be gone?”
“I am not sure,” I say. “But I will come back.” I do not know that for sure, but I do not want her to worry.
“You aren’t leaving because that man cut your tires in our parking lot? Tried to hurt you?”
“No,” I say. I do not know why she would think that. “It is a special assignment.”
“I worried about you; I really did,” Ms. Tomasz says. “I almost came up and spoke to you, to express—to say I was sorry—but you know you do keep to yourself, pretty much.”
“I am all right,” I say.
“We’ll miss you,” she says. I do not understand how that can be true if she does not even see me most of the time. “Take care of yourself,” she says. I do not tell her that I cannot do that, because my brain will be changing.
When I get back upstairs, the bank’s automatic reply has come through, saying that the message has been received and the manager will make a specific reply very soon and thank you for your patronage. Underneath it says:
I do not have a safe-deposit box so I do not have to worry about it.
I decide to walk down to the little bakery for lunch—I saw the sign about sandwiches to order when I bought bread there. It is not crowded, but I do not like the music on the radio. It is loud and banging. I order a ham sandwich made with ham from pigs fed a vegetarian diet and butchered under close supervision and the freshest ingredients and take it away. It is too cold to stop and eat outside, so I walk back to the apartment with it and eat it in my kitchenette.
I could call Marjory. I could take her to dinner tonight, or tomorrow night, or Saturday night, if she would come. I know her work number and her home number. One is almost a prime, and one is a nested multiple of pleasing symmetry. I hang the spin spirals in my apartment where they twirl in the air leaking past the old windows. The flash of colored light across the walls is restful and helps me think.
If I call her and she goes with me to dinner, why would that be? Maybe she likes me, and maybe she is worried about me, and maybe she feels sorry for me. I do not know for sure it would be because she likes me. For it to be the same in opposite directions, she would have to like me as I like her. Anything else would not make a good pattern.
What would we talk about? She does not know any more about brain functionality than I do now. It is not her field. We both fence, but I do not think we could talk about fencing the whole time. I do not think she is interested in space; like Mr. Aldrin she seems to think it is a waste of money.
If I come back—if the treatment works and I am like other men in the brain as well as in the body—will I like her the way I do now?
Is she another case of the pool with the angel—do I love her because I think she is the only one I can love?
I get up and put on Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D. The music builds a complex landscape, mountains and valleys and great gulfs of cool, windy air. Will I still like Bach when I come back, if I come back?
For a moment, fear seizes my whole being and I am falling through blackness, faster than any light could ever be, but the music rises under me, lifts me up like an ocean wave, and I am no longer afraid.
Friday morning. I would go to work, but there is nothing in my office to do, and there is nothing in my apartment to do, either. The confirmation from the bank manager was in my stack this morning. I could do my laundry now, but I do my laundry on Friday nights. It occurs to me that if I do my laundry tonight as usual and then sleep on the sheets tonight and Saturday night and Sunday night, I will have dirty sheets on the bed and dirty towels in the bathroom when I check into the clinic. I do not know what to do about that. I do not want to leave dirty things behind me, but otherwise I will have to get up early Monday morning and do a wash then.
I think about contacting the others, but I decide not to. I do not want to talk to them, really. I am not used to having a day like this, apart from planned vacation, and I do not know what to do with it. I could go see a movie or read books, but my stomach is too tight for that. I could go to the Center, but I do not want to do that, either.
I wash the breakfast dishes and stack them. The apartment is too quiet, too big and empty suddenly. I do not know where I will go, but I have to go somewhere. I put my wallet and keys in my pocket and leave. It is only five minutes later than I usually leave.
Danny is going downstairs, too. He says, “Hi, Lou, howyadoin’,” in a rush. I think that means he is in a hurry and does not want to talk. I say “hi” and nothing more.
Outside, it is cloudy and cold but not raining right now. It is not as windy as yesterday. I walk over to my car and get in. I do not turn the engine on yet, because I do not know where I will go. It is a waste to run the engine unnecessarily. I take the road map book out of the glove compartment and open it. I could go to the state park upriver and look at the waterfalls. Most people hike there in summer, but I think the park is open in the daytime in winter, too.
A shadow darkens my window. It is Danny. I open the window.
“Are you all right?” he asks. “Is something wrong?”
“I am not going to work today,” I say. “I am deciding where to go.”
“Okay,” he says. I am surprised; I did not think he was that interested. If he is that interested, maybe he would want to know that I am going away.
“I am going away,” I say.
His face changes expression. “Moving? Was it that stalker? He won’t hurt you again, Lou.”
It is interesting that both he and the apartment manager assumed I might be leaving because of Don.
“No,” I say. “I am not moving, but I am going to be gone several weeks at least. There is a new experimental treatment; my company wants me to take it.”
He looks worried. “Your company—do you want it? Are they pressuring you?”
“It is my decision,” I say. “I decided to do it.”
“Well… okay. I hope you got some good advice,” he says.
“Yes,” I say. I do not say from where.
“So—you have the day off? Or you’re leaving today? Where is this treatment going to be given?”
“I do not have to work today. I cleaned out my desk yesterday,” I say. “The treatment will be given at the research clinic, at the campus where I work but in a different building. It starts Monday. Today I have nothing—I think I may go up to Harper Falls.”
“Ah. Well, you take care, Lou. I hope it works out for you.” He thumps the roof of my car and walks away.
I am not sure what it is he hopes will work out for me: The trip to Harper Falls? The treatment? I do not know why he thumped the roof of my car, either. I do know that he doesn’t scare me anymore, another change that I made on my own.
At the park, I pay the entrance fee and stop my car in the empty parking lot. Signs point to different trails:
The Junior Nature Trail and the Fully Accessible Trail are both asphalt-surfaced, but the trail to the falls is crushed stone between metal strips. I walk down this trail, my shoes scritch-scritching on the surface. No one else is here. The only sounds are natural sounds. Far away I can hear the steady humming roar of the interstate but closer at hand only the higher whine of the generator that powers the park office.
Soon even that fades away; I am below a ledge of rock that blocks the highway sound as well. Most of the leaves have fallen from the trees and are sodden from yesterday’s rain. Below me, I can see red leaves glowing even in this dull light, on maples that survive here, in the coolest areas.
I can feel myself relaxing. Trees do not care if I am normal or not. Rocks and moss do not care. They cannot tell the difference between one human and another. That is restful. I do not have to think about myself at all.
I stop to sit on a rock and let my legs hang down. My parents took me to a park near where we lived when I was a child. It, too, had a stream with a waterfall, narrower than this one. The rock there was darker, and most of the rocks that stuck out were narrow and pointed on top. But there was one that had fallen over so the flatter side was on top, and I used to stand or sit on that rock. It felt friendly, because it did not do anything. My parents didn’t understand that.
If someone told the last maples that they could change and live happily in the warmer climate, would they choose to do it? What if it meant losing their translucent leaves that turn such beautiful colors every year?
I draw in a deep breath and smell the wet leaves, the moss on the rock, the lichens, the rock itself, the soil… Some of the articles said autistic persons are too sensitive to smells, but no one minds that in a dog or cat.
I listen to the little noises of the woods, the tiny noises even today, with the wet leaves mostly flat and silent on the ground. A few still hang and twirl a little in the wind, tip-tapping on a nearby twig. The squirrel’s feet, as it bounds away, scritch on the bark as it catches and releases its footholds. Wings whirr, and then I hear a thin zzeeet-zzzeeet from a bird I never actually see. Some articles say that autistic persons are too sensitive to small sounds, but no one minds that in animals.
No one who minds is here. I have today to enjoy my excessive and unregulated senses, in case they are gone by this time next week. I hope I will enjoy whatever senses I have then.
I lean over and taste the stone, the moss, the lichen, touching my tongue to them and then, sliding off the stone, to the wet leaves at its base. The bark of an oak (bitter, astringent), the bark of a poplar (tasteless at first, then faintly sweet). I fling my arms out, whirl in the path, my feet crunching now the crushed stone (no one to notice and be upset, no one to reprimand me, no one to shake a cautionary head). The colors whirl around me with my whirling; when I stop they do not stop at first, but only gradually.
Down and down—I find a fern to touch with my tongue, only one frond still green. It has no flavor. The bark of other trees, most I do not know but I can tell they are different by their patterns. Each has a slightly different, indescribable flavor, a slightly different smell, a different pattern of bark that is rougher or smoother under my fingers. The waterfall noise, at first a soft roar, dissolves into its many component sounds: boom of the main fall hitting the rocks below, the echoes of that blur that boom into a roar, the trickles and splatters of spray, of the little falls, the quiet drip of individual drops off the frost-seared fern fronds.
I watch the water falling, trying to see each part of it, the apparent masses that flow smoothly to the lip and then come apart on the way down… What would a drop feel as it slid over that last rock, as it fell into nothingness? Water has no mind, water cannot think, but people—normal people—do write about raging rivers and angry floodwaters as if they did not believe in that inability.
A swirl of wind brings spray to my face; some drops defied gravity and rose on the wind, but not to return to where they were.
I almost think about the decision, about the unknown, about not being able to go back, but I do not want to think today. I want to feel everything I can feel and have that to remember, if I have memories in that unknown future. I concentrate on the water, seeing its pattern, the order in chaos and chaos in order.
Monday. Nine twenty-nine. I am in the Clinical Research Facility on the far side of the campus from Section A. I am sitting in a row of chairs between Dale and Bailey.
The chairs are pale-gray plastic with blue and green and pink tweedy cushions on the back and seat. Across the room is another row of chairs; I can see the subtle humps and hollows where people have sat on those chairs. The walls have a stripy textured covering in two shades of gray below a pale-gray rail and an off-white pebbly covering above that. Even though the bottom pattern is in stripes, the texture is the same pebbly feel as the one above. Across the room there are two pictures on the wall, one a landscape with a hill in the distance and green fields nearby and the other one of a bunch of red poppies in a copper jug. At the end of the room is a door. I do not know what is beyond the door. I do not know if that is the door we will go through. In front of us is a low coffee table with two neat stacks of personal viewers and a box of disks labeled:
The label on the disk I can see reads:
My stomach is a cold lump inside a vast hollow space. My skin feels as if someone had pulled it too tight. I have not looked to see if there is a disk labeled: “Understanding Your Brain.” I do not want to read it if there is one.
When I try to imagine the future—the rest of this day, tomorrow, next week, the rest of my life—it is like looking into the pupil of my eye, and only the black looks back at me. The dark that is there already when the light speeds in, unknown and unknowable until the light arrives.
Not knowing arrives before knowing; the future arrives before the present. From this moment, past and future are the same in different directions, but I am going that way and not this way.
When I get there, the speed of light and the speed of dark will be the same.
Chapter Twenty-One
I am not a good man. I am just a man, like he is, but I like it that he thinks I am good.
Tom and Lucia and Marjory are all in the living room when I arrive. They are talking about the next tournament. Tom looks up at me.
“Lou—have you decided?”
“Yes,” I say. “I will do it.”
“Good. You’ll need to fill out this entry form—”
“Not that,” I say. I realize that he would not know I meant something else. “I will not fight in this tournament—” Will I ever fight in another tournament? Will the future me want to fence? Can you fence in space? I think it would be very hard in free fall.
“But you said,” Lucia says; then her face changes, seems to flatten out with surprise. “Oh—you mean… you’re going through with the treatment?”
“Yes,” I say. I glance at Marjory. She is looking at Lucia, and then at me, and then back. I do not remember if I talked to Marjory about the treatment.
“When?” asks Lucia before I have time to think about how to explain to Marjory.
“It will start Monday,” I say. “I have a lot to do. I have to move into the clinic.”
“Are you sick?” Marjory says; her face is pale now. “Is something wrong?”
“I am not sick,” I say to Marjory. “There is an experimental treatment that may make me normal.”
“Normal! But, Lou, you’re fine the way you are. I like the way you are. You don’t have to be like everybody else. Who has been telling you that?” She sounds angry. I do not know if she is angry with me or with someone she thinks told me I needed to change. I do not know if I should tell her the whole story or part of it. I will tell her everything.
“It started because Mr. Crenshaw at work wanted to eliminate our unit,” I say. “He knew about this treatment. He said it will save money.”
“But that’s—that’s coercion. It’s wrong. It’s against the law. He can’t do that—”
She is really angry now, the color coming and going on her cheeks. It makes me want to grab her and hug her. That is not appropriate.
“That is how it started,” I say. “But you are right; he could not do what he said he would do. Mr. Aldrin, our supervisor, found a way to stop him.” I am still surprised by this. I was sure Mr. Aldrin had changed his mind and would not help us. I still do not understand what Mr. Aldrin did that stopped Mr. Crenshaw and caused him to lose his job and be escorted out by security guards with his things in a box. I tell them what Mr. Aldrin said and then what the lawyers said in the meeting. “But now I want to change,” I say, at the end.
She takes a deep breath. I like to watch her take deep breaths; the front of her clothes pulls tight. “Why?” she asks in a quieter voice. “It isn’t because of… because of… us, is it? Me?”
“No,” I say. “It is not about you. It is about me.”
Her shoulders sag. I do not know if it is relief or sadness. “Then was it Don? Did he make you do this, convince you that you weren’t all right as you were?”
“It was not Don… not only Don…” It is obvious, I think, and I do not know why she cannot see it. She was there when the security man at the airport stopped me and my words stuck and she had to help me. She was there when I needed to talk to the police officer and my words stuck and Tom had to help me. I do not like being the one who always needs help. “It is about me,” I say again. “I want not to have problems at the airport and sometimes with other people when it is hard to talk and have people looking at me. I want to go places and learn things I did not know I could learn…”
Her faces changes again, smoothing out, and her voice loses some of its emotional tone. “What is the treatment like, Lou? What will happen?”
I open the packet I have brought. We are not supposed to discuss the treatment since it is proprietary and experimental, but I think this is a bad idea. If things go wrong, someone outside should know. I did not tell anyone I was taking my packet out, and they did not stop me.
I begin to read. Almost at once, Lucia stops me.
“Lou—do you understand this stuff now?”
“Yes. I think so. After Cego and Clinton, I could read the on-line journals pretty easily.”
“Why don’t you let me read that, then? I can understand it better if I see the words. Then we can talk about it.”
There is nothing to talk about, really. I am going to do it. But I hand Lucia the packet, because it is always easier to do what Lucia says. Marjory scoots closer to her and they both begin to read. I look at Tom. He raises his eyebrows and shakes his head.
“You’re a brave man, Lou. I knew that, but this—! I don’t know if I’d have the guts to let someone mess with my brain.”
“You don’t need to,” I say. “You are normal. You have a job with tenure. You have Lucia and this house.” I cannot say the rest that I think, that he is easy in his body, that he sees and hears and tastes and smells and feels what others do, so his reality matches theirs.
“Will you come back to us, do you think?” Tom asks. He looks sad.
“I do not know,” I say. “I hope that I will still like to fence, because it is fun, but I do not know.”
“Do you have time to stay tonight?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say.
“Then let’s go on out.” He gets up and leads the way to the equipment room. Lucia and Marjory stay behind, reading. When we get to the equipment room, he turns to me. “Lou, are you sure you aren’t doing this because you’re in love with Marjory? Because you want to be a normal man for her? That would be a noble thing to do, but—”
I feel myself going hot all over. “It is not about her. I like her. I want to touch her and hold her and… things that are not appropriate. But this is…” I reach out and touch the upright end of the stand that holds the blades, because suddenly I am trembling and afraid I might fall. “Things do not stay the same,” I say. “I am not the same. I cannot not change. This is just… faster change. But I choose it.”
“Fear change, and it will destroy you; embrace change, and it will enlarge you,” Tom says, in the voice he uses for quotes. I do not know what he is quoting from. Then in his normal voice, with a little joking voice added, he says, “Choose your weapon, then: if you aren’t going to be here for a while, I want to be sure to get my licks in tonight.”
I take my blades and my mask and have put on my leather before I remember that I did not stretch. I sit down on the patio and begin the stretches. It is colder out here; the flagstones are hard and cold under me.
Tom sits across from me. “I’ve done mine, but more never hurts as I get older,” he says. I can see, when he bends to put his face on his knee, that the hair on the top of his head is thinning, and there is gray in it. He puts one arm over his head and pulls on it with the other arm. “What will you do when you’re through the treatment?”
“I would like to go into space,” I say.
“You—? Lou, you never cease to amaze me.” He puts the other arm on top of his head now and pulls on the elbow. “I didn’t know you wanted to go into space. When did that start?”
“When I was little,” I say. “But I knew I could not do it. I knew it was not appropriate.”
“When I think of the waste—!” Tom says, bending his head now to his other knee. “Lou, as much as I worried about this before, I think you’re right now. You have too much potential to be locked up in a diagnosis the rest of your life. Though it’s going to hurt Marjory when you grow away from her.”
“I do not want to hurt Marjory,” I say, “I do not think I will grow away from her.” It is a strange expression; I am sure it cannot be literal. If two things close to each other both grow, they will get closer together, not apart.
“I know that. You like her a lot—no, you love her. That’s clear. But, Lou—she’s a nice woman, but as you say, you’re about to make a big change. You won’t be the same person.”
“I will always like—love—her,” I say. I had not thought that becoming normal would make that harder or impossible. I do not understand why Tom thinks so. “I do not think she pretended to like me just to do research on me, whatever Emmy says.”
“Good heavens, who thought that up? Who’s Emmy?”
“Someone at the Center,” I say. I do not want to talk about Emmy, so I hurry through it. “Emmy said Marjory was a researcher and just talked to me as a subject, not a friend. Marjory told me that her research was on neuromuscular disorders, so I knew Emmy was wrong.”
Tom stands up, and I scramble up, too. “But for you—it’s a great opportunity.”
“I know,” I say. “I wanted—I thought once—I almost asked her out, but I don’t know how.”
“Do you think the treatment will help?”
“Maybe.” I put on my mask. “But if it does not help with that, it will help with other things, I think. And I will always like her.”
“I’m sure you will, but it won’t be the same. Can’t be. It’s like any system, Lou. If I lost a foot, I might still fence, but my patterns would be different, right?”
I do not like thinking of Tom losing a foot, but I can understand what he means. I nod.
“So if you make a big change in who you are, then you and Marjory will be in a different pattern. You may be closer, or you may be further apart.”
Now I know what I did not know a few minutes ago, that I had had a deep and hidden thought about Marjory and the treatment and me. I did think it would be easier. I did have a hope that if I were normal, we might be normal together, might marry and have children and a normal life.
“It won’t be the same, Lou,” Tom says again from behind his mask. I can see the glitter of his eyes. “It can’t be.”
Fencing is the same and it is not the same. Tom’s patterns are clearer now each time I fence with him, but my pattern slides in and out of focus. My attention wavers. Will Marjory come outside? Will she fence? What are she and Lucia saying about the consent packet? When I concentrate, I can make touches on him, but then I lose track of where he is in his pattern and he makes touches on me. It is three touches to five when Marjory and Lucia come out, and Tom and I have just stopped for breath. Even though it is a cool night, we are sweaty.
“Well,” Lucia says. I wait. She says nothing more.
“It looks dangerous to me,” Marjory says. “Mucking about with neural reabsorption and then regeneration. But I haven’t read the original research.”
“Too many places it can go wrong,” Lucia says. “Viral insertion of genetic material, that’s old hat, a proven technology. Nanotech cartilage repair, blood vessel maintenance, inflammation management, fine. Programmable chips for spinal cord injuries, okay. But tinkering with gene switches—they haven’t got all the bugs out of that yet. That mess with marrow in bone regeneration—of course that’s not nerves and it was in children, but still.”
I do not know what she is talking about, but I do not want another reason to be scared.
“What bothers me most is that it’s all in-house with your employer, an incestuous mess if ever I saw one. Anything goes wrong, you have no patient advocate to speak up for you. Your Legal Aid person doesn’t have the medical expertise… But it’s your decision.”
“Yes,” I say. I look at Marjory. I cannot help it.
“Lou…” Then she shakes her head, and I know she is not going to say what she was going to say. “Want to fence?” she asks.
I do not want to fence. I want to sit with her. I want to touch her. I want to eat dinner with her and lie in bed with her. But that is something I cannot do, not yet. I stand up and put on my mask.
What I feel when her blade touches mine I cannot describe. It is stronger than before. I feel my body tightening, reacting, in a way that is not appropriate but is wonderful. I want this to go on and I want to stop and grab her. I slow down, so that I do not make a touch too quickly, and so that this will last.
I could still ask her if she will have dinner with me. I could do it before or after treatment. Maybe.
Thursday morning. It is chilly, windy, with gray clouds scudding across the sky. I am hearing Beethoven’s Mass in C. The light looks heavy and slow, though the wind is moving fast. Dale, Bailey, and Eric are already here—or their cars are. Linda’s car is not in place yet; neither is Chuy’s. As I walk from the parking lot to the building, the wind blows my slacks against my legs; I can feel the rippling of the fabric against my skin; it feels like many little fingers. I remember begging my mother to cut the tags out of my T-shirts when I was little, until I was old enough to do it myself. Will I still notice that afterward?
I hear a car behind me and turn. It is Linda’s car. She parks in her usual place. She gets out without looking at me.
At the door, I insert my card, put my thumb on the plate, and the door lock clicks and clunks to release. I push the door open and wait for Linda. She has opened her car’s trunk and is taking out a box. It is like the box Mr. Crenshaw had, but it has no markings on the side.
I did not think to bring a box to put things in. I wonder if I can find a box during lunch hour. I wonder if Linda bringing a box means she has decided to take the treatment.
She holds the box under one arm. She walks fast, the wind blowing her hair back. She usually has it tied up; I did not know it would ripple like that in the wind. Her face looks different, uncluttered and spare, as if it were a carving without any fear or worry.
She walks past me holding the box and I follow her inside. I remember to touch the screen for two people entering on one card. Bailey is in the hall.
“You have a box,” he says to Linda.
“I thought someone might need it,” Linda says. “I brought it in case.”
“I will bring a box tomorrow,” Bailey says. “Lou, are you leaving today or tomorrow?”
“Today,” I say. Linda looks at me and holds the box. “I could use the box,” I say, and she hands it to me without meeting my eyes.
I go into my office. It looks strange already, like someone else’s office. If I left it alone, would it look strange like this when I come back afterward? But since it looks strange now, does that mean that already I am living partly in afterward?
I move the little fan that makes the spin spirals and whirligigs turn, and then I move it back. I sit in my chair and look again. It is the same office. I am not the same person.
I look in the drawers of my desk and see nothing but the same old stack of manuals. Down at the bottom—though I have not looked at it in a long time—is the Employees’ Manual. On top are the different system upgrade manuals. These are not supposed to be printed out, but it is still easier to read things on paper where the letters are absolutely still. Everyone uses my manuals. I do not want to leave these illicit copies here while I am in treatment. I pull them all out and turn the stack upside down so the Employees’ Manual is on top. I do not know what to do with them.
In the bottom drawer is an old mobile that I used to have hanging here until the biggest fish got bent. Now the shiny surface of the fishes has little black spots. I pull it out, wincing at the jingly noise it makes, and rub at one of the black spots. It doesn’t come off. It looks sick. I put it in the wastebasket, wincing again at the noise.
In the flat drawer above the kneehole I keep colored pens and a little plastic container with some change for the soda machine. I put the container in my pocket and put the pens on top of the desk. I look at the shelving. All that is project information, files, things the company owns. I do not have to clean off the shelves. I take down the spin spirals that are not my favorites first, the yellow and silver and the orange and red.
I hear Mr. Aldrin’s voice in the hall, speaking to someone. He opens my door.
“Lou—I forgot to remind everyone not to take any project work off-campus. If you want to store any project-related materials, you can stack them with a label explaining that they must go in secured storage.”
“Yes, Mr. Aldrin,” I say. I feel uneasy about those system update printouts in the box, but they are not project-related.
“Will you be on-campus at all tomorrow?”
“I do not think so,” I say. “I do not want to start something and leave it unfinished, and I will have everything cleared out today.”
“Fine. You did get my list of recommended preparations?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Good, then. I—” He looks back over his shoulder and then comes into my office and shuts the door. I feel myself tensing; my stomach churns. “Lou—” He hesitates, clears his throat, and looks away. “Lou, I—I want to tell you I’m sorry this all happened.”
I do not know what answer he expects. I do not say anything.
“I never wanted… if it had been up to me, things wouldn’t have changed—”
He is wrong. Things would have changed. Don would still have been angry with me. I would still have fallen in love with Marjory. I am not sure why he is saying this; he must know that things do change, whether people want them to or not. A man can lie beside the pool for weeks, for years, thinking about the angel coming down, before someone stops to ask him if he wants to be healed.
The look on Mr. Aldrin’s face reminds me of how I have felt so often. He is scared, I realize. He is usually scared of something. It hurts to be scared for a long time; I know that hurt. I wish he did not have that look, because it makes me feel I should do something about it and I do not know what to do.
“It is not your fault,” I say. His face relaxes. That was the right thing to say. It is too easy. I can say it, but does that make it true? Words can be wrong. Ideas can be wrong.
“I want to be sure you really are—you really do want the treatment,” he says. “There’s absolutely no pressure—”
He is wrong again, though he may be right that there is no pressure from the company right now. Now that I know change will come, now that I know this change is possible, the pressure grows in me, as air fills a balloon or light fills space. Light is not passive; light itself presses on whatever it touches.
“It is my decision,” I say. I mean, whether it is right or wrong, it is what I decided. I can be wrong, too.
“Thanks, Lou,” he says. “You—you all—you mean a lot to me.”
I do not know what “mean a lot” means. Literally it would mean that we have a lot of meaning in us, which he can take, and I do not think that is what Mr. Aldrin is saying. I do not ask. I am still uncomfortable when I think about the times he talked to us. I do not say anything. After 93 seconds, he nods and turns to go. “Take care,” he says. “Good luck.”
I understand “Be careful,” but I do not think “Take care” is as clear. Care is not something you can take and walk around with, like a box. I do not say that, either. Afterward I may not even think about that. I should start now to think what afterward is like.
I notice he does not say, “I hope you are cured.” I do not know if he is being tactful and polite or thinks it will not go well. I do not ask. His pocket tagger bleeps, and he backs out into the hall. He does not shut my door. It is wrong to listen to other people’s conversation, but it is not polite to shut the door on someone in authority. I cannot help hearing what he says, though I cannot hear what the other person says. “Yes, sir, I’ll be there.”
His footsteps move away. I relax, taking a deep breath. I take down my favorite spin spirals and take the whirligigs off their stands. The room looks bare, but my desk looks cluttered. I cannot tell if it will all fit in Linda’s box. Maybe I can find another box. Soon begun, soonest done. When I get into the hall, Chuy is at the door, struggling to hold it open and carry in several boxes. I hold the door wide for him.
“I brought one for everybody,” he says. “It will save time.”
“Linda brought a box I am using,” I say.
“Maybe someone will need two,” he says. He drops the boxes in the hall. “You can have one if you need one.”
“I need one,” I say. “Thanks.”
I pick up a box that is bigger than the one Linda brought and go back to my office. I put the manuals in the bottom because they are heavy. The colored pens fit between the manuals and the side of the box. I put the whirligigs and spin spirals on top and then remember the fan. I take them out and put the fan on top of the manuals. Now there will not be room for everything else. I look at the box. I do not need the Employees’ Manual, and no one will be angry with me for having a copy in my office. I take it out and leave it on the desk. I put the fan in, and then the spin spirals and whirligigs. They just fit. I think of the wind outside. They are lightweight and might blow out.
In the last drawer, I find the towel I use to dry off my head when it is raining and I have walked in from the car in the rain. That will fit on top of the spin spirals and whirligigs and keep them from blowing away. I fold the towel on top of the things in the box and pick up the box. Now I am doing what Mr. Crenshaw was doing, carrying a box of my things out of an office. Maybe I would look like Mr. Crenshaw to someone watching, except that no security guards stand beside me. We are not alike. This is my choice; I do not think his leaving was his choice. When I get near the door, Dale is coming out of his office; he opens the door for me.
Outside, the clouds are thicker and the day seems darker, colder, fuzzy around the edges. It may rain in a little while. I like the cold. The wind is behind me, and I can feel it pushing on my back. I put the box down on the front of my car, and the towel starts to blow off. I put my hand on it. It will be hard to unlock the door while holding the towel down. I move the box to the passenger side of the car and rest my foot on the edge. Now I can unlock the door.
A first drop of icy rain flicks my cheek. I put the box on the passenger seat, then close the door and lock it. I think about going back inside, but I am sure I got everything. I do not want to put current project work in a stack for special storage. I do not want to see that project again.
I do want to see Dale and Bailey and Chuy and Eric and Linda again, though. Another flick of rain. The cold wind feels good. I shake my head and go back to the door, insert my card, and enter my thumb-print. All the others are in the hall, some with full boxes and some just standing.
“Want to get something to eat?” Dale says. The others look around.
“It is only ten-twelve,” says Chuy. “It is not time for lunch. I am still working.” He does not have a box. Linda does not have a box. It seems odd that the people who are not leaving brought boxes. Did they want the rest of us to leave?
“We could go for pizza later,” says Dale. We look at each other. I do not know what they are thinking, but I am thinking it will not be the same and also too much the same. It is pretending.
“We could go somewhere else later,” Chuy says.
“Pizza,” says Linda.
We leave it at that. I think I will not come.
It feels very odd to be driving around in the daylight on a weekday. I drive home and park in the space nearest the door. I carry the box upstairs. The apartment building is very quiet. I put the box in my closet, behind my shoes.
The apartment is quiet and neat. I washed the breakfast dishes before I left; I always do. I take the container of coins out of my pocket and put it on top of the clothes baskets.
They told us to bring three changes of clothes. I can pack those now. I do not know what the weather will be or if we will need outside clothes as well as inside clothes. I take my suitcase from the closet and take the first three knit shirts on top of the stack in my second drawer. Three sets of underwear. Three pairs of socks. Two pairs of tan slacks and a pair of blue slacks. My blue sweatshirt, in case it is cold.
I have an extra toothbrush, comb, and brush that I keep for emergencies. I have never had an emergency. This is not an emergency, but if I pack them now I will not have to think about it again. I put the toothbrush, a new tube of toothpaste, the comb, brush, razor, shaving cream, and a nail clipper in the little zipper bag that fits into my suitcase and put it in. I look again at the list they gave us. That is everything. I tighten the straps in the suitcase, then zip it shut and put it away.
Mr. Aldrin said to contact the bank, the apartment manager, and any friends who might be worried. He gave us a statement to give to the bank and apartment manager, explaining that we would be gone on a temporary assignment for the company, our paychecks would continue to be paid into the bank, and the bank should continue to make all automatic payments. I bounce the statement to my branch manager.
Downstairs, the apartment manager’s door is shut, but I can hear a vacuum cleaner moaning inside. When I was little, I was afraid of the vacuum cleaner because it sounded like it was crying, “Ohhhh… noooooo… oohhhh… nooooo,” when my mother pulled it back and forth. It roared and whined and moaned. Now it is just annoying. I push the button. The moaning stops. I do not hear footsteps, but the door opens.
“Mr. Arrendale!” Ms. Tomasz, the manager, sounds surprised. She would not expect to see me in midmorning on a weekday. “Are you sick? Do you need something?”
“I am going on a project for the company I work for,” I say. I have rehearsed saying this smoothly. I hand her the statement Mr. Aldrin gave us. “I have told the bank to make the payments for my rent. You can contact the company if it does not.”
“Oh!” She glances down at the paper, and before she has time to read all of it, she looks up at me. “But… how long will you be gone?”
“I am not sure,” I say. “But I will come back.” I do not know that for sure, but I do not want her to worry.
“You aren’t leaving because that man cut your tires in our parking lot? Tried to hurt you?”
“No,” I say. I do not know why she would think that. “It is a special assignment.”
“I worried about you; I really did,” Ms. Tomasz says. “I almost came up and spoke to you, to express—to say I was sorry—but you know you do keep to yourself, pretty much.”
“I am all right,” I say.
“We’ll miss you,” she says. I do not understand how that can be true if she does not even see me most of the time. “Take care of yourself,” she says. I do not tell her that I cannot do that, because my brain will be changing.
When I get back upstairs, the bank’s automatic reply has come through, saying that the message has been received and the manager will make a specific reply very soon and thank you for your patronage. Underneath it says:
Safety Tip #21:
Never leave the key of your safe-deposit box in your home when you leave for a vacation
I do not have a safe-deposit box so I do not have to worry about it.
I decide to walk down to the little bakery for lunch—I saw the sign about sandwiches to order when I bought bread there. It is not crowded, but I do not like the music on the radio. It is loud and banging. I order a ham sandwich made with ham from pigs fed a vegetarian diet and butchered under close supervision and the freshest ingredients and take it away. It is too cold to stop and eat outside, so I walk back to the apartment with it and eat it in my kitchenette.
I could call Marjory. I could take her to dinner tonight, or tomorrow night, or Saturday night, if she would come. I know her work number and her home number. One is almost a prime, and one is a nested multiple of pleasing symmetry. I hang the spin spirals in my apartment where they twirl in the air leaking past the old windows. The flash of colored light across the walls is restful and helps me think.
If I call her and she goes with me to dinner, why would that be? Maybe she likes me, and maybe she is worried about me, and maybe she feels sorry for me. I do not know for sure it would be because she likes me. For it to be the same in opposite directions, she would have to like me as I like her. Anything else would not make a good pattern.
What would we talk about? She does not know any more about brain functionality than I do now. It is not her field. We both fence, but I do not think we could talk about fencing the whole time. I do not think she is interested in space; like Mr. Aldrin she seems to think it is a waste of money.
If I come back—if the treatment works and I am like other men in the brain as well as in the body—will I like her the way I do now?
Is she another case of the pool with the angel—do I love her because I think she is the only one I can love?
I get up and put on Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D. The music builds a complex landscape, mountains and valleys and great gulfs of cool, windy air. Will I still like Bach when I come back, if I come back?
For a moment, fear seizes my whole being and I am falling through blackness, faster than any light could ever be, but the music rises under me, lifts me up like an ocean wave, and I am no longer afraid.
Friday morning. I would go to work, but there is nothing in my office to do, and there is nothing in my apartment to do, either. The confirmation from the bank manager was in my stack this morning. I could do my laundry now, but I do my laundry on Friday nights. It occurs to me that if I do my laundry tonight as usual and then sleep on the sheets tonight and Saturday night and Sunday night, I will have dirty sheets on the bed and dirty towels in the bathroom when I check into the clinic. I do not know what to do about that. I do not want to leave dirty things behind me, but otherwise I will have to get up early Monday morning and do a wash then.
I think about contacting the others, but I decide not to. I do not want to talk to them, really. I am not used to having a day like this, apart from planned vacation, and I do not know what to do with it. I could go see a movie or read books, but my stomach is too tight for that. I could go to the Center, but I do not want to do that, either.
I wash the breakfast dishes and stack them. The apartment is too quiet, too big and empty suddenly. I do not know where I will go, but I have to go somewhere. I put my wallet and keys in my pocket and leave. It is only five minutes later than I usually leave.
Danny is going downstairs, too. He says, “Hi, Lou, howyadoin’,” in a rush. I think that means he is in a hurry and does not want to talk. I say “hi” and nothing more.
Outside, it is cloudy and cold but not raining right now. It is not as windy as yesterday. I walk over to my car and get in. I do not turn the engine on yet, because I do not know where I will go. It is a waste to run the engine unnecessarily. I take the road map book out of the glove compartment and open it. I could go to the state park upriver and look at the waterfalls. Most people hike there in summer, but I think the park is open in the daytime in winter, too.
A shadow darkens my window. It is Danny. I open the window.
“Are you all right?” he asks. “Is something wrong?”
“I am not going to work today,” I say. “I am deciding where to go.”
“Okay,” he says. I am surprised; I did not think he was that interested. If he is that interested, maybe he would want to know that I am going away.
“I am going away,” I say.
His face changes expression. “Moving? Was it that stalker? He won’t hurt you again, Lou.”
It is interesting that both he and the apartment manager assumed I might be leaving because of Don.
“No,” I say. “I am not moving, but I am going to be gone several weeks at least. There is a new experimental treatment; my company wants me to take it.”
He looks worried. “Your company—do you want it? Are they pressuring you?”
“It is my decision,” I say. “I decided to do it.”
“Well… okay. I hope you got some good advice,” he says.
“Yes,” I say. I do not say from where.
“So—you have the day off? Or you’re leaving today? Where is this treatment going to be given?”
“I do not have to work today. I cleaned out my desk yesterday,” I say. “The treatment will be given at the research clinic, at the campus where I work but in a different building. It starts Monday. Today I have nothing—I think I may go up to Harper Falls.”
“Ah. Well, you take care, Lou. I hope it works out for you.” He thumps the roof of my car and walks away.
I am not sure what it is he hopes will work out for me: The trip to Harper Falls? The treatment? I do not know why he thumped the roof of my car, either. I do know that he doesn’t scare me anymore, another change that I made on my own.
At the park, I pay the entrance fee and stop my car in the empty parking lot. Signs point to different trails:
To the Falls, 290.3 Meters
Buttercup Meadow, 1.7 KM
Junior Nature Trail, 1.3 KM
The Junior Nature Trail and the Fully Accessible Trail are both asphalt-surfaced, but the trail to the falls is crushed stone between metal strips. I walk down this trail, my shoes scritch-scritching on the surface. No one else is here. The only sounds are natural sounds. Far away I can hear the steady humming roar of the interstate but closer at hand only the higher whine of the generator that powers the park office.
Soon even that fades away; I am below a ledge of rock that blocks the highway sound as well. Most of the leaves have fallen from the trees and are sodden from yesterday’s rain. Below me, I can see red leaves glowing even in this dull light, on maples that survive here, in the coolest areas.
I can feel myself relaxing. Trees do not care if I am normal or not. Rocks and moss do not care. They cannot tell the difference between one human and another. That is restful. I do not have to think about myself at all.
I stop to sit on a rock and let my legs hang down. My parents took me to a park near where we lived when I was a child. It, too, had a stream with a waterfall, narrower than this one. The rock there was darker, and most of the rocks that stuck out were narrow and pointed on top. But there was one that had fallen over so the flatter side was on top, and I used to stand or sit on that rock. It felt friendly, because it did not do anything. My parents didn’t understand that.
If someone told the last maples that they could change and live happily in the warmer climate, would they choose to do it? What if it meant losing their translucent leaves that turn such beautiful colors every year?
I draw in a deep breath and smell the wet leaves, the moss on the rock, the lichens, the rock itself, the soil… Some of the articles said autistic persons are too sensitive to smells, but no one minds that in a dog or cat.
I listen to the little noises of the woods, the tiny noises even today, with the wet leaves mostly flat and silent on the ground. A few still hang and twirl a little in the wind, tip-tapping on a nearby twig. The squirrel’s feet, as it bounds away, scritch on the bark as it catches and releases its footholds. Wings whirr, and then I hear a thin zzeeet-zzzeeet from a bird I never actually see. Some articles say that autistic persons are too sensitive to small sounds, but no one minds that in animals.
No one who minds is here. I have today to enjoy my excessive and unregulated senses, in case they are gone by this time next week. I hope I will enjoy whatever senses I have then.
I lean over and taste the stone, the moss, the lichen, touching my tongue to them and then, sliding off the stone, to the wet leaves at its base. The bark of an oak (bitter, astringent), the bark of a poplar (tasteless at first, then faintly sweet). I fling my arms out, whirl in the path, my feet crunching now the crushed stone (no one to notice and be upset, no one to reprimand me, no one to shake a cautionary head). The colors whirl around me with my whirling; when I stop they do not stop at first, but only gradually.
Down and down—I find a fern to touch with my tongue, only one frond still green. It has no flavor. The bark of other trees, most I do not know but I can tell they are different by their patterns. Each has a slightly different, indescribable flavor, a slightly different smell, a different pattern of bark that is rougher or smoother under my fingers. The waterfall noise, at first a soft roar, dissolves into its many component sounds: boom of the main fall hitting the rocks below, the echoes of that blur that boom into a roar, the trickles and splatters of spray, of the little falls, the quiet drip of individual drops off the frost-seared fern fronds.
I watch the water falling, trying to see each part of it, the apparent masses that flow smoothly to the lip and then come apart on the way down… What would a drop feel as it slid over that last rock, as it fell into nothingness? Water has no mind, water cannot think, but people—normal people—do write about raging rivers and angry floodwaters as if they did not believe in that inability.
A swirl of wind brings spray to my face; some drops defied gravity and rose on the wind, but not to return to where they were.
I almost think about the decision, about the unknown, about not being able to go back, but I do not want to think today. I want to feel everything I can feel and have that to remember, if I have memories in that unknown future. I concentrate on the water, seeing its pattern, the order in chaos and chaos in order.
Monday. Nine twenty-nine. I am in the Clinical Research Facility on the far side of the campus from Section A. I am sitting in a row of chairs between Dale and Bailey.
The chairs are pale-gray plastic with blue and green and pink tweedy cushions on the back and seat. Across the room is another row of chairs; I can see the subtle humps and hollows where people have sat on those chairs. The walls have a stripy textured covering in two shades of gray below a pale-gray rail and an off-white pebbly covering above that. Even though the bottom pattern is in stripes, the texture is the same pebbly feel as the one above. Across the room there are two pictures on the wall, one a landscape with a hill in the distance and green fields nearby and the other one of a bunch of red poppies in a copper jug. At the end of the room is a door. I do not know what is beyond the door. I do not know if that is the door we will go through. In front of us is a low coffee table with two neat stacks of personal viewers and a box of disks labeled:
Patient Information:
Understand Your Project
The label on the disk I can see reads:
Understanding Your Stomach
My stomach is a cold lump inside a vast hollow space. My skin feels as if someone had pulled it too tight. I have not looked to see if there is a disk labeled: “Understanding Your Brain.” I do not want to read it if there is one.
When I try to imagine the future—the rest of this day, tomorrow, next week, the rest of my life—it is like looking into the pupil of my eye, and only the black looks back at me. The dark that is there already when the light speeds in, unknown and unknowable until the light arrives.
Not knowing arrives before knowing; the future arrives before the present. From this moment, past and future are the same in different directions, but I am going that way and not this way.
When I get there, the speed of light and the speed of dark will be the same.
Chapter Twenty-One
Light. Dark. Light. Dark. Light and dark. Edge of light on dark. Movement. Noise. Noise again. Movement. Cold and warm and hot and light and dark and rough and smooth, cold, too cold and pain and warm and dark and no pain. Light again. Movement. Noise and louder noise and too loud cow mooing. Movement, shapes against the light, sting, warm back to dark.
Light is day. Dark is night. Day is get up now it is time to get up. Night is lie down be quiet sleep.
Get up now, sit up, hold out arms. Cold air. Warm touch. Get up now, stand up. Cold on feet. Come on now walk. Walk to place is shiny is cold smells scary. Place for making wet or dirty, place for making clean. Hold out arms, feel sliding on skin. Sliding on legs. Cold air all over. Get in shower, hold on rail. Rail cold. Scary noise, scary noise. Don’t be silly. Stand still. Things hitting, many things hitting, wet sliding, too cold then warm then too hot. All right, it’s all right. Not all right. Yes, yes, stand still. Slurpy feeling, sliding all over. Clean. Now clean. More wet. Time come out, stand. Rubbing all over, skin warm now. Put on clothes. Put on pants, put on shirt, put on slippers. Time to walk. Hold this. Walk.
Place to eat. Bowl. Food in bowl. Pick up spoon. Spoon in food. Spoon in mouth. No, hold spoon right. Food all gone. Food fall. Hold still. Try again. Try again. Try again. Spoon in mouth, food in mouth. Food taste bad. Wet on chin. No, don’t spit out. Try again. Try again. Try again.
Shapes moving people. People alive. Shapes not alive. Walking, shapes change. Not alive shapes change little. Alive shapes change a lot. People shapes have blank place at top. People say put on clothes, put on clothes, get good. Good is sweet. Good is warm. Good is shiny pretty. Good is smile, is name for face pieces move this way. Good is happy voice, is name for sound like this. Sound like this is name talking. Talking tells what to do. People laugh, is best sound. Good for you, good for you. Good food is good for you. Clothes is good for you. Talking is good for you.
People more than one. People is names. Use names is good for you, happy voice, shiny pretty, even sweet. One is Jim, good morning time to get up and get dressed. Jim is dark face, shiny on top head, warm hands, loud talking. More than one two is Sally, now here’s breakfast you can do it isn’t it good? Sally is pale face, white hair on top head, not loud talking. Amber is pale face, dark hair on top head, not loud as Jim louder than Sally.
Hi Jim. Hi Sally. Hi Amber.
Jim say get up. Hi Jim. Jim smile. Jim happy I say Hi Jim. Get up, go to bathroom, use toilet, take off clothes, go in shower. Reach for wheel thing. Jim say Good for you and shut door. Turn wheel thing. Water. Soap. Water. Feel good. All feel good. Open door. Jim smile. Jim happy I take shower by self. Jim hold towel. Take towel. Rub all over. Dry. Dry feel good. Wet feel good. Morning feel good.
Put on clothes, walk to breakfast. Sit at table with Sally. Hi Sally. Sally smile. Sally happy I say Hi Sally. Look around Sally say. Look around. More tables. Other people. Know Sally. Know Amber. Know Jim. Not know other people. Sally ask Are you hungry. Say yes. Sally smile. Sally happy I say yes. Bowl. Food in bowl cereal. Sweet on top is fruit. Eat sweet on top, eat cereal, say Good, good. Sally smile. Sally happy I say Good. Happy because Sally happy. Happy because sweet is good.
Amber say time to go. Hi Amber. Amber smile. Amber happy I say Hi Amber. Amber walk to working room. I walk to working room. Amber say sit there. I sit there. Table in front. Amber sit other side. Amber say time to play game. Amber put thing on table. What is this, Amber ask. It is blue. I say blue. Amber say That is color, what is thing? I want to touch. Amber say no touch, just look. Thing is funny shape, wrinkly. Blue. I sad. Not know is not good, no good for you, no sweet, no shiny pretty.
Light is day. Dark is night. Day is get up now it is time to get up. Night is lie down be quiet sleep.
Get up now, sit up, hold out arms. Cold air. Warm touch. Get up now, stand up. Cold on feet. Come on now walk. Walk to place is shiny is cold smells scary. Place for making wet or dirty, place for making clean. Hold out arms, feel sliding on skin. Sliding on legs. Cold air all over. Get in shower, hold on rail. Rail cold. Scary noise, scary noise. Don’t be silly. Stand still. Things hitting, many things hitting, wet sliding, too cold then warm then too hot. All right, it’s all right. Not all right. Yes, yes, stand still. Slurpy feeling, sliding all over. Clean. Now clean. More wet. Time come out, stand. Rubbing all over, skin warm now. Put on clothes. Put on pants, put on shirt, put on slippers. Time to walk. Hold this. Walk.
Place to eat. Bowl. Food in bowl. Pick up spoon. Spoon in food. Spoon in mouth. No, hold spoon right. Food all gone. Food fall. Hold still. Try again. Try again. Try again. Spoon in mouth, food in mouth. Food taste bad. Wet on chin. No, don’t spit out. Try again. Try again. Try again.
Shapes moving people. People alive. Shapes not alive. Walking, shapes change. Not alive shapes change little. Alive shapes change a lot. People shapes have blank place at top. People say put on clothes, put on clothes, get good. Good is sweet. Good is warm. Good is shiny pretty. Good is smile, is name for face pieces move this way. Good is happy voice, is name for sound like this. Sound like this is name talking. Talking tells what to do. People laugh, is best sound. Good for you, good for you. Good food is good for you. Clothes is good for you. Talking is good for you.
People more than one. People is names. Use names is good for you, happy voice, shiny pretty, even sweet. One is Jim, good morning time to get up and get dressed. Jim is dark face, shiny on top head, warm hands, loud talking. More than one two is Sally, now here’s breakfast you can do it isn’t it good? Sally is pale face, white hair on top head, not loud talking. Amber is pale face, dark hair on top head, not loud as Jim louder than Sally.
Hi Jim. Hi Sally. Hi Amber.
Jim say get up. Hi Jim. Jim smile. Jim happy I say Hi Jim. Get up, go to bathroom, use toilet, take off clothes, go in shower. Reach for wheel thing. Jim say Good for you and shut door. Turn wheel thing. Water. Soap. Water. Feel good. All feel good. Open door. Jim smile. Jim happy I take shower by self. Jim hold towel. Take towel. Rub all over. Dry. Dry feel good. Wet feel good. Morning feel good.
Put on clothes, walk to breakfast. Sit at table with Sally. Hi Sally. Sally smile. Sally happy I say Hi Sally. Look around Sally say. Look around. More tables. Other people. Know Sally. Know Amber. Know Jim. Not know other people. Sally ask Are you hungry. Say yes. Sally smile. Sally happy I say yes. Bowl. Food in bowl cereal. Sweet on top is fruit. Eat sweet on top, eat cereal, say Good, good. Sally smile. Sally happy I say Good. Happy because Sally happy. Happy because sweet is good.
Amber say time to go. Hi Amber. Amber smile. Amber happy I say Hi Amber. Amber walk to working room. I walk to working room. Amber say sit there. I sit there. Table in front. Amber sit other side. Amber say time to play game. Amber put thing on table. What is this, Amber ask. It is blue. I say blue. Amber say That is color, what is thing? I want to touch. Amber say no touch, just look. Thing is funny shape, wrinkly. Blue. I sad. Not know is not good, no good for you, no sweet, no shiny pretty.