Chapter Twenty-Six: The Path Sick Sorrow Took

After about twenty minutes of actual sleep, Felix awoke. He lay in bed looking up at the lights as they intensified into synthetic morning sun. There were things to do but he had no firm sense of them yet and lay there for a few moments free of any memory of what had happened. He wanted nothing more than to remain immobile. He tried to get back to sleep but that was impossible. Then lying there became in and of itself painful. Still, he didn’t budge until he remembered that he had given notice at work. He had to get up then. There was just no way he could afford to leave work now. The job would be everything. Before stopping the sale of the embryos, before arranging for her cremation, he must secure the job.

All of his sensations were extreme and changeable. Time lost all stability. It stretched out: the present. Then past brought present to its knees. He moved from a state of disassociation to one of total immersion. Sometimes he viewed himself and everything else through a grainy filter, a conceptual filter that prevented him from being an actor in his own existence. It was in this state, floaty, without emotion, as if suffering from an acute head injury, that he showered, drank coffee and dressed. Like old blue screen animation he performed these tasks as if Veronica were there, to be edited in later. These were things he did the same way so often that they required no special mental effort yet he felt that even lifting one foot in front of the other to walk, or taking a breath, or a sip of coffee, required effort, unnatural effort. Every fifteen minutes he had to battle back giant, convulsive waves of grief. He felt disgusted and hopeless as each wave approached and slowly engulfed him till he coincided exactly with the state from which he, the rest of the time, was alienated.

Perhaps an hour at most had transpired between his awakening of sorts and his emergence into the cool, rainy light of morning and yet he had already cycled through the extremes of alienation and grief several times. How, he thought, will I ever get through the day? Or even ride the amphibatrain? The prospect of bursting into tears in public appalled him, yet he doubted his ability to stop it. Even the welling, burning, reddening of the eyes, the slight gag in the throat were unstoppable. And if he tried to speak, or tell another human being what had happened? Words were impossible. Perhaps he could straighten everything out and take a week of bereavement leave. Such a policy existed. Deaths were treated with great solemnity at Intellatrawl. Even custodians had their losses publicly announced. And there were many such events in the lives of Intellatrawl associates.

The sight of her bike was like a bomb going off. Everything was; life was booby trapped with her things. Pubic hair in the drain. A brush. Clothes, books, even the last cup she had drunk from. He looked at the bike parked next to hers and wondered how to ride it. Awkwardly he mounted the seat and balanced uneasily. He rode away vowing to throw every thing that reminded him of her away. He would rent a dumpster and pay teenagers to dispose of it all, then hire a cleaning crew to scour the walls and floors.

At the bottom of the cul de sac he joined a small mob of commuters and raised the hood of his poncho as the thin, smoky drizzle thickened into rain. He wondered at the fact that none of them knew that he was marked. To them he was just another guy on a bike and yet he knew he had been disfigured. It was like being in love. You enter the crowd with a secret, knowing you’ve been transported to another realm while they, the crowd, are immersed in the usual chronologies. Their lives ticked on while his had been blown out of the world into a different metaphysic. Removed from the comforts of time he roamed wild mists pitted with nothingness and danger. Time is the mercy of eternity. Now like a painting his bike went backwards in the air. Now his song took an atonal turn, it wandered off key and into a different time signature, splats and honks of sound interrupted the smooth melodies. Bike wheels turned. Puddles broke like glass beneath the tires.

On the amphibatrain he became preoccupied with the order of things. Priorities obsessed him. First he would get in touch with his immediate supervisor, then the Human Resources Department. No. First he would go to his office and pretend nothing had happened. Nothing had changed. Felix Clay showed up for work. It was all a mistake. No, tell the truth. He was leaving, not because he wasn’t happy but because his wife had taken another job and had died, tragically! over the weekend. Yes, his wife was dead. No, he didn’t want to explain about it. The pity–the explanations. That was the worst. There was something both shameful and irritating about pity and curiosity and embarrassment. Death was embarrassing. Everyone embarrassed! Why was this so? Why were tears embarrassing? Didn’t people at one time shriek and wail and rend their garments? Hadn’t Hamlet and Laertes leapt into Ophelia’s grave? And Heathcliff? What of the Greeks? Their long revenges and keening pain, or old Heironymo, mad againe for his dead son. But we aren’t like that. We aren’t like that.

Everyone was staring at him. He had lost his transparency. He used to be the only pair of eyes on the amphibatrain. He weighed and pondered every visage that he saw, and had to turn his head to hide out in private thoughts and memories and cancel the dull, frightening panorama of human faces and bodies. Now he was the visible one, the object seen by a thousand probing brains whose eyes could monitor the chaotic phases of his soul while remaining themselves opaque. Passive faces, unrevealed, eyes and ears attuned to his secret vibration.

En masse they swarmed up the steps, his entire car emptied all at once. Now with the buzz of nonexistent machinery in his ears he moved with the others, getting smaller and smaller beneath the bulging, towering walls, the papery, pitted facade looming above them with the millions of little vents and windows like holes randomly drilled into interlocking spirals.

They entered the Intellatrawl doors, and he allowed instinct to carry him along, as it had carried him to the shower, the coffee and the bike, to the auditorium for the Monday morning address. It was all so normal. Maybe he wouldn’t take time off. Maybe normal was what he needed. This normality of routine gave him strength. He could hold back the tears. He knew how to walk, how to breathe, especially in the familiar, colorful hall. Suddenly he loved the flashing phrases:

EVERY DAY IS A BLESSING

GRATITUDE NOT GRAFT

they filled him with good feeling, comfortable, simple phrases; we are a homey people after all, our company is intact, there is safety in the team, the group is real, one is not alone.

They slowed and gelled at the doors and sorted themselves into a line. It seemed that he and Veronica had enjoyed but a moment of happiness in their lives. A moment. Why couldn’t it have been terrible to the end? Why not the whole thing bad? If only she had died on that terrible night, drowned or bled to death in the bathtub, then he would have no memory of their love. The beauty would be gone. He would not tremble as he did now, hearing her voice. It sang, it spoke, it shouted.

He approached the door swallowing hard. There was a wave on the horizon, he felt it looming, the pressure dropped, the air chilled, he held his breath and pitched all his strength against the black wave but was helpless beneath its weight. Up and down, it came. The wall. Higher and higher.

There was a disturbance. It wasn’t clear what kind of disturbance but it distracted him from his wave and yanked him from the dream. He smiled to join the others in looking about for the cause.

From either side two men approached the line in a great hurry. People on the line looked startled, indignant, and then afraid as the men roughly examined each one of them, moving quickly. They were from security, in green uniforms with red buttons on the shoulder and visored hats. Finally they reached Felix and grabbed him. One man nodded at the other. Their fingers were like iron. The people in his vicinity stared briefly and then looked at the floor as Felix was yanked away. Well, he thought, I guess I’ll have to explain earlier than I had hoped. They entered a dark little office and the men turned on a bright light that made them all blink. There was a desk and a computer and a plain steel chair.

“Sit down.”

He sat.

“Are you Felix Clay?”

“Yes. I can explain about the–”

“Shut up. Did you send this message?”

The screen displayed his letter of resignation. It seemed so rash and stupid, the actions of another man. What had gone wrong? What had happened to him and Veronica? They should be able to take all this back. There had to be a way to redo things. They made mistakes they didn’t understand. Tears surged into his eyes. His hands shot to his face and he pressed his sleeve to his eyes but then snot surged into his nose and he had to sniffle it up somehow.

“A weeper,” said one of the guards with disgust.

“Don’t think you can cry your way out of this,” said the other.

“Give him a tissue.”

The guard handed Felix a tissue and he blew his nose loudly. “You don’t understand,” he mumbled.

“Explain it to the boss.”

“The boss?” Felix asked.

A door on the other side of the room opened and Chairman Aung Thwin entered. He was so familiar and yet Felix realized he had never seen him in the flesh. He was smaller and but much more solid. His skin wasn’t so unnaturally white, nor were his lips so red or eyes so black. “Mr. Clay,” he said in a warm, deep voice. “You disappoint me greatly. Hasn’t Intellatrawl been a good employer? Did we not assist you when your wife, a prized associate, succumbed to the general malaise of the times? Did we not nurse your family through mental illness?”

“Y-y-yes sir. I meant no disrespect.”

“What did you intend?”

“My wife Veronica found a job out west–” his voice cracked and he fought back tears, “–we were going to move there, mostly for her health. She sold everything and I gave notice but now I regret these actions sir. They seem like the desperate acts of a madman to me now. You see, she’s dead.” Here he broke down completely, his head practically hit his knees and he said in a barely audible whisper, “I’m sorry to be like this–oh god! She’s dead sir, and it’s all my fault.” His guilt became both evident and crushing as the black wave broke down over him and he drowned in sobs. He hyperventilated and wiped his face. “She died in her sleep sir. They don’t know why. So it’s all a mistake. I never meant to leave Intellatrawl.”

“You just said she decided to seek employment elsewhere. You contradict yourself.”

“B-but it was a crazy plan. She was on drugs, a crazy drug sir, I was too.”

“Our drug policy is quite specific and inflexible.”

“It was prescribed, not illegal.”

“Your wife’s prescription, and yet you took it.”

“She begged me. I didn’t want to.”

“Loyalty and efficiency Mr. Clay are the two most important character traits of our associates. We can’t afford to keep associates around who lack judgment, who undermine moral. Moreover, while I accept your regret as genuine, and you have my sincere condolences, I don’t see how we can reinstate you. These men–”

“Oh, that can’t be all! I’ve been a good, no, an excellent associate. No one’s done–”

“These men,” he said louder, drowning out Felix’s protest, “will escort you to the door. Your severance pay of one month will be credited to your account. Any attempt to return to these premises will result in your arrest. Good day.”

Felix’s sense of unreality by turns grew deeper and shallower as the men escorted him to the amphibatrain. Soon he was wandering up Main Street, through the rain, lost in thoughts that were no thoughts. He had things to do but had no idea where to start. He stared at a sign of fat men dancing naked in Santa hats.

Eventually, of all the places he went to, Why was where he stopped. Why led him first to his bike and then home. Home was a weird place to be during the day, during the week. But it was as good a place as any to pursue why. He stared at the alien walls, smelled the strange air. He sat down on the couch and tried to read but could make no sense of the words, they hovered off the sheet of electraweave. Even the inanities of the news were too complex. Then he tried to sleep but the futon was cold and white, he couldn’t get comfortable. Still, sleep dragged him down. He couldn’t sob anymore, he didn’t care. There was only this sinking impulse, and why. Sleep would get rid of why. It pulled him to his feet and he followed it down the spiral stairs as if down a drain to the darker, warmer, comfortable hole that was their bedroom. The room was a mess, unwashed clothes on the floor, the bed sheet tangled in a ball, pillows crushed. On the floor were the paper wrappers left by the medical technicians when they had tried to revive her. He told them it was no use, but it was standard procedure. Her body thumped like a dummy beneath the electrical paddles.

Out of work. His lips were numb. He was hungry. He wanted to vomit. The bed looked so comfortable. Fully dressed he crawled in as if it were a womb. Death had a sweet smell. He gripped the pillows, jammed his face into them, and smelled her body. Felix she said. They were drinking tea together, with lemon. The channels changed. There were voices now in a jumble, bubbles of water racing to the surface. He swam down to the bottom of the river, where fish circle drowned buildings, laying spawn among the bright green grasses. Dad came into his room. The sun’s almost up. Sleepily he dressed and pulled his new boots on. The marina was a short walk away. Felix. And a fifth age passed over in dismal woe.

Nights came and went. He spent hours in concentrated thought, making plans. He had to retain the embryos. Despite the impracticalities this was his driving idea, that the only way to deal effectively with her death was to immediately give birth to one of the embryos, the female one, and name her Veronica and raise her himself, whatever sacrifice this involved.

He spent hours on the phone. The idiot at the cryovac company insisted that their embryos had been decoded and sold to a commercial stem cell company manufacturing generic organs and such. There was no way to identify, much less retrieve, them. The proceeds from the sale had been credited to their account, as per Mrs. Clay’s instructions.

Why? He knew, (and this knowledge came to him on the black wave), that it was Paregane that had killed her. He never wanted to see that drug again, never wanted to go to the garden, never wanted to think about it. They were fools, idiots to fall for it. Paradise was the oldest con in the book, and he was through with it. He, assuredly, was to blame but the doctors had a share in it. Dr. Tarlton, and that other one, the big blustery psychiatrist alias, had promised them a cure without side effects. They never once mentioned any danger. But hadn’t the emergency doctor said he’d seen dozens of cases?

The hospital called. They had performed the autopsy and cremated the remains. Remains. In the field it’s a cow and beef when you eat it. Corpse. Excrements: nails and hair. Did he want them to send her cremated remains to his home address or did he want to pick them up? It was a bit of a bike ride but he had nothing else to do and he determined to track down Intellatrawl Doctor Tarlton at the same time and demand an explanation.

He had not left the house since getting fired. He had not done the dishes. Mostly the thought of food was disgusting, but at odd hours he was ravenous and then he called various restaurants, ordering more than he could possibly eat, a dozen egg rolls, two pizzas, four cheese burgers, shakes and fries. By the time the delivery arrived he had lost his appetite and the cartons piled up in the fridge, on the counter and the table. He ate cold greasy food, vomited it up, drank. Drinking didn’t help any but he kept at it, hoping to succeed. A case of cheap bourbon arrived with two quarts of assorted curry. His tips were enormous. Money was nothing. One month of severance. He’d be dead in a month, eating rotten food. He adjusted the light sensors for perpetual evening. Now the soft orange and pink shadows of evening were always on the walls. He smelled her underwear once. They didn’t smell good at all! Or bad. Even flushing the toilet was a problem. If only everything could always be the same.

Now he had to go out and collect her remains. He looked in the mirror. It was still his face, with a week of growth, not really a beard. He showered and found some rumpled clothes that were passably clean. The world outside of his door had become a mystery to him. He was afraid to leave. Here, in the house, he could sit with Veronica and order food he wouldn’t eat and scream. Screaming didn’t feel any better than drinking, but he kept at that too.

The hospital had a deathly feel despite the warm lights and synthetic forest smell, Sylvan Moment or Evening on Old Lake. Enough Paregane remained in his system to render these effects meaningless at best, hostile manipulations at worst. The whole way over anger and indignation rose in his gorge till everything, her illness, her death, his loss of the only happiness he had ever known, the termination of his job, and the murder of their posterity were all Tarlton’s fault! The man had destroyed his life and he had some explaining to do.

As he walked down the main hall from the reception desk to Request Processing, he attempted to soothe himself, control his breathing which was trying to catch up to his pounding heart. These hospitals and their doctors were hateful. They ruined lives. For what? Money. They pretended to treat illnesses that they didn’t understand with drugs that didn’t work, selling hope where none existed. The fact that the patients were people eluded them.

They handed her to him in a wooden, coffin shaped box with a composite handle. He signed forms and bore her off, the autopsy report under his arm. Officially this was all that was left of her. The death certificate would arrive in two weeks. How many copies did he want? In the mean time he would have to contact insurance companies, the pension administrator. Appointments had to be canceled. Friends notified. All of these tasks were outlined in an interactive brochure the grievance counselor handed him over the glass brick divide, When A Loved One Passes. He wondered why he had to do anything. Wasn’t the fact that she was dead enough?

Perhaps he could hire a service. A responsible party. There had to be people to take care of things. He had more important stuff to do. There was her closet and the drawers. Then the files to go through.

He returned to the lobby, took a lateral and an elevator to the Intellatrawl wing where his first human encounter was with a an obstinate receptionist. She pitched the word appointment at him and he swung at it and missed. “Intellatrawl Dr. Tarlton is a busy man,” she said. This one he took for a ball. Tarlton was in his office, he knew that now.

“He’s in there,” Felix said. “Do I have to break the fucking door down?”

“Mr. Clay, that kind of threatening language will get you nowhere. I’ll have to call security.”

“Please,” Felix begged. “I’m sorry. I just. You have to understand. My wife is dead. I need to see the doctor, to tell him, to ask why. She was his patient. He took an interest.” A wave was approaching and he felt his guts tighten against its onslaught. His eyes reddened. He rattled the box, waved the autopsy report in the air. “This is all I have now. Please. I’m begging you, five minutes with the doctor and you’ll never see me again.” She wavered and somehow he was in.

Intellatrawl Dr. Tarlton looked up from his magazine with alarm and then, after a moment of scrutiny, smiled. “Mr. Clay. I didn’t know I had you today. Please sit down. How are you? How’s Veronica getting along?”

Felix’s eyes burned. He was choked up with hatred. This affable buffoon was the cause of all his misery. “She’s dead.”

Dr. Tarlton looked stunned. “My goodness, no. That’s just terrible. I’m so sorry. What happened? When?”

“Just this weekend. In her sleep.” He waved the autopsy report in front of his eyes. “This says of natural causes.” He shook the ashes back and forth. “This is all I have left of her. Why? You tell me why.”

He took the autopsy report and his face darkened. “I am so sorry.”

“You killed her.”

“Now look Mr. Clay, my business is saving lives, not ending them.

It’s natural to assume–”

“That drug you gave her, Paregane.”

“I see she was taking it. One of the early ones. I no longer prescribe that drug in most cases, though in hers it would still be indicated.”

“Why don’t you prescribe it anymore?”

“There have been some unexplained deaths associated with it. There are risk factors we didn’t know at the time. Word is there are better alternatives.”

“And yet–”

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I’m not really at liberty to discuss this. Things happen. A new drug often represents such hope to people as ill as Veronica was, we take a chance.”

“Take a chance? You never ever said there was any risk.”

He straightened in his chair. “I’m sure Dr. Eulenfeld explained that there was a better than 90% chance of a successful suicide, hardly an optimistic prognosis. The assumption in such cases is that the medicine poses less of a statistical risk than the illness itself. It’s just common sense.”

“Someone has to pay for this. I’ve lost my job, our lives are ruined, my wife is dead because you doctors made her so sick and crazy and then finished her off–”

“I’m sorry!” he shouted. “Do you think I feel good when patients die? That I don’t care? That I became a doctor to behave with craven indifference to the people who trust me with their lives? I do the best I can, just as I’m sure you do in your job. Now please try to get a grip on yourself and listen to me.” His voice dropped and he became professional and soothing. “Paregane is a problem, I won’t deny it. We didn’t know. We were as misled as you were. In the past few months word has gotten around and now we don’t use it, do you understand? Except, and I emphasize this, except in cases much like Veronica’s. Now, if you really want to get to the bottom of this I suggest you see a lawyer and sue the manufacturer. It won’t be easy. Paregane has a life of its own and, frankly, doctors have no power over which drugs are approved and how they’re marketed. Companies like Monozone can squash people like bugs. Understand now? They have a council seat. I know a guy. He has offices in the city and one here in town. He’s very good; he’s had some success in wrongful death lawsuits. I’ll call and get you an appointment. You go see him. But I’m telling you, I won’t testify, I won’t admit any wrong, I won’t even admit that this meeting took place. And again, I’m sorry. Veronica was a wonderful woman, and you’re a good man Felix. You did nothing to deserve this.”

Felix stormed away from the hospital in a fit of rage. Now its object was a company, a company powerful enough to sit on state council. At home he bustled about, tight-lipped, competent. He had started to speak aloud to Veronica, as if she were in the other room. “I’ll get all this shit cleaned up soon. First I have to make an appointment to see that lawyer Tarlton talked about. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

He had an appointment in two days. He spent the time searching through the garage and her other things. Every time he began to go through a box he did so with great energy, but the energy died almost as quickly as it was born and all he succeeded in doing was making a greater mess. Every effort to consolidate, dispose, make new, only resulted in things becoming dispersed, retained and mulled over. He savoured each of her earrings and bracelets, her rings and hair ties. These, once removed from the various sandalwood and lacquer boxes that contained them, remained on whatever surface he had laid them. The contents of her life each day spread farther and farther from their home. Peach, apricot and lemon scarves. Underwear and bras. Pants, shorts, skirts and dresses. Even each of her files was stacked open on the screen in so many layers and tiles that they were like a mosaic. Finally the day of the appointment came and again he had to shave and dress. Clutching Veronica (he couldn’t leave the box of ashes at home for fear of their being stolen) and the reports he rode his bike to Main Street and found the offices of Max Mbeke, Esq. on the fifth floor of a glass box. It commanded a view of the meandering hills and inlets of the Hudson. Mist filled the valleys and rain fell in grey scrims.

Mbeke was a handsome man of about 40 with a round face like a chestnut and tightly curled gold wires all over his head. In each ear was a fashionable red diode. His suit was of hand-stitched linen and silk with wide lapels, loose in the shoulders and tight in the waist. He came around his desk to shake Felix’s hand.

“Mr. Clay. How may I help you?” He sat Felix down and returned to lean back in his chair, sizing Felix up with the still eyes of a preying mantis.

Felix explained, a little incoherently, wandering both out of nervousness and fatigue, all that had occurred, starting with her first illness. As he went on Mbeke’s expression became concerned; he nodded and shook his head and made small interjections of oh my and just awful. When Felix broke down he smiled and handed him a box of tissues. He sighed and allowed Felix time to collect his thoughts, looking at the peaceful and beautiful view of the river valley. When he got to the Paregane part Mbeke’s entire attention was engaged. He leaned forward out of the chair onto his elbows on the desk. He started to scribble down notes. He became so agitated he stood and paced.

“I think you’ve got a bang up case here Mr. Clay. You realize I’ll keep 35% of the pay out? If it goes to trial we’re looking at years of litigation but I imagine, given the climate, Monozone will want to shut you up fast. I would look for a settlement in the multimillion- dollar range with a gag order and no admission of wrongdoing. How are you fixed for cash, short term? You say you lost your job?”

“Yes, but I’m o.k. for two months or so.”

“Give me some time to poke around.”

This was great news! Felix bounced out of the office and onto his bike. He raced home feeling ebullient. There would be justice. Then, he reflected, there wouldn’t actually be justice, there’d be hush money. No blame would be admitted or assigned. There’d be no statistic for her other than death by natural causes. This was nothing. Well, not quite nothing. Millions of dollars were an admission of sorts. It would have to do.

As he approached the house he felt the strength and joy slowly die out of him. The house was an oppressive negativity. The idea of it drained the energy from his muscles and bones. Yet it was his nest, his last refuge. He had to do something about it. It wouldn’t do to just keep going through everything. He had to stop talking to her. He had to pack the stuff up, not look at it all. He had to start throwing stuff away. Maybe he had no wife and no job but he had a home. It was time to make it his home by purging it of her memory and then slowly readmitting whatever mementos he could stand. But once inside he was again overwhelmed and a sixth age passed over in dismal woe.

It might have been afternoon. He spooned some cold, congealed coconut curry into a bowl over hard rice and ate half, stacking the remains carefully on top of the tower of greasy dirty bowls and plates rising out of the small sink. Then he made a cup of tea and lay down on the couch to sleep. Lately he had come to prefer the couch, at least for daytime sleeping. It was less intimate than the bedroom and bathroom. Those rooms were deeply stained with their lives, their auras. They had marked every surface with their exhalations, excretions and secretions, their sloughed skin and hair. Their moans and tears and laughter pervaded every fabric and coated all the surfaces. The ghosts of all their great dramas continued to strut and proclaim and act out the past. The first time he had kissed her was a day much like this one, late in the fall, on the quad at Columbia. He was so unsure of her. They spent all their free time together, huddled in his or her room to the annoyance of their housemates, listening to music and reading. There were other guys following her around and she could flirt. Surely none of the others had the same rapport, the same feeling of completeness in her presence. It had to be between them, not just an irrelevant longing. But he didn’t know and he was afraid to kiss her without knowing. A mistake would be so costly. She was heading off to Connecticut to spend the winter break with a high school friend, someone she claimed not to even like anymore. They had made the plans long before though. The sky was coarse and grey and a strong wind blew in off the river, smelling of heavy storms. She was in a short black coat. They had run out of things to say but neither would walk away from the other. He was steeling himself to kiss her but reluctance overcame him and now it seemed it would never happen. He gazed at her face, into her eyes, like crystals illuminated in a cave, jeweled craters calling him. Well, goodbye then, she said. He nodded and turned to go and she said, Wait. Come here. He didn’t wait, he didn’t turn, he didn’t walk away, he didn’t even have to come to her because they were suddenly together, both moving in the same direction. Their lips touched and opened and his tongue melted into hers.

He lay down on the cold hard couch and drifted off into a chaotic, tortured half-sleep, which was interrupted far too soon (though it was hours later) by a loud, repetitive pounding on the door. “Go away!”

he shouted. “Go away!” The pounding continued. He buried his head and kicked his feet, hoping to black out the sound. Finally he realized there was no way he could do so and got up to look at the monitor. A workman in a T-shirt and overalls with goggles was at the door. He was shouting something into the audio. Felix engaged the full security routine and hid out in the kitchen. Eventually the man would leave. But to his surprise not only didn’t the man leave, he apparently overrode the security routine and was clomping down the stairs. Felix looked about for some means of defense and found the chef’s knife Veronica had used to cut her wrists.

The man stepped into the living room and scowled. “Is anyone here? Hello? Mr. Clay? Oh.” He smiled and then, seeing the knife, pulled out a gun and pointed it at Felix’s face. “Mr. Clay, put down the knife. Listen to what I have to say. Here’s my identification. I’m a deputized associate of the Arlington Housing Group. This is an official notice of eviction. You have twenty minutes to collect your things and vacate the premises. You have the right to appeal this decision and any items found on the premises will be retained by the Arlington Housing Group for sixty days pending the outcome of the appeal, but you must vacate these premises or face arrest and conviction, as per section 23 of the standard housing contract signed by you and your spouse on August 4, 2169.” He stared at Felix, his finger twitching on the trigger. “It ain’t worth it Mr. Clay.”

“Eviction? But I haven’t done anything.”

“Weren’t you fired from your job?”

“Well, what happened is, I gave notice, and I tried to get the job back, you see–” he put the knife down on the counter and sat at one of the two kitchen chairs. The man, not taking his eyes off of Felix, retrieved the knife and holstered the gun. “But they fired me.”

“We don’t allow unemployed tenants.” “But I have money, and I’ll find another job, really. It was all a mistake. My wife died you see, quite unexpectedly and–”

“That’s none of my business. This order says to evict you now.”

“Where am I to go?”

“You say you have money. Go to a hotel in the city. Stay with friends.”

“I’ve got no relatives or friends,” he said, more to himself.

“Look, you’re wasting time Mr. Clay. Lots of people lose their homes. You’ll find another, if you really have money. Now, by my clock you have fifteen minutes to pack up what you need.”

Felix ran downstairs. The room swam in his eyes but there was just no time. He would have to figure out later on what to keep. He went into the bathroom and scooped everything he saw on the white marble sink surround into his leather travel bag, toothpaste squeezed in the middle and hastily capped, a toothbrush, a razor and a bar of pure, coconut oil soap and the bottle of Paregane. From the tub he took the loofah.

The bedroom looked like another man had lived in it. He could smell a madman on the air, a ranter, a man who talks to himself, quietly at first, and then in accelerating outbursts of invective, directed now at a god he had never believed in, now at himself. The piles of clothes were thrown about and the blanket on the bed looked as if he had tried to wring it out like a dishtowel.

He found a small black duffel bag and started to pack: a few sheets of electraweave he plucked up from a thicket of towels and underclothes, then On the Road and a one volume collected Shakespeare. He dressed in his work clothes, an artichoke colored suit, so all he really needed was a dozen boxer shorts and sox, a pair of pants and two t-shirts. He looked at the barbells and all the books they had collected. Her clothes, lying where he had scattered them, in pools of silk on the floor, in the closet with her shoes. He wanted to take something of hers, something to touch. Each night he had slept with something different in his hands. Her satin sparkle shorts, her bra. No, he thought. There was no time. He packed the travel bag of toiletries, the hospital papers, and the wooden casket containing Veronica’s ashes. He looked around, at the autumnal, fading light on the wall. The things, he thought. What will become of the things?

Without protest, but feeling a mute horror that was quickly overwhelmed by that sense of hopelessness which arrives when nothing one does matters, he went out and left his home in the hands of the evictor. As he wobbled off on the bike he watched the crew start to empty his home into a small truck. They were preparing it for the next tenant.

By the time Felix floated into Les Jardeen it was dinnertime and the glass was fogged up with good cheer. The tables were set and lit by small candles in globes of glass. Early diners, mostly ancient, buttered rolls and sipped wine or cocktails. The line cook slid single serving roasting pans of oysters, topped with bacon and breadcrumbs, under broilers. Waiters memorized specials, ladled soup into bowls and brought salads to the tables. Amphibatrains entered and left the station in rapid, rush hour intervals, disgorging hungry and delirious Monday night commuters. Outside it was dark, but the day had darkened with cloud before the sun had set and no one noticed the change.

There was a time when he routinely walked into Les Jardeen at this hour to take his place at the bar. There was nothing strange about it. Nevertheless, he viewed the restaurant with unease. He wasn’t hungry, but there was just nowhere else to go, he concluded, after mindlessly wandering the streets, paralyzed by indecision, for nearly an hour. His dilemma, both in its totality and its constituent parts, was nothing he could, or even wanted, to explain. If he could have he would have vanished, though vanishing involved a change of state and Felix, at this point, was totally inert.

He set his bag down and sat on his usual stool, back to the door. The action was warm with familiarity. Upon crossing the threshold he knew he had done the right thing. Even the odor of roasted potatoes and meat, of buttery sautéed vegetables and New England clam chowder, salty potato cubes in cream, were agreeable. After his weeks of cold, dead food the anticipation of sitting down at a table near the fireplace, perusing the menu over a glass of Beaujolais, made little pangs of hunger break out across his stomach like a steel drum, each strike yielding a different note, a different desire. Yet all this desire lacked will. He had no ability to act; there was nobody in charge. Felix Clay was a mote in time.

Peter Nguyen wiped down the bar, polished glasses, cut limes into eighths and tidied up, preparing for a dismal Monday night. He was preoccupied with thoughts of his boyfriend and their roommate. He and his boyfriend had not been connecting of late. They still slept together but only when Peter initiated and it had not the usual abandon. The boyfriend was using a lot of drugs as well, and obsessively watched pornography. The roommate was a whole other problem; she was in love with Peter even though they had broken off over a year ago. And despite this break he could not shake an attachment to her. They were in fact a family. It was intractable and perverse. He would not have her nor would he let her go and she was spinning out into an awful sexless depression. Then he had a big audition the next day. It was a job he desperately wanted and needed. Since moving to the city he had worked little and almost never for pay. This was a paying gig, for Milt Spahn. Each of these problems played out in his mind as he prepped the bar. Each led to its own dead end. Felix did nothing to interrupt him. But, when he was done and everything was in its place he took a deep breath, turned around and said, a little more warmly than usual, and with considerable evident surprise, “Well good evening, Mr. Clay. It’s been a while. I was thinking you’d left for Alaska without saying goodbye.”

Felix, upon being greeted, immediately fell into a turmoil of speculation as to how much of his ordeal he would narrate, and when. He didn’t really decide but rather commenced to behave as best he could, as if nothing had happened. A light sweat broke out on his forehead as he spoke.

“I’ll have a gulag martini please, Peter.”

Peter mixed it up with the usual brio and gave him his drink with a dish of bread. “It’s still warm. We have bean spread, garbanzo I think. Would you like some?”

Felix chewed the soft, yeasty bread. “A dish of olive oil maybe, and some olives. Picholines and those big green ones, cracked with garlic.” He looked at the newspaper. The headline read:

IT’S WAR

The Carpathians had erupted into open warfare from one end to the other. Troops were deploying to Turkey. The department of defense was consulting with the allies. The usual crap. He dipped the bread into the green olive oil and watched apprehensively the other regulars filter in. The sports guy sipped at his colorful drink and said, “9 times out of 10 he takes the pitch. The guy’s a loser.”

Felix was becoming rapidly drunk. He stared at the middle distance where a haze of color hung. Then at Peter talking through a pained smile, pulling wine corks and opening beers which the waitresses picked up on their lacquer trays with a decoupage of old bistro images. The tall beautiful one was working. But they were all that way. Tall enough to give you a straight shot at their crotch when seated. Growth hormones. Height genes. She had broad shoulders, mighty hips, a narrow waist and her slit silver skirt opened and closed like scissors on her brown thighs and calves, her buttocks like a dented bowl.

The man rapidly inhaled his cigarette and coughed up statistics. “One thing for the luge is toughness. I’d crossbreed Innuit and

Sherpa. A guy in Pyongyang is working on it now. They stand to rake in millions at the next olympics if they can displace Nepal for the luge.”

Peter nodded mechanically and drifted towards Felix. The news reports pressed on Felix’s eyes like unknown objects. Peter entered his line of vision and grew larger. He said, “I read that The Pine Ridge Group is building 12 new cities in Montana, Utah and Nevada.”

Felix nodded as if his head were on a spring. He took a sip of his drink and felt his eyes get watery. “Do you think–” his voice cracked “–it would be all right if I ate at the bar?”

Peter looked at him with a sort of half smile and wrinkling of the brow, highly enigmatic, almost deadpan humor. “Of course you can.” He handed Felix a menu. “The rabbit’s good tonight, and they’re trying an Olde Vienna thing. There’s wiener schnitzel with spaetzle and sour cabbage and a roast goose breast with juniper and an apple, onion and sage dressing. They both come with cucumber salad. They smell o.k.”

Felix grumbled at the menu. His upper lip was sweaty. He felt like he was huffing, instead of breathing. The air kind of sawed away at his lungs, going in and out laboriously.

“Is everything all right?” Peter asked.

Felix licked the sweat off of his upper lip and swallowed. “No, not really. But I’m afraid,” he swallowed hard and tossed down the milky martini. “Another, please? This time make it with vermouth and olives. I’m sick of these razor’s edge drinks.”

“Sure.” When he set the drink down he didn’t move away. “That guy is driving me nuts,” he whispered. “Do I look like someone who even remotely cares about the luge?”

“No,” Felix said. “Boring losers. Sometimes it seems the world is full of ‘em.”

“Sometimes? Get on this side of the stick and that’s all there is. Boring assholes.”

“How long have you worked here?”

“I don’t know. Three years maybe.”

Felix nodded. “I don’t even remember who was here before. I’m sure I was a regular then.”

“I don’t think you even came in when I started.”

Felix tried to think. “Well, it started when things went bad with Veronica.” Not mentioning Veronica till now was unusual. If he was trying to be normal, he should be talking about normal things, like Veronica. But what was there to say?

“Are you going away or something?” Peter asked.

“No. Do I look like I am?”

“The bag.”

“Oh, well, the bag–”

“Did something happen? You seem,” he paused. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business. But I thought, given how you were the last time you were in, that everything was going well. You look different.”

“Can I have the meat loaf with celery root puree and wild mushroom gravy? A dinner salad, champagne vinaigrette. A glass of Burgundy.”

“Sure.”

“I hate to dump it all out, Peter,” he said, observing himself slide into it, wondering in dumb show why he had ever opened his mouth to speak. “It’s kind of unbelievable. I have nowhere to go. I don’t know what to do.”

“Go back to her if you can,” he said, putting the finishing touches to the order. He dinged a bell and the waitress in the silver skirt came. Peter handed her the order and she frowned at Felix.

“Hi,” she said. “Why don’t I get you tonight?”

“Sorry,” he said, smiling. After she walked away he said to Peter, “Why do they pretend to like us?”

“What, men?”

“No, customers.”

“She’s not pretending with you Mr. Clay.”

“Why do you call me Mr. Clay?”

“Because that’s your name.”

“My name is Felix.”

“O.K. Felix. Her name is Allisoun. She likes you. You’re her regular, one of the ones she looks forward to. You order off the menu, don’t ask for special favors, you’re patient when it’s busy, quiet when it’s slow, you tip well, you have a nice, warm smile, you don’t seem like you’re full of shit and you don’t obviously undress her with your eyes.”

“Oh.”

“So why don’t you have anywhere to go? Did you fight?”

“No, I got evicted. Came home, took a nap, woke up to some deputized janitor with a crew and a dumpster truck.”

“Evicted.” Peter shook his head. “Why?”

“Well, you know how I gave notice? I tried to get my job back and they fired me, and then they notified Arlington. I can appeal of course but everything’s been impounded.”

“That’s terrible. Why’d you try to get your job back? What happened to Alaska?”

Felix covered his face and took a deep breath. “I’m not going to Alaska. I’m not doing anything anymore.” He finished the martini and burped quietly. “Pardon me. Veronica’s dead Peter, she’s gone.”

“Dead?” He gasped and looked around suddenly, like he wanted to escape. He touched Felix on the shoulder. “Mr. Clay, Felix, I’m so sorry.”

“I loved her so much.” “I know you did.” “It didn’t seem like I hated her? All the complaining, over the years? The hours of tedious analysis, the constant picking apart–”

“No, no,” he said in a soothing voice. “That’s just what people in love do. You had real problems. You were trying to solve them. Dead. Oh, dead. That’s just awful.” His eyes reddened. Felix turned away and looked at the back of the yellow monkey in the window.

The bell dinged.

“It doesn’t seem real. Nothing does.”

Peter brought Felix his food and left him alone to pick at it. It all tasted good enough, but the sight of it made him want to vomit. When he looked at the meat loaf all he saw was three rectangular portions of granular grey meat fanned out on a puddle of brown gravy, lying like a plain beneath two mountains, one of mashed potatoes, with gravy running like a mudslide into the other, peas and carrots drenched in butter. His nose filled with mucus. Out of a sense of duty he poked at the meat loaf with his fork and brought a chunk to his lips where, despite a gag response, he admitted the foreign meat into his mouth and chewed. It really wasn’t bad. The grains of fatty meat squished between his teeth and diffused across his tongue. Pleasure centers in his brain felt pleased. He was so hungry his mouth digested the food before it could hit his stomach. The restaurant reached a slow bustle. Old people in moth-eaten, conservative suits came in and stood until the host led them away to tables. Couples even older than them left. The Intellatrawl women, Nadine (the redhead), and the one he didn’t know, came in. He avoided their eyes. Then a burly woman in her sixties, maybe seventies, with a mole on her cheek and attached ears, sat two stools away, drinking a frosty schooner of ale. She had a deep, soulful laugh. Peter greeted her as a friend. They discussed the theater.

“Sort of a Brecht thing,” she was saying. “A carnival on stage, with text. They could never do it with aliases. It has to be seen live.”

“Maybe we’ll come next week, on my day off.”

“You should try to work with this guy. Moises and Promethea too. He’s good.”

Peter nodded. “I have an audition for Life on the Mississippi.”

She vented exhaust and lit up a cigarette. “Milt Spahn dinner theater. Tackier than Broadway Inc., with its All Shakespeare! schedule. Nothing but. What’s so great about that? You’ve got to mix it up. In the city right now new shows play seven nights a week. Look at Edsel. He manages to do both. You just have to know where to look.” Laughter rumbled up her throat and came out her mouth. “Of course, everyone’s got their head up their ass. It’s called the lotus position. Strictly for Paregane eaters.” Another laugh rolled out of her. “I got a rich girlfriend. Father owns a couple of hovercraft dealerships and some high ground in western PA. Harvard degree in communications, Ph.D. in something or other. You know the type. So what does she do? She goes to Algeria, on a camping trip to the Atlas Mountains. She meets a local schoolteacher there and marries him. Now she lives as a traditional Berber wife, burkah, head to foot, in a village of 300. I went to the wedding. Haven’t heard from her since.”

Felix had started listening at the mention of Paregane. “Paregane kills,” he said softly.

The woman turned towards him. She had a big round face, a double chin and brown eyes, and bleached synthetic hair cut into bangs with a shoulder flip. Her smile was warm, like pancakes with butter and syrup. “What’s that son?”

“Paregane kills.” He chewed some meatloaf rapidly and swallowed it down with red wine.

“Sure it does,” she said quivering with laughter. “What doesn’t?

But I don’t wanna be lied to along the way. Paradise. The Garden. Please. I’d rather die in a crowd, than grabbing this,” she said, jerking her fist up and down.

“I’ve been there,” Felix said.

“Don’t get started,” she said. “I shoulda figured you for one a mile away. Anyone who looks so damn good must be in the garden. I ain’t interested. Now tell me, have you seen anything good lately?” When Felix said nothing she continued. “I’ll tell you what. Come see me sing sometime. I’m at the cafe in the Met for the next few months. Know where that is? 83rd and Fifth. Can’t miss it. I’m there Thursday thru Sunday.”

“I’ve been to the garden. It’s real. It’s not this,” he said, jerking his fist as she did. “But they don’t want us there. The angels kill the people. Seduce us away. Or eat us. In paradise, when a lion eats you, it’s an angel in a wrathful form.” The woman turned away. “Did you ever try it?”

Without turning around she said, “I don’t take drugs, buddy. And I ain’t big on religion either. Peter, another beer and one more of what John the Baptist over here is having.” She turned back towards Felix. “I hope booze don’t make you any more voluble. Cheers.”

Felix pushed away his plate, smeared and half eaten, and slid the empty glass forward. “Gulag, vermouth and olives.”

“Blach! Gulag vodka. That stuff’ll kill you a lot faster than the angels.”

Peter gave him the drink and said, quietly, “Is that how Veronica died? Paregane?”

“I guess,” Felix said, looking down out of the light. “Officially there’s no cause of death. It’s natural causes.”

“Then how do you know it was Paregane?”

“I just know is all. And there’ve been indications. Hints from the doctors and the ambulance people.” Felix wobbled in his chair.

The woman said, “That stuff’s dangerous, no doubt about it. I know someone lost half his cast over the course of four weeks. It was The Ozone Conclusions. You can see what was at stake. I always thought they bugged out west, but who knows now. Maybe they just died.”

In a monotone Felix said, “I’m going to sue the bastards.”

The woman asked, “Who died anyway?”

“My wife.”

“When?”

“A while ago.” He drank some more. The place became vague, colors slightly askew, as if the appearance of things was shifting, surface coming unglued from the trellis beneath. Constituent parts came free of the matrix and recombined uselessly. He drifted towards his hands and snapped up abruptly.

“I’ve got to go,” he said, picking up his bag and weaving out the door. His name echoed after him, in Peter’s voice, but he couldn’t stop for it, the summons of the air was too great. He stumbled out the door and drank it in. There were choices now. A few bars along the strip enticed his eyes. Banging red signs with fishnet stockinged legs crossed at the ankle, red toenails flashing in sapphire pumps. The rear half of a kicking donkey and notes floating off a guitar the color of goldenrod at dusk. Behind those flashing, vibrant signs were dark, composite booths and crowds of howling drunks. There, he could be nobody without challenge, succumb to the mood and go out kicking like the donkey, ass first. Once he’d seen a python get hold of a rat the wrong way. He watched the little pink eyes pop going down. The thing was dead, but there was something shameful about dying that way. Everyone but the snake and the rat knew it.

The other way was true dark, away from lights and noise, from people, down the road to the amphibatrain. No one was about. Everyone had arrived or left. The ground was wet, streaked with blue lines from the lamps on either side of the road. There were benches on the platform. He thought maybe he’d sit on one of those, but he was very tired. Even the ripe, amber glow of the station lights was too intense. There was a stand of bamboo before the platform. He crashed against the thick, round trunks and water fell like rain off of the leaves. Again he bounced against them and fell down on the ground, the bag still in his hand. He watched himself lose consciousness, then let go and gave up watching.

Some time later, he was being poked awake and he heard a voice. At first he took hold of his suit lapel and drew it against his face like a blanket. The ground where he lay was warm, like a nest. It wasn’t even terribly hard. He and the place had reached an accommodation. It was awful to be stirred. But the voice insisted. He awoke slightly and looked at his interlocutor. It was Peter and the waitress, no longer dressed in silver. “What,” he mumbled.

“Mr. Clay. Felix. Are you o.k.?” Peter asked. The waitress stood back, erect, while Peter loomed in on him.

Felix didn’t know what to say. He sat up, aching, bruised on his side and arm. “What?” he asked again.

“Felix, it’s Peter. Can you stand up? Let me help you.”

Felix stared at him. Moment by moment he knew and didn’t know who he was. But he gave him his arm. Peter pulled him up, and all three smiled. “I’m all right,” Felix said. “I was waiting for the amphibatrain.”

“Well that’s just where we’re going,” Peter said. “Look Felix, where are you headed?”

They each took hold of one arm and took him the rest of the way down the dark road, and into the composite shelter on the platform. He dragged the bag along between them, mostly keeping his balance despite the struggle of thought going on in his head. Evidently the autonomic nervous system was in better snuff than the volitional.

Finally he said, “I’m going home.”

“I thought you lost your home.”

“Is not the earth my home? I’m a man.”

Peter smiled and set Felix down on the bench. He and Allisoun stood, smoking furiously and pacing back and forth.

“I can’t bring a man in the house,” she said. “Brenda and Chloe would kill me.”

“Well, Allisoun, the way things are going with Moises.” His face became resigned. It aged him. They both looked at Felix. “I mean,

how long before–”

“I know.”

“But we can’t just leave him, he’s Mr. Clay. He’s hurting. I’ll bring him home.”

“Someone has to, but it shouldn’t have to be you. Can’t we like, call his parents or something?” Allisoun asked, scrutinizing him doubtfully, saluting to shield her eyes from the amber platform lights.

“I’ll ask. Felix? Can we call someone for you? Like, do you even have parents?”

Felix shook his head, his face a mask of incomprehension. “No one. Nothing to say.”

Peter rubbed his forehead, pushing back his soft black hair, stretching out his neck, his thin lips pursed. He moaned quietly and said, “O.K. Felix. You’re coming home with me.”

Felix laughed and looked at the waitress. “I she coming with us?”

“No,” Allisoun said. “I live with two women.”

“Oh shit. I used to live with one woman. Before that, it was one woman or one man.”