"Do it for a real purpose, not just to avoid facing unfortunate verities. Do it because you love your husband and you want him back. You want everything to be as it was before."
"Yes," she agreed. "But now I"ve met you."
"Meaning what?" He proceeded cautiously; her response puzzled him.
Kathy said, "You"re more magnetic than Jack. He"s magnetic, but you"re so much, much more. Maybe after meeting you I couldn"t really love him again. Or do you think a person can love two people equally, but in different ways? My therapy group says no, that I have to choose. They say that"s one of the basic aspects of life. See, this has come up before; I"ve met several men more magnetic than Jack . . . but none of them as magnetic as you. Now I really don"t know what to do. It"s very difficult to decide such things because there"s no one you can talk to: no one understands. You have to go through it alone, and sometimes you choose wrong. Like, what if I choose you over Jack and then he comes back and I don"t give a s.h.i.t about him; what then? How is he going to feel? That"s important, but it"s also important how I feel. If I like you or someone like you better than him, then I have to act it out, as our therapy group puts it. Did you know I was in a psychiatric hospital for eight weeks? Morningside Mental Hygiene Relations in Atherton. My folks paid for it. It cost a fortune because for some reason we weren"t eligible for community or federal aid. Anyhow, I learned a lot about myself and I made a whole lot of friends, there. Most of the people I truly know I met at Morningside. Of course, when I originally met them back then I had the delusion that they were famous people like Mickey Quinn and Arlene Howe. You know--celebrities. Like you."
He said, "I know both Quinn and Howe, and you haven"t missed anything."
Scrutinizing him, she said, "Maybe you"re not a celebrity; maybe I"ve reverted back to my delusional period. They said I probably would, sometime. Sooner or later. Maybe it"s later now."
"That," he pointed out, "would make me a hallucination of yours. Try harder; I don"t feel completely real."
She laughed. But her mood remained somber. "Wouldn"t that be strange if I made you up, like you just said? That if I fully recovered you"d disappear?"
"I wouldn"t disappear. But I"d cease to be a celebrity."
"You already have." She raised her head, confronted him steadily. "Maybe that"s it. Why you"re a celebrity that no one"s ever heard of. I made you up, you"re a product of my delusional mind, and now I"m becoming sane again."
"A solipsistic view of the universe--"
"Don"t do that. You know I haven"t any idea what words like that mean. What kind of person do you think I am? I"m not famous and powerful like you; I"m just a person doing a terrible, awful job that puts people in prison, because I love Jack more than all the rest of humanity. Listen." Her tone became firm and crisp. "The only thing that got me back to sanity was that I loved Jack more than Mickey Quinn. See, I thought this boy named David was really Mickey Quinn, and it was a big secret that Mickey Quinn had lost his mind and he had gone to this mental hospital to get himself back in shape, and no one was supposed to know about it because it would ruin his image. So he pretended his name was David. But I knew. Or rather, I thought I knew. And Dr. Scott said I had to chose between Jack and David, or Jack and Mickey Quinn, which I thought it was. And I chose Jack. So I came out of it. Maybe"--she wavered, her chin trembling--"maybe now you can see why I have to believe Jack is more important than anything or anybody, or a lot of anybodys, else. See?"
He saw. He nodded.
"Even men like you," Kathy said, "who"re more magnetic than him, even you can"t take me away from Jack."
"I don"t want to." It seemed a good idea to make that point.
"Yes--you do. On some level you do. It"s a compet.i.tion." Jason said, "To me you"re just one small girl in one small room in one small building. For me the whole world is mine, and everybody in it."
"Not if you"re in a forced-labor camp."
He had to nod in agreement to that, too. Kathy had an annoying habit of spiking the guns of rhetoric.
"You understand a little now," she said, "don"t you? About me and Jack, and why I can go to bed with you without wronging Jack? I went to bed with David when we were at Morningside, but Jack understood; he knew I had to do it. Would you have understood?"
"If you were psychotic--"
"No, not because of that. Because it was my destiny to go to bed with Mickey Quinn. It had to be done; I was fulfilling my cosmic role. Do you see?"
"Okay," he said, gently.
"I think I"m drunk." Kathy examined her screwdriver. "You"re right; it"s too early to drink one of these." She set the half-empty gla.s.s down. "Jack saw. Or anyhow he said he saw. Would he lie? So as not to lose me? Because if I had had to chose between him and Mickey Quinn"--she paused--"but I chose Jack. I always would. But still I had to go to bed with David. With Mickey Quinn, I mean."
I have gotten myself mixed up with a complicated, peculiar, malfunctioning creature, Jason Taverner said to himself. As bad as--worse than--Heather Hart. As bad as I"ve yet encountered in forty-two years. But how do I get away from her without Mr. McNulty hearing all about it? Christ, he thought dismally. Maybe I don"t. Maybe she plays with me until she"s bored, and then she calls in the pols. And that"s it for me.
"Wouldn"t you think," he said aloud, "that in four decades plus, I could have learned the answer to this?"
"To me?" she said. Acutely.
He nodded.
"You think after you go to bed with me I"ll turn you in."
At this point he had not boiled it down to precisely that. But the general idea was there. So, carefully, he said, "I think you"ve learned in your artless, innocent, nineteen-yearold way, to use people. Which I think is very bad. And once you begin you can"t stop. You don"t even know you"re doing its"
"I would never turn you in. I love you."
"You"ve known me perhaps five hours. Not even that."
"But I can always tell." Her tone, her expression, both were firm. And deeply solemn.
"You"re not even sure who I am!"
Kathy said, "I"m never sure who anybody is."
That, evidently, had to be granted. He tried, therefore, another tack. "Look. You"re an odd combination of the innocent romantic, and a"--he paused; the word "treacherous" had come to mind, but he discarded it swiftly--"and a calculating, subtle manipulator." You are, he thought, a prost.i.tute of the mind. And it"s your mind that is prost.i.tuting itself, before and beyond anyone else"s. Although you yourself would never recognize it. And, if you did, you"d say you were forced into it. Yes; forced into it, but by whom? By Jack? By David? By yourself, he thought. By wanting two men at the same time--and getting to have both.
Poor Jack, he thought. You poor G.o.dd.a.m.n b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Shoveling s.h.i.t at the forced-labor camp in Alaska, waiting for this elaborately convoluted waif to save you. Don"t hold your breath.
That evening, without conviction, he had dinner with Kathy at an Italian-type restaurant a block from her room. She seemed to know the owner and the waiters, in some dim fashion; anyhow, they greeted her and she responded absentmindedly, as if only half hearing them. Or, he thought, only half aware of where she was.
Little girl, he thought, where is the rest of your mind?
"The lasagna is very good," Kathy said, without looking at the menu; she seemed a great distance away now. Receding further and further. With each pa.s.sing moment. He sensed an approaching crisis. But he did not know her well enough; he had no idea what form it would take. And he did not like that.
"When you blep away," he said abruptly, trying to catch her off guard, "how do you do it?"
"Oh," she said tonelessly. "I throw myself down on the floor and scream. Or else I kick. Anyone who tries to stop me. Who interferes with my freedom."
"Do you feel like doing that now?"
She glanced up. "Yes." Her face, he saw, had become a mask, both twisted and agonized. But her eyes remained totally dry. This time no tears would be involved. "I haven"t been taking my medication. I"m supposed to take twenty milligrams of Actozine per diem."
"Why don"t you take it?" They never did; he had run across that anomaly several times.
"It dulls my mind," she answered, touching her nose with her forefinger, as if involved in a complex ritual that had to be done absolutely correctly.
"But if it--"
Kathy said sharply, "They can"t f.u.c.k with my mind. I"m not letting any MFs get to me. Do you know what a MF is?"
"You just said." He spoke quietly and slowly, keeping his attention firmly fixed on her . . . as if trying to hold her there, to keep her mind together.
The food came. It was terrible.
"Isn"t this wonderfully authentically Italian?" Kathy said, deftly winding spaghetti on her fork.
"Yes," he agreed, aimlessly.
"You think I"m going to blep away. And you don"t want to be involved with it."
Jason said, "That"s right."
"Then leave."
"I"--he hesitated--"I like you. I want to make sure you"re all right." A benign lie, of the kind he approved. It seemed better than saying, Because if I walk out of here you will be on the phone to Mr. McNulty in twenty seconds. Which, in fact, was the way he saw it.
"I"ll be all right. They"ll take me home." She vaguely indicated the restaurant around them, the customers, waiters, cashier. Cook steaming away in the overheated, underventilated kitchen. Drunk at the bar, fiddling with his gla.s.s of Olympia beer.
He said, calculating carefully, fairly, reasonably sure that he was doing the right thing, "You"re not taking responsibility.""
"For who? I"m not taking responsibility for your life, if that"s what you mean. That"s your job. Don"t burden me with it."
"Responsibility," he said, "for the consequences to others of your acts. You"re morally, ethically drifting. Hitting out here and there, then submerging again. As if nothing happened. Leaving it to everyone else to pick up the sweltering moons."
Raising her head she confronted him and said, "Have I hurt you? I saved you from the pols; that"s what I did for you. Was that the wrong thing to do? Was it?" Her voice increased in volume; she stared at him pitilessly, unblinkingly, still holding her forkful of spaghetti.
He sighed. It was hopeless. "No," he said, "it wasn"t the wrong thing to do. Thanks. I appreciate it." And, as he said it, he felt unwavering hatred toward her. For enmeshing him this way. One puny nineteen-year-old ordinary, netting a fullgrown six like this--it was so improbable that it seemed absurd; he felt on one level like laughing. But on the other levels he did not.
"Are you responding to my warmth?" she inquired.
"Yes."
"You do feel my love reaching out to you, don"t you? Listen. You can almost hear it." She listened intently. "My love is growing, and it"s a tender vine."
Jason signaled the waiter. "What have you got here?" he asked the waiter brusquely. "Just beer and wine?"
"And pot, sir. The best-grade Acapulco Gold. And hash, grade A."
"But no hard liquor."
"No, sir."
Gesturing, he dismissed the waiter.
"You treated him like a servant," Kathy said.
"Yeah," he said, and groaned aloud. He shut his eyes and ma.s.saged the bridge of his nose. Might as well go the whole way now; he had managed, after all, to inflame her ire. "He"s a lousy waiter," he said, "and this is a lousy restaurant. Let"s get out of here."
Kathy said bitterly, "So that"s what it means to be a celebrity. I understand." She quietly put down her fork.
"What do you think you understand?" he said, letting it all hang out; his conciliatory role was gone for good now. Never to be gotten back. He rose to his feet, reached for his coat. "I"m leaving," he told her. And put on his coat.
"Oh, G.o.d," Kathy said, shutting her eyes; her mouth, bent out of shape, hung open. "Oh, G.o.d. No. What have you done? Do you know what you"ve done? Do you understand fully? Do you grasp it at all?" And then, eyes shut, fists clenched, she ducked her head and began to scream. He had never heard screams like it before, and he stood paralyzed as the sound--and the sight of her constricted, broken face-- dinned at him, numbing him. These are psychotic screams, he said to himself. From the racial unconscious. Not from a person but from a deeper level; from a collective ent.i.ty.
Knowing that did not help.
The owner and two waiters hustled over, still clutching menus; Jason saw and marked details, oddly; it seemed as if everything, at her screams, had frozen over. Become fixed. Customers raising forks, lowering spoons, chewing . . . everything stopped and there remained only the terrible, ugly noise.
And she was saying words. Crude words, as if read off some back fence. Short, destructive words that tore at everyone in the restaurant, including himself. Especially himself.
The owner, his mustache twitching, nodded to the two waiters, and they lifted Kathy bodily from her chair; they raised her by her shoulders, held her, then, at the owner"s curt nod, dragged her from the booth, across the restaurant and out onto the street.
He paid the bill, hurried after them.
At the entrance, however, the owner stopped him. Holding out his hand. "Three hundred dollars," the owner said.
"For what?" he demanded. "For dragging her outside?"
The owner said, "For not calling the pols."
Grimly, he paid.
The waiters had set her down on the pavement, at the curb"s edge. She sat silent now, fingers pressed to her eyes, rocking back and forth, her mouth making soundless images. The waiters surveyed her, apparently essaying whether or not she would make any more trouble, and then, their joint decision made, they hurried back into the restaurant. Leaving him and Kathy there on the sidewalk, under the red-andwhite neon sign, together.
Kneeling by her, he put his hand on her shoulder. This time she did not try to pull away. "I"m sorry," he said. And he meant it. "For pushing you." I called your bluff, he said to himself, and it was not a bluff. Okay; you won. I give up. From now on it"s whatever you want. Name it. He thought, Just make it brief, for G.o.d"s sake. Let me out of this as quickly as you possibly can.
He had an intuition that it would not be soon.
5
Together, hand in hand, they strolled along the evening sidewalk, past the competing, flashing, winking, flooding pools of color created by the rotating, pulsating, jiggling, lit-up signs. This kind of neighborhood did not please him; he had seen it a million times, duplicated throughout the face of earth. It had been from such as this that he had fled, early in his life, to use his sixness as a method of getting out. And now he had come back.
He did not object to the people: he saw them as trapped here, the ordinaries, who through no fault of their own had to remain. They had not invented it; they did not like it; they endured it, as he had not had to. In fact, he felt guilty, seeing their grim faces, their turned-down mouths. Jagged, unhappy mouths.
"Yes," Kathy said at last, "I think I really am falling in love with you. But it"s your fault; it"s your powerful magnetic field that you radiate. Did you know I can see it?"
"Gee," he said mechanically.
"It"s dark velvet purple," Kathy said, grasping his hand tightly with her surprisingly strong fingers. "Very intense. Can you see mine? My magnetic aura?"
"No," he said.