She was just standing there, just watching the crowd and the Benign Ones working the audience like an auctioneer at an estate sale. But something about her made me forget the noise and the pushing, Timmerman’s crowing about “the life and truth of the people”, even Froggy 1 and Froggy 2 (don’t ask me why I called Our Devoted Friends that, maybe from the way they hopped back and forth in front of the mob). “Harry?” I said. He made a noise. “Who’s that? Behind Timmerman.”
“Timmerman’s publicist?” he said. “His downtown liaison? His polltaker and sacred performance artist?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Finally, marshals came out to escort the divine guests away from the crowd. Though a few people shouted that they hadn’t had their turn, that it wasn’t fair and what about their rights, Timmerman quieted them down through platitudes about spreading the power through devoted humans. Or maybe it wasn’t such a platitude. The people who’d been touched seemed compelled to touch others. They kept putting their hands on each other, or hugging, or rubbing against each other, sliding and lifting, sometimes kissing, sometimes moving their hands along each other’s backs or thighs. It was sexual and very overt, yet very innocent, as if…as if nothing was expected to come of it. Most of our touching, even necking, locks into a context of messages, like “This is going to lead to screwing”, or “This is not going to lead to screwing”, or “Now we have a real relationship”, or “Not this time, or the next, but the time after that.”
These people reminded me of the three-year-old son of a friend of mine, who after I’d taken a shower and was wearing his mother’s bathrobe, came up and put a hand straight on my crotch, saying, “What you got there?” There was no message in the touching, just the excitement of contact. And yet, there was an intensity, a kind of burning under the surface, that was both exciting and frightening.
Mostly they touched each other, and it didn’t matter if it was a student, or a yuppie, or some homeless kid whose clothes and body stank. They just wanted to touch, to kiss. But they also reached out to those who hadn’t received the blessing, and while some drew back, others laughed, a little embarrassed, but joined in, like housewives finding themselves in a group sex enactment and discovering that once they’ve got the paint and the little bells on, and slashed their clothes, and set the cakes on fire, and started faceless screwing, that they like it and why have they never done this before?
And it wasn’t just people they touched. A few of them would stroke or rub against the trees, even kissing the branches, the way you might kiss down the length of your lover’s arm. One person was sliding her body along the length of a park bench. Another bent down to reach for a squirrel. When the squirrel ran away from him, he just made circles on the blacktop with his hands spread wide, as if to take in as much surface as possible.
Harry said something about Timmerman and brotherhood, but I wasn’t listening. I felt strange watching them. There weren’t really that many; maybe twenty or thirty who’d actually received the touch. “Something’s going on,” I thought. I remember those words, the sentence forming in my mind. And then I looked at the woman standing behind Timmerman. She hadn’t moved, she just stood there, with her black-rimmed eyes looking vaguely across the crowd. For a moment I thought she was looking at me. I jerked my head back, closed my eyes and opened them again. Her gaze had shifted.
Timmerman was talking about human liberation and economics, citing statistics and trends along with his slogans, and it really did seem like people were listening, paying attention. Not noticing all that touching, all those people rubbing against each other, against lamp posts and garbage cans. I felt clumsy, like I had too many arms and legs and no idea where to put them. Two women, very tall, wearing nylon wigs, were passing money back and forth, sliding it against parts of their bodies and laughing, not just the official sexual parts, though certainly those too, but elbows, behind the knees, around the wrists, the small of the back, touching everywhere like a whip drawn slowly back and never cracked…
I’ve got to get out of here, I thought. Somewhere soft where I could think. Soft? I thought of Harry, but instead of telling him we had to go I just imagined the cold tip of his prosthetic cigarette climbing slowly up my spine. In the front of the crowd a man had taken off his shirt and jacket and was sliding his necktie all over his upper body. A child had turned the jacket inside out and put it on, hugging the fabric against herself. Everyone was smiling, moaning, while Alex Timmerman told them about consumer fraud and children’s spirit vocalizations, leveraged buyouts and sacred agonies of democratic change. I wanted to look at Harry and didn’t dare, certain he would slide against me and start pulling my hair, slowly pulling my head back…
And then the voice came. “Ellen?” it said. “Ellen Pierson?”
She might as well have shoved me, as hard as she could. I felt grateful and angry, grateful she’d pulled me loose from Timmerman’s cadres, furious that it had to be her, that it wasn’t Harry, or just my own will. Why hadn’t I left? Why couldn’t I have stayed home? Or gone off with Joan? How did I look? Could she have been anything? Was I sweating? Would she see it in my face if I turned around? Could I just walk away, maybe move into the crowd, as if I needed to hear Timmerman more clearly? Maybe I could abandon dignity and run like hell.
I turned around. My relief astonished me when I saw she didn’t look old. A few more lines but hardly any grey hairs. More casual clothes than years ago—a blue silk zipper jacket over a pale yellow blouse and pleated pants belted with a gold weave cloth belt. Her hair looked softer, not as chic as I remembered (though how could I trust my fourteen-year-old just-a-kid sensibility?). Cut fairly short, brushed back along the sides. And her figure hadn’t changed, no sloppiness or sagging. Probably worked out in a gym, I thought, and could hardly believe my own nastiness. I didn’t dare think what I looked like. I’d sure as hell changed a lot more in the last thirteen years than she had.
“Alison,” I said. “Hello.” Silence. Behind me, the loudspeakers blared Timmerman speaking about hospitals and spiritual malpractice. I could hear laughter and drawn-out sighs and knew that the blessed were still touching each other and everything else they could reach. It no longer mattered much (except that I discovered I wanted to talk about it with her, get her opinion).
Harry’s hand waving his pc stopped me from trying to think of something to say. “Oh,” I said. “Um, Harry, this is Alison Birkett. Alison, this is Harry Astin.” I added, “Alison’s an old friend. Of my family.” I didn’t know why I said that, only that I didn’t dare look at her for fear I would start blushing.
Harry bowed slightly. I had no idea if the name had registered. I’d never told Harry about my brief time as a celebrity, my “fifteen minutes in the centre of the story” as people say. I’d thought about telling him. If anyone, it would have been Harry. But then I always decided that if he didn’t know about Paul and everything else, I didn’t want to pop my bubble of a normal life. But Harry still might have known Alison Birkett’s name. For that matter he might have known my whole history and just respected my reticence.