“That’s easy to tell me now. But I have Hamlin, and I feel a responsibility toward her, too. She’s a wreck. She needs an anchor, Gomez, somebody to keep her from drifting away.”
“What’s the matter with her?”
“The ESP. It’s driving her out of her mind. She picks up voices—half the time she doesn’t know who she is—she has to hide from people, to shield herself—the telepathy comes and goes, random, not under her conscious control at all. It’s like a curse.”
“And this you need?” Gomez asked. “You’re such a solidly established individual yourself that you can keep company with dynamite like this?”
“It wasn’t my idea, believe me. But now that I’m involved with her, I’m not going to toss her out. I want to help her.”
“How?”
“Maybe there’s some way of disconnecting this ESP of hers. It’s burning out her mind. What do you say, Gomez? Could it be done?”
“I don’t know item one about ESP. I’m a Rehab specialist.”
“Who does know?”
“I suppose I could find out if there are any hospitals in the metropolitan area with experience in this. Some neuropsychiatric division must be pissing around with ESP. If she hates it so much, why hasn’t she gone in to be examined?”
“She’s afraid to let anyone fool with her mind. Afraid that she’ll end up losing her whole personality if they try to rip out the telepathy.”
“Shit. You tell me you want to help her, and two seconds later you tell me she’s scared of being helped. This is crazy, man. The girl is poison. Get her into a hospital.”
“Tell me where to send her,” Macy said. “I’ll see if I want to do it. And if she does.” He gave Gomez a sudden savage grin and clapped his right hand to his left shoulder. A moment afterward he put his left hand on his right shoulder. Gomez stared at him, blinking, not moving at all. “Well, dummy?” Macy asked. “You forgot your own signals? That’s the one for withdrawing from the vicinity.”
“Has Hamlin begun to threaten you?”
“Don’t stand there asking stupid questions. You got the signal. Go. Go. I have work to do. Let me be, Gomez.”
“You poor schmuck,” Gomez said. “What a lousy thing this is. For all of us.” And went. Macy cradled his head in his hands. An ache behind each ear. An ache in his forehead, as though the front of his brain were swollen and pushing against the bone. Practice the signals. Right hand to left shoulder. Left hand to right shoulder. Lock hands behind back of neck. Surveillance. The friendly Rehab Center haunting me too. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. He thought he could hear Nat Hamlin’s ghostly laughter reverberating through the interstices of his frazzled mind. Hey, are you awake, Nat? Did you listen to what Gomez said? Listening now? They’re out to get you, Nat. Gomez is after you. To finish the job that he didn’t do right the first time. Scared, Nat? I don’t mind telling you I am. Because only one of us is going to come out of this whole, at the very best. At the very best, only one of us.
11
If they really did have him under surveillance, he wasn’t aware of it. He went through his daily routines. Finished preparing the script for the charisma story on Monday. Taping on Tuesday. Everything smooth. Back and forth from apartment to the office without trouble. Hamlin, surfacing coherently early Tuesday evening for the first time since Thursday, had a pleasant little chat with him, saying nothing about his conference with Gomez or about the abortive takeover attempt of that stoned Thursday evening. Fair is fair, Macy thought You try to finesse me, I try to sandbag you, but we don’t talk about such sordid things.
Hamlin chose to turn on the charm, reminiscing a bit about his life and good times. Selected segments of his autobiography come dancing along the identity interface. With subtitles.
THE ARTIST DISCOVERS HIS GIFT
1984, Orwell’s year, the global situation quite thoroughly fucked up on schedule, although not quite as fucked up as the pessimistic old bastard had imagined, and in this small town is twelve-year-old Nat Hamlin, barely pubescent, full of ungrounded wattage and churning unfocused needs. Which small town, where? Mind your own business. The boy is slim and tall for his age. Long sensitive fingers. Father wants him to be a brain surgeon. It’s a good living, son, especially now, with all the psychosis flapping in the breeze. You open the skull, you see, and you stick your long sensitive fingers inside and you chop this and you splice that and you amputate this, three thousand dollars, please, and put your money in good growth stocks.
The boy isn’t listening. In the attic he models little clay figurines. He has never been to a museum; he has no interest in art. But there is sensual pleasure, in squeezing and twisting the clay. He feels a lusty tickle in his crotch and a delicious tension in his jaws when he works with it. Filling the attic with grotesque little images. You sure see the world a funny way, boy. You been looking at some Pee-cas-so, hey? Pee-cas-so, who he? He that old mother from France, he make a million bucks a year turning out this junk. No shit? Where can I see some? And going to the museum, two hours away. Pee-cas-so. That’s not how it’s spelled. He’s pretty good, yeah, yeah. But I’m just as good as he is. And I’m just starting out.
SOLITARY PLEASURES
The first major piece now adorns the attic. Three and a half feet high. Adapted from one of Picasso’s paintings: woman with two faces, body twisted weirdly on its perpendicular axis, a veritable bitch of a challenge for a fourteen-year-old boy no matter how good he is. The creator lies naked before it. Straggly mustache. Pimples on his ass. Act of homage to the muse. Seizes rising organ in left hand. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Oooh and ahhh. Sixty seconds: close, to his record for speed. And accuracy of aim. He baptizes the masterpiece with jets of salty fluid. Ah. Ah. Ah.
AN END TO SUBLIMATION
She has long straight silken golden hair in the out-of-date style favored by girls of this town. Rimless glasses, fuzzy green cashmere sweater, short skirt. They are fifteen. He has lured her to the attic after telling her, shyly, anesthetized by pot, that he is a sculptor. She is a poet whose work appears regularly in the town newspaper. Appreciates the arts. This village of philistines; the two of us against them all. Look, this I took from Picasso, and these are my early works, and here’s what I’m doing now. How strange, Nat, what brilliant work. You mean nobody knows about this? Hardly anybody. Who would understand? I understand, Nat. I knew you would, Helene.
You know what? Never worked from a live model. An important step forward in my career. Oh, no, I couldn’t, I just couldn’t I mean, I’d be embarrassed to death! But why? God gave you the body. Look, all through history girls have been posing for famous artists. And I have to. How else will I grow as an artist? She hesitates. Well, maybe. Let’s smoke first. He brings out the stash. She takes two puffs for every one of his. Giggling. He is deadly serious. Reminds her. Yes, yes, yes. You’re sure your mother won’t come upstairs? Not a chance, she doesn’t give a crap what I do up here.
And then. The clothes coming off. Her incandescent body. He can barely look. Fifteen and he’s never seen it. Backward for his age, too much time spent alone in the attic. Sweater, bra. Her breasts are heavy; they don’t stick out straight when they’re bare, they dangle a little. The nipples very tiny, not much bigger than his. Dimples in her ass. The hair down there darker than on her head, and woolier. She looks so incomplete without a prick. His cheeks are blazing. Here, stand like this. Doesn’t dare to touch her. Poses her by waving his hands in air. Wishes she’d stand with her legs apart: he isn’t sure what it looks like, and he can’t see. But she doesn’t. She’s so stoned, though.