Cat's Pajamas (3 page)

His face had become thinner, his body more gaunt, but otherwise he was the fundamentally beatific madman I remembered. “Thank you for the lantern, Dr. Onslo,” he said as I approached. He swatted at a naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling like a miniature punching bag. “It's been pretty gloomy around here.”

“Call me Steve. I never finished my internship.”

“I'm not surprised, Dr. Onslo. You were a lousy therapist.”

“Let me tell you why I've come.”

“I know why you've come, and as Chairperson of the Databank Committee of the Asaph Hall Society, I can tell you everything you want to know about Phobos and Deimos.”

“I'm especially interested in learning how your organization knew an invasion was imminent.”

The corners of Rupert's mouth lifted in a grotesque smile. He opened the drawer in his nightstand, removed a crinkled sheet of paper, and deposited it in my hands. “Mass: 1.08e16 kilograms,” he said as I studied the fact sheet, which had a cherry cough drop stuck to one corner. “Diameter: 22.2 kilometers. Mean density: 2.0 grams per cubic centimeter. Mean distance from Mars: 9,380 kilometers. Rotational period: 0.31910 days. Mean orbital velocity: 2.14 kilometers per second. Orbital eccentricity: 0.01. Orbital inclination: 1.0 degrees. Escape velocity: 0.0103 kilometers per second. Visual geometric albedo: 0.06. In short, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Phobos—”

“Fascinating,” I said evenly.

“As opposed to Deimos. Mass: 1.8e15 kilograms. Diameter: 12.6 kilometers. Mean density: 1.7 grams per cubic centimeter. Mean distance from Mars: 23,460 kilometers. Rotational period: 1.26244 days. Mean orbital velocity: 1.36 kilometers per second. Orbital eccentricity: 0.00. Orbital inclination: 0.9 to 2.7 degrees. Escape velocity: 0.0057 kilometers per second. Visual geometric albedo: 0.07. Both moons look like baked potatoes.”

“By some astonishing intuition, you knew that these two satellites intended to invade the Earth.”

“Intuition, my Aunt Fanny. We deduced it through empirical observation.” Rupert brought the telescope to his eye and focused on the dormant lightbulb. “Consider this. A scant eighty million years ago, there were no Phobes or Deems. I'm not kidding. They were all one species, living beneath the desiccated surface of Mars. Over the centuries, a deep rift in philosophic sensibility opened up within their civilization. Eventually they decided to abandon the native planet, never an especially congenial place, and emigrate to the local moons. Those favoring Sensibility A moved to Phobos. Those favoring Sensibility B settled on Deimos.”

“Why would the Martians find Phobos and Deimos more congenial?” I jammed the fact sheet in my pocket. “I mean, aren't they just… big rocks?”

“Don't bring your petty little human perspective to the matter, Dr. Onslo. To a vulture, carrion tastes like chocolate cake. Once they were on their respective worlds, the Phobes and the Deems followed separate evolutionary paths—hence, the anatomical dimorphism we observe today.”

“What was the nature of the sensibility rift?”

Rupert used his telescope to study a section of the wall where the plaster had crumbled away, exposing the latticework beneath. “I have no idea.”

“None whatsoever?”

“The Asaph Hall Society dissolved before we could address that issue. All I know is that the Phobes and the Deems decided to settle the question once and for all through armed combat on neutral ground.”

“So they came here?”

“Mars would've seemed like a step backwards. Venus has rotten weather.”

“Are you saying that whichever side wins the war will claim victory in what is essentially a philosophical controversy?”

“Correct.”

“They believe that truth claims can be corroborated through violence?”

“More or less.”

“That doesn't make any sense to me.”

“If you were a fly, horse manure would smell like candy. We'd better go see Melvin.”

“Who?”

“Melvin Haskin, Chairperson of our Epistemology Committee. If anybody's figured out the Phobos-Deimos rift, it's Melvin. The last I heard, they'd put him in a rubber room at Werner Krauss Memorial. What's today?”

“Tuesday.”

“Too bad.”

“Oh?”

“On Tuesday Melvin always wills himself into a catatonic stupor. He'll be incommunicado until tomorrow morning.”

I had no trouble sneaking Rupert out of the Frye Institute. Everybody on the staff was preoccupied with gossip and triage. The lunatic brought along his telescope and a bottle of green pills that he called “the thin verdant line that separates me from my madness.”

Although still skeptical of my belief that Rupert held the key to Manhattan's salvation, Valerie welcomed him warmly into our apartment—she's a better therapist than I ever was—and offered him the full measure of her hospitality. Because we have a gas range, we were able to prepare a splendid meal of spinach lasagna and toasted garlic bread. Rupert ate all the leftovers. Bobby asked him what it was like to be insane. “There is nothing that being insane is like,” Rupert replied.

After dinner, at Rupert's request, we all played Scrabble by candlelight, followed by a round of Clue. Rupert won both games. At ten o'clock he took a green pill and stretched his spindly body along the length of our couch, which he said was much more comfortable than his bed at the Frye Institute. Five minutes later he was asleep.

As I write this entry, Clarence Morant is offering his latest dispatches from the war zone. Evidently the Deimosians are still dug in throughout Times Square. Tomorrow the Phobosians will attempt to dislodge them. Valerie and I both hear a catch in Morant's voice as he tells how his aunt took him to see
Cats
when he was nine years old. He inhales deeply and says, “The Winter Garden Theater is surely doomed.”

AUGUST 11

Before we left the apartment this morning, Rupert remembered that Melvin Haskin is inordinately fond of bananas. Luckily, Valerie had purchased two bunches at the corner bodega right before the Martians landed. I tossed them into my rucksack, along with some cheese sandwiches and Rupert's telescope, and then we headed uptown.

Reaching 40th Street, we saw that the Werner Krauss Memorial Clinic had become a seething mass of orange flames and billowing gray smoke, doubtless an ancillary catastrophe accruing to the Battle of Times Square. Ashes and sparks speckled the air. Our eyes teared up from the carbon. The sidewalks teemed with a despairing throng of doctors, administrators, guards, and inmates. Presumably the Broadway theaters and hotels were also on fire, but I didn't want to think about it.

Rupert instantly alighted on Melvin Haskin, though I probably could've identified him unassisted. Even in a milling mass of psychotics, Melvin stood out. He'd strapped a dish-shaped antenna onto his head, the concavity pointed skyward—an inverted yarmulke. A pair of headphones covered his ears, jacked into an antique vacuum-tube amplifier that he cradled in his arms like a baby. Two coiled wires, one red, one black, connected the antenna to the amplifier, its functionless power cord bumping against Melvin's left leg, the naked prongs glinting in the August sun. He wore a yellow terrycloth bathrobe and matching Big Bird slippers. His frame was massive, his skin pale, his stomach protuberant, his mouth bereft of teeth.

Rupert made the introductions. Once again he insisted on calling me Dr. Onslo. I pointed to Melvin's antenna and asked him whether he was receiving transmissions from the Martians.

“What?” He pulled off the headphones and allowed them to settle around his neck like a yoke.

“Your antenna, the headphones—looks like you're communicating with the Martians.”

“Are you crazy?” Scowling darkly, Melvin turned toward Rupert and jerked an accusing thumb in my direction. “Dr. Onslo thinks my amplifier still works even though half the tubes are burned out.”

“He's a psychiatrist,” Rupert explained. “He knows nothing about engineering. How was your catatonic stupor?”

“Restful. You'll have to come along some time.”

“I haven't got the courage,” said Rupert.

Melvin was enchanted by the gift of the bananas, and even more enchanted to be reunited with his fellow paranoid. As the two middle-aged madmen headed east, swapping jokes and stories like old school chums, I could barely keep up with their frenetic pace. After passing Sixth Avenue they turned abruptly into Bryant Park, where they found an abandoned soccer ball on the grass. For twenty minutes they kicked it back and forth, then grew weary of the sport. They sat down on a bench. I joined them. Survivors streamed by holding handkerchiefs over their faces.

“The city's dying,” I told Melvin. “We need your help.”

“Rupert, have you still got the touch?” Melvin asked his friend.

“I believe I do,” said Rupert.

“Rupert can fix burned-out vacuum tubes merely by laying his hands on them,” Melvin informed me. “I call him the Cathode Christ.”

Even before Melvin finished his sentence, Rupert had begun fondling the amplifier. He rubbed each tube as if the warmth of his hand might bring it to life.

“You've done it again!” cried Melvin, putting on his headphones. “I'm pulling in a signal from Ceres! I think it might be just the place for us to retire, Rupert! No capital gains tax!” He removed the phones and looked me in the eye. “Do you solicit me as head of the Epistemology Committee, or in my capacity as a paranoid schizophrenic?”

“The former,” I said. “I'm hoping you've managed to define the Phobos-Deimos rift.”

“You came to the right place.” Melvin ate a banana, depositing the peel in the dish antenna atop his head. “It's the most basic of
Weltanschauung
dichotomies. Here on Earth many philosophers would trace the problem back to all that bad blood between the Platonists and the Aristotelians—you know, idealism versus realism—but it's actually the sort of controversy you can have only after a full-blown curiosity about nature has come on the scene.”

“Do you speak of the classic schism between scientific materialists and those who champion presumed numinous realities?” I asked.

“Exactly,” said Melvin.

“There—what did I tell you?” said Rupert merrily. “I
knew
old Melvin would set us straight.”

“On the one hand, Deimos, moon of the logical positivists,” said Melvin. “On the other hand, Phobos, bastion of revealed religion.”

“Melvin, you're a genius,” said Rupert, retrieving his telescope from my rucksack.

“Should we infer that the Phobosians are loath to evoke Darwinian mechanisms in explaining why they look so different from the Deimosians?” I asked.

“Quite so.” Melvin unstrapped the dish antenna, scratched his head, and nodded. “The Phobes believe that God created them in his own image.”

“They think God looks like a pencil sharpener?”

“That is one consequence of their religion, yes.” Melvin donned his antenna and retrieved a bottle of red capsules from his bathrobe pocket. He fished one out and ate it. “Want to hear the really nutty part? The Phobes and the Deems are genetically wired to abandon any given philosophical position the moment it encounters an honest and coherent refutation. The Martians won't accept no for an answer, and they won't accept yes for an answer either—instead they want rational arguments.”

“Rational arguments?” I said. “Then why the hell are they killing each other and bringing down New York with them?”

“If you were a dog, a dead possum would look like the Mona Lisa,” said Rupert.

Melvin explained, “No one has ever presented them with a persuasive discourse favoring either the Phobosian or the Deimosian worldview.”

“You mean we could end this nightmare by supplying the Martians with some crackerjack reasons why theistic revelation is the case?” I said.

“Either that, or some crackerjack reasons why scientific materialism is the case,” said Melvin. “I realize it's fashionable these days to speak of an emergent compatibility between the two idioms, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize that the concept of materialistic supernaturalism is oxymoronic if not plainly moronic, and nobody knows this better than the Martians.” He pulled the headphones over his ears. “Ha! Just as I suspected. The civilization on Ceres divides neatly into those who have exact change and those who don't.”

“The problem, as I see it, is twofold,” said Rupert, pointing his telescope south toward the Empire State Building. “We must construct the rational arguments in question, and we must communicate them to the Martians.”

“They don't speak English, do they?” I said.

“Of
course
they don't speak English,” said Rupert, exasperated. “They're Martians. They don't even have language as we commonly understand the term.” He poked Melvin on the shoulder. “This is clearly a job for Annie.”

“What?” said Melvin, removing the headphones.

“It's a job for Annie,” said Rupert.

“Agreed,” said Melvin.

“Who?” I said.

“Annie Porlock,” said Rupert. “She built her own harpsichord.”

“Soul of an artist,” said Melvin.

“Heart of an angel,” said Rupert.

“Crazy as a bedbug,” and Melvin.

“For our immediate purpose, the most relevant fact about Annie is that she chairs our Interplanetary Communications Committee, in which capacity she cracked the Martian tweets and twitters, or so she claimed right before the medics took her away.”

“How do we find her?” I asked.

“For many years she was locked up in some wretched Long Island laughing academy, but then the family lawyer got into the act,” said Melvin. “I'm pretty sure they transferred her to a more humane facility here in New York.”

“What facility?” I said. “Where?”