Man in the Empty Suit (6 page)

He stopped moving, his head at an unnatural angle, a fly in a web, turning turning turning to keep my hands from a solid hold on his cheeks. “Who for?”

“You, eventually.” The words came out smoothly, doubled by a new paradox I was forming. I was too aware that I hadn’t done this before, too aware that Nose was supposed to be in the ballroom by now, holding a drink and laughing. My investigation was obviously going to be crossing earlier paths. I resigned myself to the fact that I’d be messing with my own head to a large degree. I’d have to learn to live with it. “Me, more immediately.”

“What’s happened?”

“You don’t need details. Let me see your nose.”

He held still in the awkward pose. I became distracted by the parrot pattern in the trim of his robe. I’d forgotten that detail. An inside joke between me and me. Behind me Savior watched, uncertain now whether he might have destroyed
some major timeline as a result of moving the dish. He hadn’t chased after the Drunk as I had when I’d been him. Another change.

I looked up Nose’s nose. I examined both sides. “It’s not broken.”

“Why should it be?”

I turned in time to see Savior disappear into the bathroom, hand over his pale face. I rushed past the line after him, ignoring complaints and epithets.

Every stall, urinal, and sink was occupied, as was almost every inch of floor space. I didn’t recall the bathrooms being so full, but of course I had begun avoiding the first-floor restrooms after my thirtieth year, probably just because of this. Youngsters stood shoulder to shoulder, some with drinks. The room smelled of urine and alcohol. A group of obviously young teens stood near the last stall, watching in awe as the over-twenty crowd drank and guffawed at unfunny inside jokes. Other than a lack of music, it was a club scene. Again I worried about why and how teens were there. More immediately, though, I had to reach Savior, who’d managed to sequester himself in the last stall. I followed him, stepped on my own feet several times, heard curses in dead languages I’d forgotten I had learned, and bumped into one elderly version of myself, paunched and pale, who patted my shoulder.

“Good luck. It’s worth it, I think,” he told me.

I gave a false smile and a nod. “You would know.” I shoved my shoulder against the door, and the latch popped under my weight.

“What the hell? Get out of here.”

I stood over Savior as my memory spiraled along a different path. When I’d been his age, I hadn’t run to the bathroom. I’d followed the Drunk, headed to the bar, gotten a drink, even spent a moment talking to Nose. I could recall that this hadn’t happened, even though the act was already done.

I pointed a finger at Savior, more accusingly than I’d intended. “Look, you didn’t mean to do anything wrong. And you didn’t. You just wanted to spare yourself a little pain.”

“That’s right. I just—”

“But it doesn’t work. You’ve changed things. You’ll start calling it a memory paradox soon enough.” As I mentioned them, I ran through a list in my head of the things I’d seen so far that were different from my own memories. “It’s like the kids being here.”

“They shouldn’t be here?”

“Did you come here as a kid?”

“Shit.”

“Someone must have given them a ride, and they’re here, and that’s it.”

“What if we—”

“Don’t even think about trying to stop yourself from doing what you just did.”

“Further complications?”

“Exactly.”

“Shit.” It was his mantra.

“Let me see your nose,” I said.

“All right.”

He was too stunned even to wonder why. I looked it over, and my own mind began to stir. I hadn’t found what I’d expected. His nose was unbroken.

He watched my eyes as my hands fell to my sides. “Is it all right?”

“I don’t know why, but yes.”

“What’s wrong with that? It’s why I moved the plate.”

“I know, but it didn’t work for me.”

“How come?”

I didn’t know. “Shit,” I said.

I stepped out of the stall. Youngsters toe-deep in urine tried to act nonchalant, failed, almost tripped in their attempts to follow me to a mirror. I leaned over the sink and examined my own nose. There, along the right side, was the bump and slight twist. Barely visible, but there. I felt it with both hands. My nose had been broken. When I’d been Savior’s age and moved the plate, I hadn’t spared myself anything. But this Savior had. Somehow he had been spared the break.

The mirror filled with my faces looking over my shoulder, puzzled or smiling, depending on where they fell ahead or behind me on the line of my life. Elders seemed to have arrived like tourists. Questions and admonitions to be quiet flowed around me. I kept my head tilted back and looked at the bridge of my once-broken nose.

One Elder—easily in his sixties, powdered wig and knee-high stockings speaking volumes of an ill-conceived trip through the eighteenth century—joined me at the sink. “Really far out, huh?”

I walked away from the sink. Savior called for me to stop, but I ignored him. Let the Dandy fill him in, or not. I needed to find Seventy.

I STRUGGLED TO
get out of the bathroom. Youngsters called after me, demanding answers. Elders called good luck. Echoes of “You would know” bounced off the tiles.

I returned to the ballroom. The woman was gone. The table in the corner where she’d sat was vacant except for four dying drinks. One was a tall, milky tumbler that smelled of coffee. A Brown Russian? My lactose intolerance burbled at the thought. This had been her drink. The other three were watery whiskeys, which I poured together and drained in quick gulps. Coin-shaped ice pieces caught in my throat.

When the whiskey was gone, I took stock of the party. Tables were surrounded by me, in various stages of drink. Food was disappearing quickly. I finally noticed the acidic taste in my mouth; I hadn’t eaten. A fist of hunger wrapped around my stomach.

I made my way to the buffet tables outside the ballroom. I
was nearly too late. Sterno warmed empty, sauce-crusted trays, and the hall stifled with chemical fumes and heat. I filled a plate with what remained of the tray of overcooked Swedish meatballs and found a basket of breadsticks near an overturned soup station. I couldn’t recall getting to the food later than this. I made a mental note not to do so again and promised myself that next year I would hide a fork underneath the first table. I repeated the promise to myself several times. Occasionally this worked. Repeated promises sometimes stuck, and I sometimes kept them. I’d once managed to hide a half bottle of vodka in an empty planter for the Youngster who’d dreamed of finding one there. Still repeating my promise to leave myself utensils, I placed my food on the floor and crawled under the tablecloth.

Apparently my future self had remembered my wish and been benevolent. There was a serving bowl, rather large, and for a quick instant I hoped I’d had the foresight to put a roll under there, too. Pleased with myself, I lifted the bowl. Beside the fork and knife that I had hoped for lay a black revolver with a wooden handle, its barrel hole large enough to have an echo.

Crouched there in the dark with my utensils and firearm, I resolved never to emerge from underneath the tablecloth. I reached out blindly and felt for my plate but found someone’s foot instead. Just beyond the tablecloth’s hem stood a pair of highly polished shoes. They were handsome, much better than what I was currently wearing with my expensive suit. I recognized them as the pair I’d worn out last year.

Without meaning to I said, “Nice shoes.”

“Thanks.” The clatter of china. The other knelt down and
handed me my plate of coal-lump Swedish meatballs. It was Savior. “How goes it?”

“Fine,” I lied. I put the bowl back over the gun.

“What are you doing under there?”

I shrugged. “You know. Getting away. It can be”—I waved nonspecifically—“out there, you know.”

He nodded as if he understood. I was tipsy and could tell from his blurred eyes that he was, too. Had I done this back then? Had I found myself under a table? Even tipsy I think I would have remembered it. What changes were spiraling away from that unbroken nose?

“The whole nose incident,” he said. “What was that all about?”

I shrugged again, as if to say,
How should I know?
or to imply that he should already know. I couldn’t make him any more confused than I was myself. I wanted to say,
I have a gun
. Instead I said, “Look, I just want to eat these meatballs and be done with it.” I lifted the fork from the floor and tried to spear one. Impervious to tines, the meatballs spun away, ricocheting around the plate.

“If there’s something major happening, I can help.”

“I know you mean well,” I lied. We both knew that Savior was only in it for himself. He had created a huge paradox simply to avoid a broken nose, which I still had. I’d been selfish. He was selfish. Had been and was, the ends of my maturity spectrum, and I was probably lying to myself about where on that spectrum I fell now. So depressing it was funny. I smiled. “Nothing you can do because there’s nothing
to
do. Everything’s fine. I just … well, it’s rather busy up there.” I pointed toward the underside of the table.

Savior looked at me, his eyes inscrutable. “You would know.”

I winced internally. “Yes, I guess I would. Perhaps I’ll see you at the bar. I’ll buy you a drink.”

He nodded and stood. I was left with only his shoes. I felt a little pride in having picked them out. I’d always thought of myself as hastily put together—part of the reason I’d been so proud of the suit I now wore—but those shoes, they were the real deal.

He tapped one foot against a table leg. “See you at the bar, then. Enjoy the meatballs.”

“Thanks.”

I watched him disappear through a gap in the tablecloth, then pulled it back into place. The grayish orange light somehow seemed brighter filtered through the white tablecloth, which glowed as if charged. I lifted the serving dish.

The revolver still terrified me. The wooden handle, polished and clear of fingerprints—though I knew whose fingerprints ought to have been there—called for my palm. The black snub nose caught the low light and yawned at me. It wasn’t as large as I first imagined but seemed larger than it needed to be. I picked it up, surprised by the serious weight of it, and turned it over in my hand. Fully loaded. Smell of oil.

I searched around me, wondering why I hadn’t provided a note for myself. If I’d had time to plant a gun, I’d certainly had time to write a short message:
Here’s a gun. You need to shoot X. Good hunting
. My mind bounced over the myriad options for who my target might be. I was already going to die in less than a year—what more could I be expected to do? I’d already created an even larger paradox with my nasal examination—all
the swarming younger selves who’d witnessed my effort to get to Savior and Nose would have altered memories. And Savior himself, he was on a path I couldn’t begin to predict. What had I done to him? I wondered about where he’d gone after leaving me here, under the table, and could recall only the entrance to the ballroom, staring through the open door and seeing a herd of children streak past, screams echoing in the great room. Paradoxes still unfolded, my actions too large to have a single, predictable effect. Reflections in a splashing puddle. I’d made my past fluid, kept a stable history from reaching me. Perhaps the gun was a promise from a fluid future. The Youngsters didn’t have my nose. Did the Dandy? He was my Elder; he should have my nose, but I hadn’t checked. Was I now outside their timeline? Perhaps I’d cut myself loose from what I had done and what I was to have done. And was the Body connected to the others anymore? Did he share my broken nose? I didn’t care to follow the line that might connect me to him. Easier to imagine myself cut free from everyone here. Like an untethered boat, drifting on innumerable river currents.

I shoved the gun into my jacket pocket, smoothed it against my side, and shoveled Swedish meatballs into my mouth. Images of the Body haunted me. I would have to find it and search for the connection. I didn’t want to.

When I crawled out from under the table, Yellow was looking for me, his face hard and red. “There you are.”

“You don’t remember my little hideaway?”

“You’ve got lots of little hideaways, you know. Have you been drinking?”

“Only to calm myself.”

Yellow walked off, and I followed. If he truly didn’t remember eating the meatballs under the table, he must not remember the gun either. I said, “You know, it seems like I’m a bit untethered.”

“Untethered. Yes. Good word for it.”

“You recall the sensation, then?”

He straightened, as if trying to make himself taller than me. “Of course. You’ve done something major to our past.” I don’t think I imagined the blame in his voice, and he refused to look at me.

We walked along the hall, away from the ballroom. “Given this some thought, I see.”

“Yes,” he said, condescending sneer flashing at me, and then, after a pause, “and I’ve been chatting with Seventy.” I was starting to hate his sweater.

We went through a service entrance and took the back staircase, filthy with greasy handprints, up two flights. At the third-floor landing, Yellow held the door for me. “You’ll have years to speculate about all of this.” He avoided looking at me when he spoke. I smelled cleaning chemicals; the hallway outside the stairwell was dark. “Where are we?”