The Bend of the World: A Novel (21 page)

What happened?

To the girl? She broke up with me.

Why?

Infidelity.

We’re two peas in a pod, she said.

You cheated on him, too? I said.

No, she said. Not him.

28

I couldn’t tell you which one of us started it, which willed it to happen, or how it came about. I can only tell you that, like the material universe itself, it was defined by the probability of it happening until it did happen; then all those caroming quanta collapsed and it was real, and, like reality, it was defined by the necessity of its own being. We did not, it turned out, need a sexually aroused psychic to choose our ideal reality; or maybe that was the joke; maybe in another room she didn’t touch my hand and I didn’t touch her face and it all went very differently; maybe the whole Project was an ornate description of what we did every day. And maybe we shouldn’t have, but we did.

Then I went back to the party, and she went back to her drink.

29

The following Tuesday, Mark came into my office with lunch. While we were eating, I noticed him looking at me as if he were trying to make up his mind about something. What? I said.

Oh, nothing, he said.

Hey, I said, you’re not wearing your badge.

My badge?

I’ve never seen you here without a visitor sticker.

Oh, that, he said. I’m no longer a visitor. He paused. Technically speaking, he said, and he narrowed his eyes a bit.

You’re not? I said.

No, he said. You’ve been assimilated. It’s going to be announced tomorrow, but the papers are signed and sealed.

Huh, I said. So what happens now?

We extol the virtues of the dearly departed, and then we bury the body.

Has anyone ever told you that you have a violent mind?

Pff. I abhor violence.

I saw you kick the shit out of a guy the first time we met. You paid a stripper to bust your lip.

Jus ad bellum.

I sighed and shook my head. What was the point? I asked.

Of what?

Why did you buy us? What was it for? I can’t exactly see how anyone expected to make money in the deal.

I never asked. Some of us made money. You made money. I made money.

But, I said.

Look, you’re trying to find a narrative where none exists. A corporation is not a person. The gods don’t oblige us with motives, but they sometimes reward obedience with good fortune.

I’m not sure I’d call a corporation a god, I said.

Of course it is. Created by man and superior to him. Magnificent in its infinite amplification of his flaws and powers. The very definition of a god.

So, what, does that make us priests? I said.

No, no. Avatars. Emissaries.

Angels, I offered.

Blow, Peter, Mark said. Blow.

You’ve been waiting to use that one. I laughed. But it’s Gabriel.

Is it? Speaking of which, and while we’re on the subject of transcendent amorality, Mark said, and then I knew what was coming.

Before you say anything— I began.

I trust, he said, that a good time was had by all.

Things sort of just happened.

His smile showed his sharp teeth. He crossed his legs. His eyes flicked across me, and I felt like a mouse in the presence of a bored cat, frightened, too, by the apparent absence of anger in his predation. I think it’s interesting, he said, that you find it easier to ascribe the absence of willful motive to yourself than to some big company. I’m not sure what that says about you. He shrugged. Frankly, I’m not sure what you expected to get out of it. Other than the obvious, of course, for which there were plenty of other drunken whores at the party.

He said it flippantly, and although I had no right to be, it made me angry. I said, I’m not sure I was trying to get anything out of it.

Well, that I really can’t understand.

Well, and I’m not defending myself, but it’s not like it was some transaction.

Of course it was. What do you fail to understand about its fundamentally transactional nature? You had a quid and she had a quo.

Mark, I said, I wasn’t trying to get anything. I really am sorry, but I really wasn’t, not any more than you are.

He closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose and shook his head and then said, But I am trying to get something.

You know what I mean.

No, he said. I mean literally. She’s the coinage of the realm; appearances are a kind of currency. I need someone like her. She’s of immense practical value. She’s a passport to a portion of society. Unlike you, Mr. Morrison, unlike her, I wasn’t born into this world. He sighed. What she does with herself when she’s off the clock is her fucking business, but the position carries certain requirements that do not include getting wasted in the dark when there’s a company event. So the next time you want to fuck my drunk girlfriend, Morrison, he said, and then he stood up, jumped to his feet, snatched the laptop off my desk, and hurled it past my head and against the wall, where it snapped and fell like a bird against a window, do it on your own fucking time. Understand?

And quite suddenly, I was afraid that I did. I only nodded.

I’ll send someone up from IT, he said over his shoulder as he left and slammed the door.

30

That night while I was sitting at home feeling the faint first tug of nausea, I heard the key in the door, and was surprised to see Johnny lumbering through with a huge rucksack and sleeping bag, which he deposited on my living room floor. Morrison, he said; I need to crash here tonight.

When did I give you a key? I asked.

You used to keep a spare in the kitchen.

I still keep a spare in the kitchen.

Not for about three years, he said. I borrowed it.

Johnny, I said, I haven’t seen you in months, and why do you need to crash here?

There’s someone in my apartment, he said. I think it might be a squatter, but I didn’t have the heart to kick him out. He seems to be feeding the cats, anyway. Plus, I’m on my way out of town.

Yes, I said. You appear to be. Where are you going?

The Knotty Pine.

I’m sorry?

It’s an old lodge in the state game lands up past Kittanning. One of Dr. Wilhelm’s associates owns it. We’re planning a happening. You ought to come. Have you got any eggs, by the way? I’m starving.

Yes, I have eggs. I followed him into the kitchen. A happening? I said.

Our own little Bohemian Grove. Art, music, revelry, and satanic rituals.

I’ll pass, I said.

You’re such a conformo. Where do you keep that faggy salt that I like?

Cupboard to your right. Johnny, what the fuck have you been doing?

I’ve been exploring the limits of human consciousness. When I died—

I’m sorry, I said, when you what?

When I died, before you found me in the hospital, an angelic being named Calsutmoran appeared to me in a vision and explained to me that I needed to find Winston Pringle and stop him. I told you.

So you’ve found him.

Yes.

Have you stopped him?

Not yet. I’m, you know, taking temporary advantage of his access to high-quality research chemicals.

Jesus, Johnny.

Just dabbling, he said. This is my life’s work, brother. Pringle is dangerous. The Pittsburgh Project—he’s not some unwilling patsy; he
is
the project. His whole shtick is a double-fake. I’m on to him. I’m going to stop him before he destroys the world.

You sound crazy, I said.

Don’t worry, I’ve got it all worked out.

Apparently.

You have any beers?

In the fridge.

We sat at the table.

It’s good to see you, I said.

I missed you, too, honey pie, he told me.

I may have made some poor professional choices myself, I said.

Morrison, Johnny said, what have I been telling you?

1

You have 1 new friend request from Helen Witold.

2

Birthday dinner with my parents always came after my birthday had passed in order to commemorate, approximately, the date of our release from the hospital and therefore, my mother said, her own contribution to the accomplishment, which was—crunch of an ice cube—significant, you have to admit. So it was the Saturday after my birthday, the week after the party, that Lauren Sara and I met my parents at the Hyeholde, my parents’ favorite restaurant, a venerable fieldstone pile in a stand of willows on some farmland out by the airport. The menu consisted principally of creatures harvested from the forests nearby. I’d actually taken Lauren Sara there once before. This was during a period in which she’d rejected veganism as a first-world affectation that was intolerable in a world in which billions subsisted on a calorie-poor diet. She had a medium-rare rack of venison, and I do remember that we did actually have sex that night. Now, however, and despite our recent rounds with Mark and Helen, I suspected that she wouldn’t eat meat in front of my parents, which threatened to make the whole evening ridiculous. More ridiculous.

And yet, despite the fact that she could never remember her name, or at least pretended never to remember it, I was convinced that my mother actually liked Lauren Sara, or at any rate felt that she served an instrumental purpose, which was, for Mom, effectively the same sentiment. I always suspected that my mother secretly wanted to ensure that her son not end up like his father, a genial, prosperous goof playing second fiddle to a woman of superior achievements, and that Lauren Sara, unlike the girl who preceded her, seemed likely to fulfill these requirements. The more I considered it, the more certain I was that there had been a tugging fear wrapped up in Mom’s ostensible affection for Katherine; she was not, after all, an affectionate woman; and it may have been in part her oddly sentimental approval of that pairing that had nudged me into infidelity. When I’d confessed to my mother that cheating was the cause of Katherine’s and my breakup, she’d been less dismayed than I’d anticipated. Had I detected a flicker of pleasure before she composed her face for disapproval? I sometimes thought I’d been manipulated, the appearance of one thing maneuvering me into achieving its opposite and actually desired outcome. In any case, her tolerance for Lauren Sara felt provisional upon her conviction that Lauren Sara was what Lareun Sara appeared to be, and it pleased me to think that this appearance was itself a bit of a concoction.

Fortunately there was trout on the menu for Lauren Sara, and the Pirates were finally winning, which gave my dad something to murmur on about while we made our way through our salads and our first round of cocktails. Lauren Sara was surprisingly conversant, and I said, When did you become such a baseball fan? I’ve always been a fan, she said. Really? I said. I think Barmes is going to take us into October, said Dad.

I hear you saw your grandmother again, Mom said later on after our main courses had arrived.

Yes, I said. At the party. You were invited.

Your father hates parties, Mom said.

Now, Suzanne, I don’t hate parties per se. I enjoyed myself at the Reynoldses’, you remember.

Larry’s retirement? Mom said. Honey, that was in 2008.

Was it? Yes, I suppose we were talking a lot about the election. Well, nevertheless, I had a good time.

Peter likes parties, Lauren Sara said; there was no reason to think so, but I thought that she meant something else, only I wasn’t certain what.

Peter hated parties when he was little, my mother said. He always came home crying.

It’s true, I said. I was an exquisitely sensitive youth.

What happened? asked Lauren Sara.

I grew up, I said.

Well, said my mother, I’m not sure that all the evidence is in just yet.

Red or white with our entrées? asked my father from behind the wine list.

And how is Nanette? Mom asked me.

Her foot seems recovered. She was enjoying herself dissing the nouveaux riches.

Is that who you’re hanging out with these days?

Peter
is
the nouveau riche, said Lauren Sara. Totally.

Not exactly, I said.

You always had such interesting friends, my dad said. I think I’m going to order the Allegrini, unless someone is having fish.

I’m having fish, said Lauren Sara, but I’m not really a wine drinker.

A woman after my own heart, Mom said.

Well, Dad said, Peter and I will manage, won’t we?

Speaking of your interesting friends, said my mother, how’s little Johnny doing?

Lauren Sara snorted. Little Johnny?

He used to be, I said.

Whoa, she said. That’s hard to imagine.

He’s been better, I said.

And what is he doing these days? asked my dad, who was searching the room for our waiter. Wasn’t he writing a screenplay?

He’s always writing a screenplay, I said. It was true, if not strictly so. Johnny’s screenplay was an artifact of our adolescence that he still claimed to be working on even though I knew for a fact that he hadn’t written a word in ten years. It was set in a small town in rural West Virginia and had the elements of a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and a gothic horror. He claimed it was a retelling of the Abraham narrative from the Old Testament, with the role of God played by a bigfoot.