The Dream of Doctor Bantam (5 page)

I would think that you could complain, actually, said Ira. Considering.

She had it coming, said Julie. You know that.

She stopped stapling, curled her legs under herself and fell against the cushion to her left, leaning well away from him.

Did you know her boyfriend? she asked. The last one? He was okay. He was with her when she died.

You’re probably going to tell me how she died, he said.

She walked in front of a car, said Julie. If you did know why someone did that, do you think you’d do it too? Like—if they had a good reason for it?

There’s not a good reason for it, said Ira.

You say that and I say that because we don’t know, see, said Julie. Maybe that’s the only reason we haven’t done it yet.

I don’t know, said Ira, folding his hands over his chest, the only reason I think I haven’t done it yet is because of the difficulty involved. I mean Jesus, look at me. I’m like a brawny ox. To hang me you’d have to break through steel windpipes. To cut my wrists would take an electric carving knife, a chainsaw. I just don’t have that kind of money. When the fuck did I get so maudlin?

Julie giggled.

You’ve always been a big fat teddy bear, she said. That’s what Tabitha said about you. Before she dumped you.

She liked Ira because he laughed at shit like this.

Thanks, said Ira. You’re a pal. I’m gonna go put poison in my coffee now. You want another cup of coffee? If you actually help me staple these instead of lounging around I’ll get you another cup of coffee.

I’m on strike, said Julie. I want medical insurance with my coffee before I’ll give in.

Ira chuckled and stood up. He reached out a steak-like hand and ruffled it across her hair; she considered biting him.

You’re such an adorable baby radical, he said. It’s touching.

He pumped his fist at her like a labor leader and went downstairs to the counter.

Julie sat leaning against the golden recliner and thought about Ira, about Tabitha. She thought about Linda changing channels in the back room. Thermodynamics went crazy on her; her cheeks flushed just as her spine chilled. She sat up and started collating and stapling
Bluecollar Reviews
, one after the other, her fingertips drying out as they dragged across the paper. She tried to work as quickly as she possibly could. Work makes us free, she figured.

There were only about thirty copies to staple, then they moved out onto the street in front of the Retrograde to sell them. Ira spread out a gigantic deer hide blanket with a straight-up deer picture printed onto the hide, fanned out the new issues of the
Bluecollar Review
on it, and started taking out stacks of back issues from his backpack while Julie sat on her corner of the blanket, rested her back against the sticky plaster wall of the Retrograde, and waited. It was going to take a while; Ira had been publishing his goddamned zine for at least as long as Julie and Tabitha had known him. Tabitha had even had a column in it for a while, during some phase of her intermittent relationship with Ira; she’d mostly written about dumpster diving, slum gardening, and vegan dessert recipes; dumb Tabitha bullshit.

Put the issues that have Tabitha’s articles in them up front, she said to Ira. Work by people who die young always sells better. We’ve got to move some product here.

That’s not funny, Ira said.

Come on, Julie giggled. We have a responsibility to our stockholders here. Come on, sell off that old inventory. Everything’s gotta go.

You’re a representative of a business now, Ira said. Act professional.

He set up his sign, old cardstock mounted on a banged-up and dog-eared sheet of cardboard: THE BLUECOLLAR REVIEW: YOUNG AUSTIN FROM THE BOTTOM. The ink on the lettering was starting to fade; he’d been using the sign for five, maybe six years now. Julie slumped against the wall again, depression fighting against the endorphins that the early evening sun was crowbarring out of her pineal gland. Ira finished setting up, counted out ten dollars in change from his pocket into his war-dented ancient cash box, and took out a paperback to read while he waited for a sale. Julie watched the people pass: the students in burnt orange, the anarchists in migration from Einstein’s up the street to the bars downtown, the older professors eyeing the stacks of zines and speeding up. No one stopped and no one seemed interested. Depression outflanked endorphins as the sun went down. Julie’s legs started to itch.

I’m not really contributing anything, she said. I should go.

You should be contributing the most, said Ira. You’re the booth babe. It’s your job to get pathetic dudes interested in you so that they think you’ll find them interesting, too, if they buy my publication.

Julie laughed. That’s so cynical, she said. You want me to be a whore for your shitty political zine? Are you going to pay me whore’s rates? Are you going to protect me from other pimps? Do I have to get your name tattooed on my ass?

You want to contribute; that’s how you contribute, Ira said.

Julie glared at him; he was deep in his paperback. She sat up straight for a moment, then she stood up, planted her feet apart, put her hands behind her back. A couple was passing by, burnt orange sweater for the girl and longhorn ball cap for the guy; early-evening intoxication followed along with them like cartoon characters with hard luck rainclouds over their heads.

Extra, extra, she shouted; the couple jumped. Read all about labor exploitation and Wal-Mart and God only knows what else! The
Bluecollar Review
, five years’ worth of fantastic content! Read it and weep for your wasted boorzhielives! Only three dollars!

The couple sped up and rounded the corner just past the Institute building. Ira set down his paperback and looked at her.

Perfect, he said. You’re a natural.

Am I doing good? she asked. Am I good at making the boys like me?

He shook his head and went back to reading. A girl had just come out of the Institute building, a lanky one: long ed hair, wine-colored, tight white lips set into a harmonica-playing grimace, black-stockinged legs pumping toward the Retrograde door. She wore the standard Institute uniform, white blouse and navy skirt, everything all buttoned up tight like battleship rivets.

Extra, Julie shouted at the girl. New magazine about social injustice! Read it and weep! Only two dollars for the pretty, pretty lady!

The girl didn’t even slow down. Her head whipped around to look at Julie; her red hair clouded around behind her skull, like a kind of Moral Majority version of Cyndi Lauper.

But it was her eyes that did it: there was something about her eyes, something nuts, like an evil wizard was lurking somewhere in her retinas, firing lightning bolts out through her pupils. Julie shuddered. The girl stomped through the Retrograde door and disappeared; Julie started breathing again.

Jesus, she said.

What? said Ira. She’s from the Institute; they’re all nuts.

That was beyond nuts, said Julie. That was like, she wanted to kill me.

Now why would anyone want to kill you, said Ira, and kept reading.

Julie looked at him, then picked up a copy of the latest issue and stood close to the door of the Retrograde, just around the corner of the doorframe, out of sight. The door opened and the red hair came into view; Julie stepped out and shoved the headline in the girl’s face.

Extra
, she screamed; the girl screamed also and stumbled on her high heels; the Americano she was carrying sloshed out of the slot in the paper cup lid.

What is wrong with you, the girl wailed.

Read all about it! said Julie. Bitches walk the streets of Austin! Entire farms ravaged by plague! Governor declares state of emergency!

The girl stopped in place and turned, full on, to face Julie. There were drops of coffee clinging to the buttons of her blouse.

I feel sorry for you, the girl said.

She had a weird accent; her voice sounded deliberate, over-enunciated, like she’d learned English late in life, and her words came out spaced more evenly than they should have, the rhythm of machine gun rounds.

I feel sorry for you, she repeated, because you will die having contributed nothing to the greater identity of mankind. You can only offer randomness, and noise.

The girl’s eyes were still burning lightning into Julie’s. She felt like her bones were getting hollow and heavy at the same time, crazily, like this girl’s eyes were forcing her to sit down and close her mouth. She stiffened up her legs and shoved the headline forward again.

Extra, she said. Local cult turns bitches even bitchier! Basic axioms of science are completely violated!

The girl’s lip curled up; her teeth were creepily even, like some orthodontic malpractice had filed them flat.

You don’t know what you’re talking about, she said.

Yeah, well, you’re in a cult, said Julie.

The Institute isn’t a cult, said the girl, and she raised her chin. If you want to know what the Institute is, I suggest you come with me, and I’ll enroll you in a relaxation course and you can learn for yourself what we are all about. Or you can stand on the street and shout like a, like a crazy person.

Julie laughed.

Sure, okay, she said. Let’s go enroll in a relaxation course.

Julie, said Ira, putting the paperback down.

No, it’s totally fine, said Julie. Let’s go. Ira, you know my mom’s address. Let her know that I’m joining the cult, okay? Let her know that I’ll be fine, I’m just getting a good brainwashing done, forget about school and things, and in like five years when I run out of money or piss off the Leader or whatever you have to do, I’ll quit and come home.

She stared at the girl, tried to make lightning bolts come out of her own eyes.

Is that okay with you? she said. Five years, all my money, then I quit; sound good?

Fine, said the girl. If you never have to quit, what’s the point in doing anything?

All the electric charge that had been building up in Julie’s eyes dissipated. Her nose was suddenly full of cigarette smoke; her mouth tasted like lingonberries.

What did you say? she asked.

But the girl had seen her back down, even just a little; the girl’s chin was in the air, she had moved on to Ira.

Hi, Patrice, said Ira.

Hello, Ira, said the girl, Patrice, apparently. She looked back at Julie; her lip curled to reveal those weird teeth again. What is your purpose out here, with this person?

Ira shrugged. I have all kinds of friends, he said.

Patrice looked down at him.

It’s four days into June already, she said. Do you … are you going to make the usual payment?

I’ll write you a check tomorrow, Ira said. I’ll come up and slip it under your door.

Patrice nodded, slowly. The electricity was gone from her eyes as well; it was strange, it was like the science club Julie and Robbie had belonged to. They’d had to build a robot to go along a track of sensors, and it worked perfectly as long as you kept the controls tightly on the path—and the moment the robot lost track of the sensors, it started spinning, reeling, overheating—trying to find its way back to the sensors, the thing that gave its entire life meaning. Patrice’s mouth was darkening, slackening—she actually had pretty fantastic lips, Julie realized.

Will it be a good check? Patrice asked.

Good as any, Ira said.

Patrice nodded, then looked back at Julie.

Nice to meet you, she said, and she swung around and started walking slowly back to the Institute. Five steps in, she wandered back onto the sensor track; she sped up to her goose-step pace, smashed through the front door, disappeared.

Julie stood with the
Bluecollar Review
hanging against her hip, stared at the place where Patrice had disappeared.

So that’s two of my prominent female relationships you’ve fucked up today, said Ira. Congratulations. You’re going for the Guinness; I can feel it.

You’re dating her? said Julie. So she dates guys, is what you’re saying? Have you ever seen her with girls?

She’s my landlord, said Ira. Or I guess, property manager. The Institute is my landlord.

Julie looked down at Ira.

How can you stand to have the Institute be your landlord? she asked. They’re a destructive cult.

They let me pay the rent months late, he said. It’s an ethically fucked up world. What can you do.

She kept looking at him. Then she quickly sat down next to him, very close.

You have to introduce me to her, she said. When can I come over?

Ira laughed.

That’s rich, he said. Introduce you to her. I think you made a good impression on her; thanks.

Like she’s even going to remember this, said Julie. She’s probably crazy. Or whatever; she remembers it; I don’t care. You can smooth it over. Come on, invite me over. Make me a good introduction to her.

Nothing doing, said Ira. I have to pay rent to her. I’m not introducing Julie Thatch to her.

But she said what Tabitha said, said Julie.

Her voice cracked when she said it. She let her lips close. Ira looked over at her, the streetlight smearing the lenses of his cracked plastic glasses.

She said what Tabitha said? he asked.

I mean, she’s hot, said Julie. Introduce me to her because she’s hot. Please.

Ira looked down at the back of his paperback. He tapped it twice against his work boot. A group of students passed by, bragging about how many shots they’d done, or would do.

All right, he said. Come by in a couple of days.

Julie relaxed her spine; she looked out at the street, all the people floating by.

Thank you, she said.

No trouble, said Ira. So. Do you want to go get a hamburger?

Shit, Julie laughed. We didn’t even sell anything. Come on, let’s stay out here longer. Let’s sell everything. Let’s sell out the whole print run. Let’s sell the rights to all the stories in all the future issues. Let’s sell the whole world.

I never sell anything, said Ira. It’s fine. It’s a moral victory.

She picked up a magazine anyway and ran after a kid with a backpack.

Hey, she shouted. I’m the booth babe. I’ll like kiss you or something if you buy this, okay?