The Dream of Doctor Bantam (6 page)

He walked faster, away from her. She watched him, then went back to Ira. He started to pack up the back issues, the cardboard sign, the blanket; Julie watched him. He zipped up his backpack, shouldered it, and started walking north toward the all-night diner. Julie followed, the magazine in her hand.

I hate moral victories, she said as they walked. Why would anyone want anything but money?

What an adorable little capitalist pig, said Ira.

I’m serious, said Julie, circling around to the front of him and walking backward with him down the street. Money means survival. I’m going to have so much money when I grow up. I’m going to, like, buy and sell you.

I’m a bargain, said Ira. Jesus.

What? asked Julie. That’s my name, don’t wear it out.

It’s just, you and Tabitha are very different people, he said.

She stopped in front of him, forcing him to stop with her. In the middle of the street she stood on the tips of her toes and kissed him so hard on the cheek that she left a red welt. She closed her eyes when she did it: in ghostly visions, a row of perfect, sneering white teeth.

2

The curbs in West Campus were covered with grass, rarely-mowed and hanging, concealing secret cities of insects. Above, the low-slung telephone wires crashed into the tops of trees. Everywhere nature was fighting civilization. On the porch of a commune along Rio Grande three twenty-somethings were smoking pot and barbecuing thick-smelling vegetables; they waved to Julie as she walked by, en route to Ira’s to meet this cult girl for real this time, the polo shirt she’d worn in eighth grade to the science fair regionals buttoned up to her neck. She didn’t wave back; they were wasting their lives.

A spreading Bradford pear stained the Bermuda grass around Ira’s house blue in the late-May light. The house was old, 1970s, with a chain-link fence that squeezed out all sides of the rotting railing that closed in the porch. Flaking blue paint lined the wooden walls and there were spiderwebs between the slats, and a propped-up bike without a lock rested against the porch stairs. A white plastic table with a chessboard print bore a full ashtray centered two squares ahead of Queen’s pawn, and there was a rusted wire shelf lined with the usual junk: a garden trowel caked in mud, empty terra cotta pots, forgotten photograph frames, a pocket notebook short-edge bound in wire with no cover and CALL ABOUT JOB written in ballpoint pen with no number, no explanation.

There were two doors. One of them led to the ground floor, the crack between porch and jamb guarded by a welcome mat with a Wolf Man print and flanked by a wide poster of a marijuana leaf and a Victor Moscoso print in nauseating stereographic orange. The other door led up.

She stood on the Wolf Man welcome mat and knocked on Ira’s door, then paced the deck as she waited, looking through the window of the door leading upstairs. Varicolored Christmas lights ran around the inside of the door frame, climbed the baseboards and looped along the railing of the carpeted staircase on their way to frame the door to the apartment at the top. She knocked on Ira’s door again: no answer.

God damn you, asshole, she hissed, and rattled the doorknob, open the door, open the door; I want to meet this cult girl already—

She could hear faint guitar solos, honest and real-sounding, coming from somewhere at the back of the house. She bit her lip, hard, and tried to circle the porch, looking for a likely window, but then stopped. The door to the second floor was open.

She told herself that she would go back down any second now as she climbed the steps. She’d just go up the first step; no, she’d go up halfway; no, she’d go up until she heard a creak. Photographs of Paris streets, no frames to them, had been Scotch-taped at even intervals along the narrow walls; reflections of pink, yellow, green, and blue glowed in the gloss of each black-and-white print. She tried to figure out exactly what was so unwholesome about this; it had something to do with the way you couldn’t see the lights from outside, something to do with the way they were decorations for an exclusively private audience. She left the door open to the porch as she climbed. Each step had an echo and from somewhere below the staircase she swore she could hear the rust and springs.

She stepped off of the staircase and onto the landing. The door to the apartment had longago been painted red; filtered through the Christmas lights, the places where the paint had come off in wide flakes fluoresced in many colors like loosened, corrupted skin on the victim of some rare tropical fever.

She thought about it—hell, she’d come here to meet this girl
anyway
—and she knocked. No answer. She knocked again, then jiggled the knob. It jiggled easily; the door of the apartment was unlocked. She knocked a third time, then turned the knob and opened the door. Immediately she began to cough as years of daily smoking’s stale air leaped out at her, its claws yellow and extended.

Hello, she called. There was no answer.

How far did she want to take this? And when would she have an opportunity like this again? And did these questions, in the end, contribute to one another?

The apartment was no brighter than the staircase; heavy velvet drapes on the window choked out all but a wafer of sunlight. There was little furniture: a striped couch, a pair of wooden bar stools, a floor lamp covered by a scarlet handkerchief, an empty wrought-iron wine rack and a portable CD/cassette player painted burgundy and propped up on a pair of black plastic milk crates. Each bar stool held an old tuna can lined with cigarette butts. On the walls were more black-and-white photographs, three per wall, evenly spaced out along three of the four walls. The ceiling was a whole jungle canopy of Christmas lights; they bunched up and hung over Julie’s head like adders.

Hello, she called; this time she didn’t wait for an answer.

She circled the walls, looking at the photographs. She made it halfway around the room, five photos in, before she frowned and went back to the first wall, the north one. A restaurant on the Trocadero, tourists having picnics on Sacre-Coeur, a bookseller’s cart on the quays. Then, on the east wall: Trocadero restaurant, tourists and picnics, bookseller’s cart. The south wall was the same.

She circled, comparing, and she didn’t notice the legs hanging over the couch until at least a minute after she really should have.

The legs that hung over the edge of the couch were tan and smooth, except for one long razor scratch that ran from the shin up to the point where the skin disappeared into a silver Japanese robe. The girl from the street was drooling on a yellow pillow propped on the couch’s other arm. Her eyes were closed, pressed into the fabric; her hair, red-gold and genetically immoderate, spilled around her broad angel forehead, her elf jawline. Her neck crooked like a swan’s, retired like a turtle’s into the folds of the Japanese robe. Her toes splayed and flexed in feline sleep. She seemed transformed—she was a second girl, somehow, asleep. Whether she was the good or the evil twin, Julie couldn’t tell.

Julie stared at her toes as they moved.

Patrice opened her eyes. There was a spot of drool on her dark brown lips; a tongue lapped it away. She lifted her head and blinked at the complete stranger in her living room.

Hi, said Julie. We met the other day.

You’re Julie, she said. It was the same cigarette voice of Patrice, yesterday, but changed, slackened. She looked at the stain on her pillow and touched it with the tip of one long, tan finger.

I am Julie, said Julie. I’m sorry I, um, came into your apartment. I can come back later, if you want.

No, said the girl. Now’s fine. What does this look like to you?

The drool stain looked a moon with parts of it falling off and streaking as they entered the atmosphere. Julie frowned and focused on her legs.

It looks like an opportunity for a serious housekeeper, she said.

The girl nodded to herself, not taking her eyes from the pillow. She planted her feet on the ground, wide, before standing up. She squinted at Julie, finally.

You’re Ira’s friend, she said. The rude one.

Julie laughed.

No, no, I swear, she said. I haven’t done a rude thing in years. I’m completely socially acceptable these days.

I’m sorry, Patrice said as she shuffled to the kitchen. This is my day off. I’m going to have a glass of water. Do you want some water?

No thanks, I’m trying to quit, said Julie.

The girl squinted again and turned on the faucet.

Okay, she said. I accept that.

While the water was pouring from the faucet into the drain, uninterrupted by a glass, she took a fresh pack of Camel cigarettes from her kimono pocket. The cardboard had buckled under the weight of her sleeping hip.

Do you smoke? she asked, once she had lit one.

No, said Julie.

Oh, said the girl. Would you like a cigarette?

No, said Julie.

The girl nodded to herself, then came back into the living room, puffing out of the side of her mouth. There was something fascist about her again—possibly it was the cigarette smoke, pumping out of her lips like the smokestack of a train running from Rome to Austria, perfectly on time.

So why did you come here to my apartment? she asked. What’s the purpose of your visit here?

I was visiting Ira, I guess, said Julie. And he wasn’t there. So.

So, said Patrice, raising her eyebrow.

Weren’t you going to get a glass of water? Julie asked.

You’re right, said Patrice. I’m very tired. I’m so very tired all the time. Will you wait here, please?

She went into the kitchen to shut off the faucet. Then she sat down on the tile floor of the kitchen.

Are you all right? asked Julie.

I’ll be fine, said Patrice, shifting to lie down on the floor. I don’t know that I believe your reason for being here.

Julie flinched a little, but the girl hadn’t said it in the way someone would normally say something that equated in meaning to
you’re a huge fat liar
. She’d just come out with it, no anger, just facts. I don’t believe you. The Christmas lights burning overhead were agitating her to no end; Patrice’s legs were big irreverent smears against the checkerboard tiles.

I mean I guess I originally came over to see Ira because I wanted him to introduce me to you, she said. I thought you seemed interesting, or something. Your ideas about time and stuff.

She realized how stupid this sounded. She walked into the kitchen, planted her feet next to Patrice’s collapsed arm, and stared straight down into her glazed, upward-gazing eyes.

You want to talk about the Institute’s conception of time? asked Patrice.

Look, said Julie, do you want a glass of water or something?

That would be very wonderful, said Patrice, gazing up at her.

Julie went to the cupboard to look for a glass. The cupboard was completely empty.

You don’t have any glasses, said Julie.

That’s impossible, said Patrice. I have plenty of glasses.

Which drawer? asked Julie.

Patrice groaned and turned on her side. Julie watched her—the way the robe crinkled up grayly between the black and white tiles—then began to go through the cupboards. She found a glass beneath the sink, snuggled between two wet rolls of paper towels and a white PVC water pipe. She held the glass under the water for a full minute, turning it upside down and right-side up, and then brought it to Patrice.

Here, she said to the back of Patrice’s red-gold head. Drink this. It’s really good for a hangover.

I’m not hung over, said Patrice. I work very long hours. If you’re interested in the Institute’s concept of time, the best thing to do would be to sign up for a concentration course at the Institute itself. I can call them and let them know you’re coming.

You can’t just give me a concentration course here? asked Julie. She set the glass on the floor next to Patrice’s leg. I mean, can’t you just tell me about this stuff?

No, no, said Patrice, shaking her head. Not now. I’m too tired and everything is too difficult, all of the time.

Julie made a face. The girl shifted her legs around on the tile, lazily, like she was pedaling a very slow bike.

See, don’t you people believe that time isn’t real or something? Julie asked. So how does it make sense to say things like
now
or
all of the time
? How does it even make sense that you could get tired if there’s no time?

It takes a great deal of effort to eliminate timebound thinking, said Patrice. I would be happy to teach you more about it later, if you just sign up for a course. Have you ever studied physics?

Not yet, said Julie. This year in school, maybe we will. I’ve studied biology, and astronomy.

But physics, said Patrice. This is very important. You’ve never studied it?

I’ve studied chemistry, said Julie. In tenth grade, forever ago. I don’t remember it. What’s wrong with physics?

Did the chemistry classes deal with physics? Patrice asked.

No, said Julie. The classes didn’t deal with physics. One of the lessons did deal with physics, but the teacher told us to tear it out of our books. We burned the pages later and we were careful not to inhale any of the smoke.

Patrice snickered. Then she coughed as the water went down the wrong pipe. Julie sat her up and whacked her on the back until she stopped coughing. She could see down the front of Patrice’s silver kimono as she whacked her on the back. She told herself that she should avert her eyes, but something about the light and shadow of her breasts must have been one of those optical illusions that drew focus, because for some crazy reason she couldn’t look away. Still, what was she even doing here; she wondered whether Ira was up yet, how quickly she could slip downstairs.

Look, could I use your bathroom? she asked when the coughing was over and she had brought Patrice to rest gently, sitting up, against the kitchen cabinets.

Of course, said Patrice. You probably just saved my life.

I guess, said Julie. Anyone would have done the same.

Most people would not have done the same, said Patrice. Most people would just leave another person to suffer and die. Most people would not have taken the trouble.

The coughing had broken the spell that had been over her—the second Patrice, the vague Patrice on the kitchen tiles, seemed to have vanished. The first Patrice—the one who’d stared Julie down on the street only the day before—was staring at her with those crazy lightning eyes.

I want you to know that I truly respect this about you, she said. That you would save a person who is dying.

I’m going to pee now, Julie said.

Those eyes, staring, followed Julie all the way to the bathroom.

The bathroom was lined with white tile. Each white tile was lined with black mildew and there was a shower curtain with a fluorescent fish pattern, each fish outlined in thick cartoon black. Seven glasses identical to the one she had given Patrice were sitting on the tank of the toilet, each filled with a different level of drinking water.

On the wall was a painting. Julie could have sworn it was real oil, but it was too flat for that: some kind of print, she guessed, in a really nice frame. It was a painting of a man with a long face at right angles with itself, a weak chin collapsing into a broad neck with a prominent Adam’s apple and a turkey wattle. His nose: red and aquiline; his forelock: gray with blue airbrushed highlights, like Superman. He looked like a cross between Howard Roark and Thomas Pynchon. The high-gloss finish was dingy with smoke.