To Live Again and The Second Trip (29 page)

Homer? Holding companies? Transmission pylons?

A deeper voice?

No, he thought. No, it isn’t possible. She wouldn’t—she couldn’t—

From somewhere far away, Paul Kaufmann’s persona delivered a silent booming laugh.

—There’s always the unpredictable, Mark.

Quietly Mark agreed. He peered closely at Risa, seeking for signs, for proof, for confirmation of this strange and frightening fantasy of his. If it were true, a new, invincible force had entered their family, and all plans must be reconsidered. But it could not be true. It could not be true. It
could not
be true.

“There we are,” Risa finished. She shoved the pad toward her father. “What do you say, Mark? How does the plan look to you?”

“I’ll have to think about it,” he said warily. “But it’s worth considering. If we can use Roditis’ own way of thinking to cut chunks out of his holdings, why not?”

Risa grinned. She pointed to the somber, brooding portrait of Uncle Paul hanging behind her father’s desk. “I think
he’d
go for the idea. I think the old buccaneer would be very amused by it. Perhaps a little proud of me. Perhaps even a little jealous.”

“He is,” Mark Kaufmann said, and looked beyond his window to see the sky suddenly grow dark with the fury of a summer storm.

E
VEN THE STREET FELT
wrong beneath his feet. Something oddly rubbery about the pavement, too much give in it. As though they had changed the mix of the concrete during the four years of his troubles. A new futuristic stuff, the 2011-model sidewalk, bouncy and weird. But no. The sidewalk looked the same.
He
was the new stuff. As though, when they had altered him, they had altered his stride too, changing the swing of his knees, changing the pivot of his hips. Now he wasn’t sure of his movements. He didn’t know whether he was supposed to hit the pavement with his heel or his toe. Every step was an adventure in discovery. He felt clumsy and uncertain within his own body.

Or
was
it his own? How far did the Rehab people go, anyway, in reconstructing your existence? Maybe a total brain transplant. Scoop out the old gray mass, run a jolt of juice through it, stick it into a waiting new body. And put somebody else’s rehabilitated brain in your vacated skull? The old wine in a new decanter. No. No. That isn’t how they work at all. This is the body I was born with. I’m having a little difficulty in coordination, true, but that’s only to be expected. The first day out on the street again. Tuesday the something of May, 2011. Clear blue sky over the towers of Manhattan North. So I’m a little clumsy at first. So? So? Didn’t they say something like this would happen?

Easy, now. Get a grip. Can’t you remember how you used to walk? Just be natural.

Step. Step. Step. Into the rhythm of it. Heel and toe, heel and toe. Step.
Step.
That’s the way! One-and-two-and-
one
-and-two-and-
one
-and-two. This is how Paul Macy walks. Proudly down the goddam street. Shoulders square. Belly sucked in. Thirty-nine years old. Prime of life. Strong as an—what did they say, strong as an ox? Yes. Ox. Ox. Opportunity beckons you. A second trip, a second start. The bad dream is over; now you’re awake. Step. Step. What about your arms? Let them swing? Hands in pockets? Don’t worry about that, just go on walking. Let the arms look after themselves. You’ll get the hang of it. You’re out on the street, you’re free, you’ve been rehabilitated. On your way to pick up your job assignment. Your new career. Your new life. Step. Step.

One-and-two-and-
one
-and-two.

He couldn’t avoid the feeling that everybody was looking at him. That was probably normal too, the little touch of paranoia. After all, he had the Rehab badge in his lapel, the glittering bit of yellow metal advertising his status as a reconstruct job. The image of the new shoots rising from the old stump, warning everybody who had known him in the old days to be tactful. No one was supposed to greet him by his former name. No one was supposed to acknowledge the existence of his past. The Rehab badge was intended as a mercy, as a protection against the prodding of absent memories. But of course it attracted attention too. People looked at him—absolute strangers, so far as he knew, though he couldn’t be sure—people looked and wondered, Who is this guy, what did he do that got him sentenced to Rehab? The triple ax murderer. Raped a nine-year-old with pinking shears. Embezzled ten million. Poisoned six old ladies for their heirlooms. Dynamited the Chartres Cathedral. All those eyes on him, speculating. Imagining his sins. The badge warned them he was something special.

There was no place to hide from those eyes. Macy moved all the way over to the curb and walked just along the edge. Right inside the strip of gleaming red metal ribbon that was embedded in the pavement, the stuff that flashed the magnetic pulses that kept autos from going out of control and jumping up on the sidewalk. It was no good here either. He imagined that the drivers zipping by were leaning out to stare at him. Crossing the pavement on an inward diagonal, he found another route for himself, hugging the sides of buildings. That’s right, Macy, skulk along. Keep one shoulder higher than the other and try to fool yourself into thinking that it shields your face. Hunch your head. Jack the Ripper out for a stroll. Nobody’s looking at you. This is New York, remember? You could walk down the street with your dong out of your pants and who’d notice? Not here. This city is full of Rehabs. Why should anybody care about you and your sordid eradicated past? Cut the paranoia, Paul.

Paul.

That was a hard part too. The new name.
I am Paul Macy.
A sweet compact name. Who dreamed that one up? Is there a computer down in the guts of the earth that fits syllables together and makes up new names for the Rehab boys?
Paul Macy.
Not bad. They could have told me I was Dragomir Slivovitz. Izzy Levine. Leroy Rastus Williams. But instead they came up with Paul Macy. I suppose for the holovision job. You need a name like that for the networks.
“Good evening, this is Dragomir Slivovitz, bringing you the eleven-o’clock news. Speaking from his weekend retreat at the Lunar White House, the President declared—”
No. They had coined the right kind of name for his new career. Very fucking Anglo-Saxon.

Suddenly he felt a great need to see the face he was wearing. He couldn’t remember what he looked like. Coming to an abrupt stop, he turned to his left and picked his reflection off the mirror-bright pilaster beside an office building’s entrance. He caught the image of a wide-cheeked, thin-lipped, standard sort of Anglo-Saxon face, with a big chin and a lot of soft windblown yellow-brown hair and deep-set pale-blue eyes. No beard, no mustache. The face seemed strong, a little bland, decently proportioned, and wholly unfamiliar. He was surprised to see how relaxed he looked: no tension lines in the forehead, no scowl, no harshness of the eyes. Macy absorbed all this in a fraction of a second; then whoever had been walking behind him, caught short by his sudden halt, crashed into his side and shoulder. He whirled. A girl. His hand went quickly to her elbow, steadying her. More her fault than his: she ought to look where she’s going. Yet he felt guilty. “I’m terribly sor—”

“Nat,” she said. “Nat Hamlin, for God’s sake!”

Someone was slipping a long cold needle into his eye. Under the lid, very very delicately done, up and up and around the top of the eyeball, past the tangled ropes of the nerves, and on into his brain. The needle had some sort of extension; it seemed to expand telescopically, sliding through the wrinkled furrowed folded mass of soft tissue, skewering him from forehead to skullcap. A tiny blaze of sparkling light wherever the tip of the needle touched. Ah, so, ve cut out dis, und den ve isolate dis, and ve chop here a little, ja, ja, ist gut! And the pain. Oh, Christ, the pain, the pain, the pain, the fire running down every neuron and jumping every synapse, the pain! Like having a thousand teeth pulled all at once. They said it absolutely wouldn’t hurt at all. Those lying fuckers.

They had taught him how to handle a situation like this. He had to be polite but firm. Politely but firmly he said, “I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. My name’s Paul Macy.”

The girl had recovered from the shock of their collision. She took a couple of steps back and studied him carefully. He and she now constituted an encapsulated pocket of stasis on the busy sidewalk; people were flowing smoothly around them. She was tall and slender, with long straight red hair, troubled green eyes, fine features. A light dusting of freckles on the bridge of her nose. Full lips. No makeup. She wore a scruffy blue-checked spring coat. She looked as if she hadn’t been sleeping well lately. He guessed she was in her late twenties. Very pale. Attractive in a tired, frayed way. She said, “Don’t play around with me. I know you’re Nat Hamlin. You’re looking good, Nat.”

Each time she said the name he felt the needles wiggle behind his eyeballs.

“Macy. Paul Macy.”

“I don’t like this game. It’s a cruel one, Nat. Where have you been? What is it, five years?”

“Won’t you please try to understand?” he asked. He glanced meaningfully at his Rehab badge. Her eyes didn’t follow his.

“I understand that you’re trying to hurt me, Nat. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“I don’t know you at all, miss.”

“You don’t know me at all. You don’t know me at all.”

“I don’t know you at all. Right.”

“Lissa Moore.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What kind of trip are you on, Nat?”

“My second one,” Macy said.

“Your—second—one?”

He touched the badge. This time she saw it.

“Rehab?” she said. Blinking a couple of times: obviously adjusting her frame of reference. Color in her cheeks now. Biting her lip, abashed.

He nodded. “I’ve just come out. Now do you understand? I don’t know you. I never did.”

“Christ,” she said. “We had such good times, Nat.”

“Paul.”

“How can I call you that?”

“It’s my name now.”

“We had such good times,” she said. “Before you went away. Before I came apart. I’m not working much now, you know. It’s been pretty bad.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her, shifting his weight uneasily. “It really isn’t good for me to spend much time with people from my first trip. Or any time at all with them, actually.”

“You don’t want to go somewhere and talk?”

“I can’t. I mustn’t.”

“Maybe some other time?” she asked. “When you’re a little more accustomed to things?”

“I’m afraid not,” he said. Firmly but politely. “The whole point is that I’ve made a total break with the past, and I mustn’t try to repair that break, or let anyone repair it for me. I’m on an entirely new trip now, can you see that?”

“I can see it,” she murmured, “but I don’t want it. I’m having a lot of trouble these days, and you can help me, Nat. If only—”

“
Paul.
And I’m not in any shape for helping anybody. I can barely help myself. Look at how my hand is shaking.”

“And you’ve started to sweat. Your forehead’s all wet.”

“There’s a tremendous strain. I’m conditioned to keep away from people out of the past.”

“It kills me when you say that.
People out of the past.
Like a guillotine coming down. You loved me. And I loved you. Love. Still. Love. So when you say—”

“Please.”

“You, please.” She was trembling, hanging onto his sleeve. Her eyes, going glassy, flitted and flickered a thousand times a second. “Let’s go somewhere for a drink, for a smoke, for a talk. I realize about the Rehab thing, but I need you too much. Please. Please.”

“I can’t.”

“Please.”
And she leaned toward him, her fingertips clutching hard into the bones of his right wrist, and he felt a baffling sensation in the top of his skull. A sort of intrusion. A tickling. A mild glow of heat Along with it came a disturbing blurring of identity, a doubling of self, so that for a moment he was knocked free of his moorings. Paul Hamlin. Nat Macy. In the core of his mind erupted a vivid scene in garish colors: himself crouched over some sort of keyboard, and this girl standing naked on the far side of a cluttered room with her hands pressed to her cheeks.
Scream,
he was saying.
Go on, Lissa, scream. Give us a good one.
The image faded. He was back on a street in Manhattan North, but he was having trouble seeing, everything out of focus and getting more bleary each second. His legs were wobbly. A spike of pain under his breastbone. Maybe a heart attack, even. “Please,” the girl was saying. “Don’t turn me away, Nat Nat, what’s happening? Your face is so red!”

“The conditioning—” he said, gasping.

The pressure eased. The girl backed away from him, touching the tips of her knuckles to her lips. As the distance between them increased he felt better. He clung to the side of the building with one hand and made a little shooing gesture at her with the other. Go on. Away. Out of my life. Whoever you were, there’s no room now. She nodded. She continued to back away. He had a last brief glimpse of her tense, puffy-eyed face, and then she was cut off from him by a stream of people. Is this what it’s going to be like every time I meet somebody from the old days? But maybe the others won’t be like that. They’ll respect my badge and pass silently on. Give me a chance to rebuild. It’s only fair. She wasn’t being fair. Neurotic bitch, putting her troubles above mine. Help me, she kept saying. Please. Please, Nat. As if I could help anybody.

Twenty minutes later he arrived at the network office. Ten minutes overdue, but that was unavoidable. He had needed some time to recover after the encounter with the girl on the street. Let the adrenalin drain out of the system, let the sweat dry. It was important for him to present an unruffled exterior; more important, in fact, than showing up on time the first day. The network people were probably prepared to be tolerant of a little unpunctuality at first, considering all that he had been through. But he had to demonstrate that he had the professional qualities the job demanded. They were hiring him as an act of grace, yes, but it wasn’t pure charity: he wouldn’t have been accepted if he hadn’t been suitable for the job. So he needed to show that he had the surface slickness, the smoothness, that a holovision commentator had to have. Pause to catch the breath. Get the hair tidy. Adjust the collar. Give yourself that seamless, sprayed-on look. You had a nasty shock or two in the street, but now you’re feeling much better. All right. Now go in. A confident stride. One-and-two-and-
one
-and-two.