Your Face in Mine (31 page)

Answer the question.

We’d never acknowledge you. It wouldn’t even
help
, for our purposes.

Answer the question.

You want us to be in the Rolodex of every cartel leader, every
norteño
,
every oligarch Putin’s sick of, every minor Al-Qaeda honcho, every spare yakuza and sick sub-Saharan dictator with a billion in IMF dollars in the bank? Because that’s going to be the result. Word gets out. Why would we agree to that? We’re trying to get
out
of the gray market.

Answer the question.

Yeah. okay. It’ll be easy. Silpa’s ready. The facial surgery—the epicanthus, the eye shaping, a little work on the lips—it’s pretty straightforward, actually. Even the pigmentation. He’s been doing experiments on mice for years. Carotenoids. You wouldn’t believe it. I mean, it really does turn
yellow
. But look. I’m telling you. Just because Einstein said it was possible doesn’t mean they should have built the atomic bomb. It’s not for you. I’m
telling
you it’s not for you. He should never have said anything.

Who are you, Martin? I wish I could ask him. And were the tears real? For a moment he seems to shimmer in the air in front of me, like a cheap hologram in a Seventies movie. Friend, comrade, nemesis, exploiter? He licks his lips and looks over his shoulder at Mai. What can money do if it can’t smooth over life’s little inconsistencies?

Martin, I say, Silpa didn’t say anything. Julie-nah did.

I’ve caught him at a pensive moment, looking over my shoulder, elbows on his knees, cradling an invisible globe in the webwork of his fingers. And there he stays. As still as a photograph. As wax. For the longest increment possible he doesn’t even blink, his nostrils don’t flare.

And now, he says finally, his eyes still raised beyond mine, still in the same disembodied position. Now what, Kelly? Now you get to call me a big fat liar?

Martin, I say, my tongue grown thick and dry, a foreign object, a giant’s fat digit resting in my throat. You’re still my friend. I’d like to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Really.

Or, I should say, I
would
have. If I didn’t know about Northern State.

He stares at me for a moment, a Yul Brynner stare, his eyes bubbling out of his skull, and then erupts in a belly laugh. Lord God, he says, wiping away tears again. You called in the cavalry. That’s more than I ever gave you credit for. Good one, Kelly. But just so you know: Silpa’s already aware of my checkered past. Everyone is. Just in case you thought you had one up on me.

So you saved the lies for your biographer.

Oh, come on. I never told you those tapes were the whole story.

And what am I supposed to do, draw up a list? Fact-check every single assertion? I mean, did you ever sell drugs at all? For example?

There’s no time to go back into that now, he says. You know the line
the only real crimes are the ones that are never punished
?
Let’s just put it that way. Anyway, my record was expunged. Thanks to the state of Vermont and its benevolence toward first-time offenders. Though I guess a P.I. can still track it down. There are always gaps that have to be plugged. Look, is this enough? You’ve had your adventure. I take it that now that you’ve exposed me we should be buying you a ticket home.

Exposed me? I want to ask him. Is this what exposure looks like? Should I tell him how close I was, just last night, to breaking the egg of his life wide open, with sixteen keystrokes? Martin is the proof. We could make a pact of mutually assured destruction. But for what? I want a new life, not détente. I want this to be over.

No, I say. I’m staying. The air seems to be crackling, with a smell of ozone. I’m taking your invitation.

Behind me, the bowl clinks on the kitchen counter, and the bathroom door closes. Martin’s face works against itself at angles, assembling three or four different expressions at once.

You know what Alan told me once? I say.
You only have one chance to get it right in life.
Well, what did he know? Just because I had a happy childhood doesn’t mean I’m preserved in amber. I can change, too. I can be broken and remade.

That’s very poetic, he says. But what’s your plan? Once it all comes out, where will you be? In China? Has Silpa worked this out yet?

Where did all the tension go? The air in the room has shifted, cooled, but Martin hasn’t moved. How did that revelation pass so quickly? He flexes his shoulders and gives a magnanimous hand wave. Look, he says, Kelly, I love you, but you’ll have to make up your own mind. Frankly, I’m on to other things. Silpa will have to run this end of the business once I get started.

What are you talking about?

I’m talking about
the plan
. What does all this lead up to? Where does it lead?

I have to laugh. How has it never occurred to me to ask this question?

To a lot of money for all involved, I say. And what else? Fame? Satisfaction? Progress? Revenge?

No, he says. No. Straight back to Baltimore. The CBT. The Center for Black Transformation. Remember when you schlepped me over to Annapolis, that time? We’ve got state biomedical development grants. We’ve got empowerment zones. We’ve got the world’s best surgeons. And by god, if there’s one thing Baltimore’s got, it’s blackness. We’ve got dialect coaches. We’ve got homestays. We’ve got yearlong immersion experiences. We’ll give cooking lessons and run in-house gospel services, if it comes to that. You have no idea the number of people—the Germans, the Danes, the Norwegians, the Japanese, the Saudis, the Pakistani rich kids from Lahore—who are already lining up. Black culture is global now. There’s hip-hop in a hundred different languages. Listen, for me Orchid is just a means to an end. I’m looking at it from a business perspective. Will it be a franchise model? Will I have to buy
Silpa out? We’ll work out the details. Important thing is, I have a brand to cultivate. Baltimore. New Black City. This is the real prosperity gospel.

You weren’t going to fill me in on this? Kind of a crucial detail, isn’t it?

No, no, no. You have to do things in the right order. That’s the whole thing. You’ve got to have a business
mind
. He karate-chops his palm. First, the book. The exposure. The rollout. The press conferences. The talk shows. The scandals, the outrage, the magazine covers.
I’m Martin Lipkin, and this is my story. This is my journey.
No one can argue with that. Then, and only then, you start in on the plan.
I want to share this opportunity with people in need.
The trans-R community. You get a few psychiatrists on board. You get the APA’s approval. In the meantime all the work is happening offshore. Bangkok. Maybe some satellite offices, just to keep up with demand. Johannesburg. Estonia. São Paulo. Finally, you get a diagnosis code. Manna from heaven! Then the American insurers will start paying up. Licensure’s a breeze after that. All that time you’re working the Internet to bring up demand. Support groups, demands for recognition, all that kind of nonsense. Get the local leaders on board. Make it a pride thing. An economic-development thing. Listen, am I saying it’s going to be easy? Hell, no. It’s going to be a lifetime. That’s what an investment is. The real payoff is all in the patents, anyway. Once all this business goes public we start looking for a major drug company to license Melanotide production. And all the subsidiary patents, too: the synthetic cartilage, the injectable silicone for the eyelids. Silpa’s sitting on a cool billion or two just in intellectual property. And I’ve got a stake in all of that. Ultimately, I get paid whether Baltimore works or not. But that’s all academic. It’s
going
to work.

He stops and stares at me.

I don’t care what Julie-nah told you, he says. It wasn’t about recruitment. Yeah, maybe once upon a time I thought that was a bright idea. A little synergy. But it isn’t for you. You still want my opinion? Leave.
Take the money and go. What did I want out of you? Honestly, I don’t even know anymore. I’m sorry. I saw you that day and I thought—

—as a tribute—

—as a debt to be repaid—

—our lives were so bound up together, once. Doesn’t that mean anything? There has to be a way of distinguishing that from the profit motive.

No, no. No. Don’t separate money and happiness. That’s the guilty liberal in you speaking. Don’t act as if it has to be a tradeoff. You
can
have everything. Haven’t you heard anything I’ve been trying to tell you? Everywhere you look in life there might be an open door in your peripheral vision.
That’s
what you should take from this. Want to get the surgery? Fine. Want to go back to Baltimore? Fine. Whatever it is, be your own boss. Make your own life. Pay your own way.

I’m beginning to feel something. What is it? Was there something in the tea this morning, the tea Julie-nah brought up from downstairs? An enormous hot ball of honeyed light pushing its way up and through my rib cage. Could it be that this is what feeling feels like? It tastes like anger, but it’s not anger. A spasm of horror over all that wasted time. He planned it all, of course; he choreographed it like Diaghilev. Someday I’ll do the same. Maybe even to him.

This, I think, is what they call a win-win.

I’m doing it, I say. Look out, Martin. I’m going to surprise you.

You ready to be a self-made man?

I’m all in, I say. The cliché doesn’t stumble across my teeth the way I thought it would. I have to get used to clichés now, I’m thinking. Trafficking in them. Fortunes rise and fall that way.

Well, then—he looks at me with a rueful smile. What can I say? He holds out his hand, and when I take it, I feel something hard in the palm: a little rectangle, a hard stub, the thickness of two sticks of gum. I move it to my pocket: a flash drive. Welcome aboard, man, he says. Welcome aboard.

HUE, INC.

(Formerly Orchid Group, Ltd)

5-Y
EAR
S
TRATEGIC
P
LAN
AND
M
ARKET
A
SSESSMENT

HUE is on the leading edge of the most exciting health and lifestyle technology of the twenty-first century: high-impact, permanent physical redesign of the body based on desirable ethnic characteristics. Using a combination of existing procedures and new patented and patent-pending technologies, HUE is positioned to be the first company in the field to offer a streamlined, comprehensive, globally marketed treatment for clients seeking a markedly different physical appearance. Based in Bangkok, Thailand, already a highly desirable destination for aesthetic surgery, we offer a complete personal-transformation experience, including five-star-level housing at a private villa, private consultations with the surgeon (a leading researcher in the field) and support staff from around the world, and assistance
with the legal, financial, and psychological aspects of VIT (visual identity transition).

Why is HUE a wise investment for brokers and individuals seeking to diversify a global technology/emerging technology portfolio? According to an article in
Bloomberg News
, July 3, 2011, “cosmetic surgery is poised to reach parity with cosmetics in overall consumer spending by 2020.” However, because of traditional restrictions on physicians and health corporations operating internationally, no large market player has emerged to represent this industry in the global economy. Indeed, most cosmetic surgeons still operate in individual practices in most major markets, including the United States, the UK, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Thailand, Korea, and South Africa.

Thanks to the foresight of our founder, Binpheloung Silpasuvan, HUE has the intellectual property protection to consolidate development of these new technologies under one corporate entity. Simply put, HUE owns the rights to a variety of treatments and pharmaceutical compounds essential to our key procedures, such as permanent skin alteration (PSA) and augmented rhinoplasty (AR). These processes can obtain breathtaking results—just look at the enclosed photos. In Dr. Silpasuvan’s own words, “We are witnessing a major shift in the potential for altering our individual self-image. No longer are we restricted to the ethnic identity or physiognomy we were born with. For a variety of reasons, under a variety of conditions, a person may choose the visual appearance that answers their deepest psychic needs or the circumstances of their present life. Virtually any transformation is possible. [HUE] is poised to become an international brand synonymous with these permanent and life-changing acts.”

How large a market are we talking about? Consider these statistics: in a survey conducted in 2011, 21% of adults 18–30 in South Korea said
they had had cosmetic surgery and 83% said they had considered or planned cosmetic surgery in the next five years. Virtually all of these surgeries involve alterations to the epicanthal fold of the upper eye, a procedure that, according to sociologist Ju-nah Park, “is strongly associated, in visual-association tests, with European beauty standards.” In South and East Asia, according to a 2006 study by the Economist Intelligence Unit, nearly $3 billion USD is spent annually on products and procedures designed to lighten the skin—despite the fact that virtually all of these products have limited efficacy and some carry well-known health risks. According to HUE’s own analysis (Appendix A) the potential global market for VIT might eventually reach as high as $10–15 billion.

What are the ethical and legal issues involved? As with any emerging health technology, VIT poses a number of concerns that will inevitably arise once HUE makes its debut as a public entity. At the same time, we must be aware that, just as norms of beauty can vary widely among cultures, each culture holds distinct views about the limits of permissible body modification. These views and norms are also subject to increasingly rapid shifts and developments, due to the globalization of visual culture. HUE is invested in strategic development for cultural scalability. Drawing on the latest market research and sociological surveys, our sales force will be able to target products at an emerging consensus model of beauty in a highly homogeneous marketplace (Italy or South Korea) or offer a more customizable, customer-centered experience for customers in a more diverse, trend-driven market or submarket (Tokyo or Los Angeles).

At the same time, we intend to use partnerships in the medical and bioethical community to develop a rationale for Racial Dysphoria as a psychiatric diagnosis. Over time (particularly with inclusion in the DSM and other diagnostic authorities) this opens the possibility for
VIT as a covered, insured condition, removing barriers to affordability throughout the industrialized world. This two-pronged approach will allow HUE to drive the market from both ends, as a provider of both residential complete identity transition (a process which takes at least a year) and discrete, targeted outpatient treatments where smaller modifications may produce the desired result.

Our corporate mission is to create value for our shareholders by offering consistent, high-quality results while aggressively expanding our customer base. We have been highly successful at attracting the seed capital that has brought us to this level. At this point we are looking for large-stake investors to help us expand our operations in Thailand and develop PR and customer service operations for the North American, European, Middle Eastern and East Asian markets. Interested investors should contact Martin Wilkinson at [email protected] or 011-410-435-4567.

HUE is
The World’s New Spectrum
.
Come grow with us.

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