“I will be fifty-three. We can party together.”
“Did
you do that Men’s Movement thing when you were young? Like my dad did?”
“Nah. Only old farts did that, no offense intended, Esalen survivors with pot bellies and caftans. I had long hair in a pony tail, and was a vegetarian. I refused to learn to fix my car because it was a guy thing, and I wasn’t going to make the error of being a guy. And unlike most of the old farts, I always liked women too—liked women and men the same amount, I mean.”
“Why did you become a cop?”
“I thought I could do some good.” He shook his head. “Really. I overestimated myself and the police force, and underestimated my dislike for public service.”
“That must be why you ended up in CSIS.” She smiled to show she was kidding, and offered him more tea. His was still undrunk. He picked up the piece of lemon she had already used. When little juice squeezed out, he dropped the whole thing into the cup, watched as the tea cleared.
“No, I ended up in CSIS because I took sides in the war.”
He meant, again, the have/have-not war. She thought of the Leonard Cohen song her parents used to play:
There is a war between the rich and poor, a war between the man and the woman. There is a war between the wrong and right, a war between the left and right, a war between the odd and the even
…
She sang it to him, and he nodded.
“What side did you take?” she asked.
“Do you need to ask? I am sitting here in your kitchen.”
“Still thinking you can do some good.”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, well,” she said. “Have some more tea.”
Morgan stood sputtering in the center of the pool, having just regained her feet at the drop-off to the deep end, and watched Blue climb the high-diving tower.
“It’s not that bad, dear,” said Flora. “Let’s do it again.”
“I’m watching Blue,” said Morgan.
“Amazing, isn’t it, how fast she learns?”
“She? Oh, Blue. Yes, I’m envious. I still rather nostalgically think of these sessions as swimming lessons. They should be called Blue’s tryouts for the Olympics.”
“Don’t worry, dear. You’ll catch on. Blue’s just a fast learner. Remember, she learned fast when she was first here, and she seems to be …”
“Built for speed?”
Flora laughed. “I guess you could say that. Come on, let’s try again. This time, try not to gasp with surprise when you hit the water, okay?”
Morgan laughed and tried another inadvertent cannonball, this time without choking herself. When she surfaced, Blue was bobbing beside her.
“Swimming is fun,” said Blue. “I like it as much as dancing.”
“Are you learning a lot?”
“I learned more since Jakob let me—dream him.”
“What does that mean?” Morgan trod water rather desperately.
“You are not doing that very well. Do you want me to help you?”
“No! What are you talking about, ‘dream him’? What do you do?”
“He sleeps, I dream, things change. I like it.” Blue swan to the edge and got out, using those deceptively slender arms to push on the edge and leaping out of the pool in one almost-splashless ascent.
Morgan had worked harder than usual that day, and panted as she did a laborious push-up on the edge, then doubled over and rolled onto the deck. She lay there with the water draining away from her. “So that’s where you are spending all these nights, up in the studio.”
Blue shook like a dog then flopped down beside her and imitated her spreadeagled pose. “It’s interesting. After this, I’d like to learn music, please.”
“You have learned a lot of music.”
“How to create music.”
“How? Singing? Playing an instrument? Your days are pretty full already.”
“I liked when we had that singing. I could do that anywhere. Even when I go back, I could sing even if I couldn’t take anything with me to play on.”
Morgan turned her head just enough to see the shadow of her own profile, cast by the strong lights of the indoor pool, and the serene face of the blue alien, who under these lights was a remarkable color of light plum. Her heart seemed to drain out of her with the water that suddenly released from her ears and ran down her neck.
The stinging in her eyes had to be the water purification chemistry, she thought angrily, ignoring her knowledge that this pool had a sonic purification system and that the water they swam in was like some pure tropical lake.
She had forgotten that the alien would be going home. She had forgotten. For weeks, she had not thought of it once.
Morgan floats in her own thoughts like a body in free fall. Because the body is not real, it is free. There in perfect balance between all the gravitational pulls in the universe, there is peace.
Morgan sleeps the dream of freedom. She wakes to the world, where every dream turns into something else before it can come true. She dreams that her mother is alive, but all she gets for that is an ache where she thinks her heart used to be. She dreams that her heart should not feel, but for that the pain becomes more acute, then fades to be replaced by love.
Love is worth feeling, she
thinks,
but love erodes into pain. There is a functional relationship there
, she thinks.
If I could come to a perfect balance between those two, in free fall in the space of the heart
. The conceit overwhelms her until she has to laugh at her own self/ consciousness.
Morgan dreams she awakens in free fall. But she awakens with a bump of gravity reasserting itself, into the world.
“Promiscuity is unfashionable,” said John.
“So is, so is video art,” said Aziz, and at the same moment “Un
fashion
able?” said Jakob, and Russ laughed. Morgan, watching them from the kitchen doorway, thought suddenly,
we laugh at everything John says
. The thought had menace running in background: why?
Perhaps
, she thought,
because he is not mascot material, and we laugh not in amusement but in defusement.
“Promiscuity is mythical,” Delany said. “People fuck other people—”
“—make love—” said Aziz.
“—or make love, or whatever, for all sorts of real reasons. Promiscuity is one of those garbage words that people use to trash others.”
“Pun unintended?” said Morgan.
“It’s one of those words that really only means,
what I do is better than what you do
. You know, I have meaningful relationships, you’re promiscuous. I have an agenda, you have obsessions. I’m part of a community of interest, you’re a special-interest group.”
“I’m an artist, you’re an artisan—” Jakob.
“—a craftsperson—” Russ.
“—a dilettante—” Aziz.
“—a hobbyist?” Blue.
“—a flake—” Morgan.
“Yeah. Just like that.”
“So what?” said John. “Some people
are
better than others. Not by privilege, but by individual variation. Some people are smarter, more moral, more co-ordinated, more talented …”
“But we assume that the rights inherent in being born in the world are equal, and we leave room for people to do different things within that sphere of tolerance,” said Russ.
“Do we?” said John. “I don’t.”
“Which is exactly why you won’t do your share of the dishes,” said Delany. “You assume you are better, and don’t have to.”
Again the laughter and teasing catcalls, and again, to Morgan, the tone seemed tainted. She said, “But there is something new in every equation here, I think, whether it is an ideology of equals or does-not-equal, and that’s Blue and Blue’s source people. Once Blue returns to what our Mr. Grey stubbornly calls the ‘mothership’, the loop of contact has been widened. We are talking with people who are entirely new.”
“Assuming they are people,” said Jakob, while Blue watched with sharpened alertness. “Could be like a hive mind, or AI, or some kind of rocks. How do we know? Blue is
made
, not …”
“Not bespoke?”
“Too much old-fashioned sci-fi TV,” said Delany. “Makes for right-wing ideology, bad sociology, and wrong science. I should know.”
John was always uncomfortable with mention of Delany’s previous science career. “Nothing wrong with TV,” he said.
“Nothing that a brain-cell transplant couldn’t cure,” said Jakob disdainfully, and John glared at him. “Fine, fine, I’m sony,” said Jakob, “I like your stuff, but that isn’t commercial TV either, is it? Any more than my stuff is mainstream dance. You are out of the norm whether you like the idea or not.”
“I am just ahead of the norm,” said John, “but I will set the standard, that I can tell you. I am not doing anything far out with corn flakes and ‘happenings’ like your folks did when they were young.”
“I’m sorry I told you that story,” said Jakob angrily. “My folks were trying to figure out how to wake up a dead-from-the-assboth-ways populace. A few cornflakes in the machinery may have seemed like a good idea in 1969 or whenever it was. People need a kick in the ass these days too. How many decades, and how many social changes since then? And now it’s all been revoked; it hasn’t made a fucking bit of difference.”
“So, so strange the way you, you guys talk,” said Aziz. “Like old movies.”
“Yeah,
My Dinner with André
,” said Morgan, but nobody knew it. “Too old,” she said, grinning.
“I’ll look it up,” said John, and she was sure he would, and would see himself as André, the talkative and egocentric one. She wondered aloud to Blue, when the others had scattered, whether John would soon be adding his own monologues to his documentary.
Sure enough, a few days later, John thanked her for the tip, and told her about the voice-over commentary he was now planning. “I’ll keep the footage of you others,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be derivative.”
“No, I can see that,” said Morgan, but afterward she said to Blue, “Didn’t I tell you?”
“You told me,” said Blue. “I want to know how I can come to read people like that. Like you do.”
“We say, ‘read people like a book’,” said Morgan. “And the answer is, there is no answer. Learn as much as you can, including about empathy, and do your best. It’s one of the human difficulties.”
“John, you are consistently rude to Jakob. If it keeps up, I’ll have to give you your notice.” She looked up from the easy chair where she had placed herself to wait for him to come in.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. This is Jakob’s home. He doesn’t need to face bigotry here as well as in the world.”
“Maybe we just don’t get along.”
“Maybe you don’t get along with anyone gay.”
“You knew I had a hard time with homosexuality when I moved in. I told you that, and you brought him in anyway. I mean, brought me in.”
“No, what you told me was that you were working to overcome your homophobia, and that you thought a diverse group of roommates would be good for you. As far as I can see, you aren’t working to overcome
any
of your flaws.”
He shifted before her, moving the camera bag from one shoulder to the other, not looking at her. “Like what else?”
“Like, doing your share of the scut work around here. Like not leaving your messes for others to clean up. Like paying your rent on time. We’ve talked about all this before.”
“It’s not like you’re suffering for the money.”
“Actually, I am, but that isn’t the point. The point is that you are slacking off
and
getting up our noses. We can get a better roommate than that. There is actually a line-up, even if you discount the thrill-seekers. Remember what I told you. This is your second formal warning. One more, and you’re history.”
“You can’t kick me out. My documentary isn’t done!”
Morgan almost laughed, but she knew he would think she wasn’t serious if she did, so she went to tough-cop instead. “Unless you clean up your act, watch me.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll do my best. Just tell me what I’m supposed to do, and I’ll do it.”
“I just told you. And it isn’t the first time. You have a very selective memory. Maybe you should record this, play it back when you get confused.”
“Well, aside from Jakob. Like, be specific.”
“Okay,
like
, if you see a mess, clean it up. If you come to the dryer and someone else’s stuff is still in it, fold the stuff. If you come to the washer and someone else’s stuff is still in it, put it in the dryer or hang it up. If you come to the sink with dirty dishes, wash them and whatever other dishes are there. Clean the bathroom every week. Clean the shower after you use it. Hang up your towels. We’ve been through this before. It’s not rocket science.”
“What if it’s not my turn?”