Authors: Jack Womack
"A separateness, first," I said. "A trial alone, maybe not
forever. If we change we can reappraise, but not for a while.
Are you hearing me?"
"Yes," he said, his face so unpassioned that as he spoke he
lipstilled, and appeared to have been dubbed. "Why, Iz?"
"We're beached as we are," I said. "You're disbelieving me. I'm fearing your actions. There's no escaping our jobs
and their effect. It's tearing me to see what you're doing to
yourself, what we're doing to ourselves-"
"It's deserved-"
"It's not," I said. "I'll talk to you daily, I will. I know I'm
hurting you, but you've brought much on yourself. And
that's killing me, John. It's unbearable and I can't help
you-
"You've tried," he said. "You don't see how you help me,
that's all. You're what keeps me living against reason."
"What I'm seeing's killing me," I said. "Killing me against
reason. We have to split, John. You go your way, I go
mine-"
"Our way," he said. "I don't want divorce, Iz. I want you."
"Same," I told him; told him in truth.
"Then can't we-"
"Time to ourselves essentials. It's impossibled as matters
stand. You're untrusting me and I'm watching you rot.
We're imploding and time only waits until we blow apart."
My husband sat on the bed's edge, his reinstatement papers loose in his grip. As I looked his way I thought anew of
our time together, its troubles and blessings. Mayhap I
should have heeded what Judy told me, years before; but
there was no regretting what we'd had, only what it came to.
I wondered, idly, if I looked so old as John suddenly did. "I'll
do as desired, then," he said, adjusting his knee so that he
could stand sans danger of falling. "Forgive, Iz."
"Forgiven," I said. "Let's earplay it, John. We're not disconnected, after all. Only driven apart. When we parent-"
"If we parent," he said. "This is such a world, Iz. Should
we assist in its continuance?"
"Yes," I said, uncertain why; knowing it, all the same. "It's
our baby..." He lowered his head; walked over to the closet.
"My baby."
"Yours," he said, slipping on his jacket. "I'll lowroad tonight. The office has space to house me, now that I'm al lowed to return. I'll come back at morningside to collect my
goods, once you've left-"
"If that's preferred." He nodded. "Forgive, John. It's impossibled, any other way."
"Naught to forgive," he said. "It's as it is."
"You'll not hurt yourself," I said. "Please don't ..."
He shook his head, and smiled. "You'll know when time
comes, Iz. We'll both know."
Walking over to me, he leaned forward and kissed my
forehead, shadowing me as his body eclipsed the bedlamp's
light. "John," I said, "the evening before I blinded. Where
had you been?"
"Walking, as told," he said, fixing his eyes on our door as
he readied to leave; seeming to stare at the circle of scars left
in its wood. His fruitbag's twist-tie protruded from his
pocket.
"What did you do, while walking?"
"Nothing unpredictable," he said, exiting into the hall.
John was so accomplished at gansering as E. When I asked,
had I wanted truth? For reasons I preferred not to specify I
was as glad he hadn't told me. "Good night, Iz."
"Good night." I waited until I heard our apartment door
close and lock behind him before releasing; even afterward,
once he was gone, I could only impress tears, and not truly
cry them. Our break accomplished with such wicked ease;
however relieved I was to do it, I'd have never imagined that
disposing of so many years could be so matterfactly done.
For hours that evening I lay awake, more conscious of presence than of absence; thinking of what had been pulled
from my head, wondering how long I could retain what still
remained within my womb.
"What you'll see will fascinate, I'm certain," Leverett said as
we drove into Manhattan the next morning. He sat in the
jumpseat facing us, appearing more keen to observe us than our too-familiar surroundings. "Lookabout, Elvis. Your first
trip heartways. This is New York as it was."
"As it is," I said. "There're inhabitants, still."
Leverett nodded; his smile so widened that I could number all his remaining teeth. "You could call them that."
Rivercrossing into Harlem, we southed on Fifth Avenue,
far from the more secure Broadway route along the West
Side's upper range that we'd taken during our training. E
windowgazed, peering through his ski-mask's slots; Leverett
insisted he incognito himself whenever he outed. We passed
burned-out projects and their surrounding mudflats, strewn
with long-lost residents' scattered belongings; fenced round
by torched Army PVs and graffitied bus-shells. Our driver
swerved us around holes larger than cavern-entrances, appearing deep enough to engulf trucks.
"People still live here?" E asked, staring at flames cornicing a brick cruciform slab on our left; the smoke blackened
the rain, inking our car as it fell.
"Many find it preferable," said Leverett. "Our company's
long tramped the live-and-let-live path."
A six-meter-high wall borderlined along 110th Street's
midst, separating zones no longer, in theory, existing. No
guards stopped us to ID as they once would have; razorwire
loosened by weather and years dangled down over the ingress, fingernailing our car roof as we scraped below their
rusted tangles. The driver, eyeing blockage ahead, wheeled
us onto the right sidewalk, steering our car between treestumps alongsiding the curb and the park's unclipped foliage. Part of Mt. Sinai's older facade had collapsed
streetways, cluttering the lanes. As we returned to the road
our driver braked, and we idled. Leverett neckcraned, and
eyed forward.
"What is it?" E asked, opening his window, thrusting his
ski-masked head outside. He drew it in as quickly. Gazing
windowways, looking past the driver, I saw rats cascading in
a writhing stream, flowing out of the park as if pipered, their pack bearing eastward down 100th; aiming river-ways, as if
they intended to lemming. Their chirp was so loud as a
birdflock; several minutes passed before all had cleared.
"They can't do nothin' 'bout rats?"
"They're needed here," Leverett said; gansered as he continued. "People have to eat."
Central Park's overgrowth cloaked the sidewalk below
96th; a frosting of wet trash overlay the deadleaved bushes,
branchbreaking beneath the weight. Across, on our left,
rainscarred apartments cliffsided the avenue: from some of
their dead eyes curtains fluttered flaglike as they breezed;
behind the lids of others light yet flickered, evidencing those
yet huddling against morning's dark.
"People still live in these places?" E asked.
"Elderlies, mostly," said Leverett. "They bedmade years
ago, and choose to lie there still. They're secured, to a degree."
"They got cops or somethin' watchin' out for 'em?"
"Of a sort. Here, you'll see what's meant. Good thing
traffic's light," Leverett said; ours was the only car visible
above 72nd Street. "Are we shielded, driver?"
"Tripleplated," the driver said.
"We'll be able to birdseye. Elvis, see that boy? No evidence
of deliveries, and it's apparent he's not tenanting there. A
miscreant, undoubted. Watch."
The youngster showed no more than teenage years as he
skulked along the gutters of 88th Street. After ascertaining
we possessed no direct authority he laid a bare foot upon the
curb. The ground windows of the nearest building opened;
E and I instincted, tossing ourselves floorways when their
guns began to fire. Bullets rang as hail against our car,
pattering so harmlessly as the soot-soaked rain. Rearising
once all quieted again, we spied through our rear window;
saw the boy's remains, a reddened bag appearing to have
been dropped from a jet.
"Residents code in at distance," Leverett said. "Years ago these protectives rendered guards as such superfluous, here.
The ur-regooding, as it were."
"What happens if you're just passin' by and get shot?" E
asked.
"You die, generally," said Leverett.
I reached across and patted E's hand; he pulled it away so
quickly as my husband might have. We passed the old Met,
emptied since its Bronx megalith opened the year before.
Ailanthus greensprouted between the steps, ivy overgrew the
marble walls; by decade's end the park would reclaim all
acreage once stolen for art.
"Why'd everbody leave?" E asked. "What happened?"
"There were problematic times," said Leverett. "Rough
weather, fore and aft. The troubles onwent for so long down
as to too well adjust the survivors to a nonregoodable mindset. The physical plant, too, was rotting. The subways are
flooded, the bridges falling down. Eye for yourself the look
of the roads. Mister Dryden commanded that we relocate
north before building afresh. Many thought him mad."
"He was mad-" I started to say.
"You lip, but Madam speaks," Leverett said. "Source consider, Isabel. I knew him. Many times we talked. Mister Dryden saw his world unblinkered, and acted accordingly to
make of it as he would. Few so capabled as he in recreating
existence to suit his dreams."
The old 59th Street wall was gone; the Plaza Hotel, onetime Home Army Midtown HQ, appeared moldstreaked as
its green wash peeled away from the brick. A dry fountain
stood before its boarded entrance; a dozen lay sleeping in
the bowl, blanketed by rain. The buildings passed facaded
thirty years of blasts' pockmarks; hundreds camped beneath
their scars, some boxed as if for storage. Smoke rising from
their fires thickened the clouded air, and as we bore south
our vehicle might have appeared as a vision to them, as if
while driving we'd Alekhined, or else chanced into a spot where time folded in on itself, moebiusing our car into their
present.
"You make people live like this?" E asked. "We wouldn't
treat-" Before saying what I was sure he would he paused,
so as not to blurt. "We wouldn't treat nobody this bad."
"Evidence infers that you did," Leverett said. "Unmat-
tered. They live like this. We let them live. That's a subtle but
clear distinction."
We righted at 50th, swinging wide to avoid fallen streetlights and a van overturned several months earlier. Dryco's
old block remained secured as before, although our company guards were supplanted by unregoodable Army boys.
I boiled, seeing their fat swaggers with eyes at once thirty
years younger; I felt myself swept into another timefold, and
again I was one of Washington Heights' myriad smaller
targets, fearful of moving between doorway and street while
the greenasses marched by. Lengths of printout tum-
bleweeded across our feet as we sidewalked ourselves and
approached the entranceway.
"It's emptied, I thought," I said to Leverett as he slid his
card through the entry-slot, unlocking the doors.
"Not entirely."
Our steps rang as multitudes' upon the lobby's unwaxed
floor as we moved toward the elevator. Neither AC nor
dehumidifier were on; the building stood dead, devoid of
circulatory rumbles, awaiting a delayed autopsy. Mildew
etched the lobby's murals with fresh, unexpected patterns.
Boarding, we ascended thirty-three flights; emerged, and
hailed ourselves into a long passageway, strolling between
rows of stacked desks.
"Yesterday I considered what you said," Leverett began,
unclarifying whether he worded us individually or as one.
"Informed opinions require a hear-out. Yours, sadly, lacks."
"Don't condescend, Leverett-"
"Forbid, forbid. What's meant is that your confusion's
understandable. How can decisions be reached, sans data?" He shrugged. "Badly, or not at all. So enlightenment necessitates before threat becomes action."
"Detail," I said.
"No action altruistics," Leverett said. "Years past I've
muted timeover, facing disagreement, if I saw a greater purpose served by cat-tonguing. Greater, that is, in being either
larger than oneself, or else most useful to oneself. As the
intent splits between selfishness and concern, so they shortly
curve round to meet at endturn. So when I hear your plaints
I empathize. Still, the wise realize that when subjugation's
moment comes, it shouldn't be missed."
"Where's this leading, Leverett-?"
"Dryco readies to lead society horizonways," he said. "A
bright future awaits. You're part of that future if you choose.
This project essentials for our future in that it enables us to
harness materiel previously untapped; it will enable us, I
should say, once the presentation is made. This project is
more than Dryco sole, Isabel, Elvis. My soul lifes it."
"Understood-"
"All hitherto has only been prep. The moment oncomes-
"You're rambling, Leverett," I said. "Concise it."
"Demands suit their place, Isabel," he said, proceeding;
we paced him. "As told, we were aware predeparture that
your return wasn't assured. We improved your odds there,
however little our efforts were appreciated. Certainly there
always existed the chance that you'd not find Elvis there,
once across." Leverett slapped E's back, almost unbalancing
him. "We readied a backup in event Plan A problematicked."
"What manner of backup?" I asked.
"The best available."
We reached the end of the hallway. Leverett fingertapped
the righthand wall; it opened before us, exposing an unfurnished room, its windows sealed against the world without as
if assuring the purity of those within. The room contained a single, centerpieced holding. E took my arm as he saw it; I
didn't note the bruises he'd left until that evening. "Close in.
He won't bite." A freezeframed E garbed in a white jumpsuit
greeted us, its hair and skin semblancing a greater genuineness than E's, its look so mirroring that it shocked me not to
see the thing breathing. The eyes resembled marbles in need
of dusting. "Touch him, Elvis."
"No," E said, backing away from his dupe, examining
himself as if to compare. "You stole me."