Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (32 page)

“Resign what?”

“Resign my position at Shipway & Whitman. Quit my job.”

“How do you mean, Nick?”

“I’m leaving. ‘Pursuing other interests,’ as they say. That’s all.”

“Nick, do you mind telling me where you’re going? What are they offering you? Jesus, Nick. We’ve known each other a long time. I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t have come in and discussed a thing like this with me first.” He seemed quite genuinely hurt. “I’d be the first to say that you’ve got to do whatever’s best for you,” he went on, “and I’m not saying we could necessarily match—”

“Roger, I’m not going anywhere else, and I haven’t been offered anything. I’m just leaving. If I ever do anything in the securities business again, you’ll be the first person I talk to. In fact, now that you mention it, I’d rather not resign at all. I’d rather request a leave of absence, if that’s all right.”

“Well, I suppose… Sure. Why not? … Nick, do you mind my asking why you’re suddenly doing this?”

“Roger … I’m honestly not sure how I ought to answer your question. It’s … There’ve been some fundamental changes in my life.”

“How do you mean, Nick? Maybe this is something we can work out.”

“Roger, I’m really not sure I’m ready to discuss it at this point.”

“Jesus, Nick. After all we’ve been through together… Is it something to do with the firm — or with me personally?”

“No, nothing like that, Roger. It would take too long to explain.”

“God knows I’ve got all the time in the world, Nick. Is it something personal? I mean, is there any financial difficulty? If there’s anything I—”

“Roger, it’s nothing that… Hell! Look, Roger, I’ll tell you what it is. I’ve suddenly broken through to a new spiritual dimension. I find myself unexpectedly on another plane of awareness, and I need to withdraw from material concerns for a time and reconsider my place in the celestial scheme.”

“Jesus, Nick. I had no idea you felt like that.”

“I didn’t Roger. This is all quite sudden.”

“You’re absolutely serious about—”

“Couldn’t be more serious. I’ll tell you, Roger. I had this experience the other day that really set me thinking. A sort of epiphany, slammed me right onto another spiritual plane. I was down in this place in New Jersey — MicroMagnetics—”

“It was in the papers. The place where they had the fire… I heard you were down there when—”

“I was right there, all right. Amazing thing. Changed my life, let me tell you. Just as the whole thing went up, I was standing there watching these two people in front of the building having a sort of dispute about worldly matters of some sort — commerce, politics, whatever — and suddenly, poof! All gone. A wisp of smoke, maybe. Set me thinking — that and other aspects of the incident. Completely changed my perspective on things. Which is why I feel I want to take some time off and take stock of the whole cosmic situation, if you follow me.”

“Jesus, Nick, take all the time you need. Get things squared away.”

“There is one thing you could do for me,” I said.

“Say the word, Nick.”

“I’d like to keep this quiet for a while. It’s kind of a private thing between me and the cosmos, if you follow me, so if you could just have them take messages for me and not say I’ve left the firm or anything. And also, if you could find something in the meantime for Cathy. She’s a first-rate secretary—”

“Absolutely. No problem. Jesus, Nick, I hope you’re feeling better… I mean, I hope you get everything straightened out soon. In your own mind. To your satisfaction. Just let me know—”

“Listen, Roger, I appreciate your accommodating me this way. I knew you’d be the one person who would understand, truly. I always thought you had a kind of spiritual dimension to you that people overlooked. In fact, sometime I’d like to take a few minutes and discuss your own karma with you. We might even take a few minutes now—”

“Good of you to think of it, Nick. Listen, I have to run—”

“A lot of people never stop to think how fragile and fleeting the material world is—”

“But, Nick, if there’s ever anything I can do to help, you let me know.”

“Roger, thanks again for your understanding. Goodbye.”

So much for my job. So much for Roger.

In the corner of my bedroom there was a metal ladder running up the wall to a trap door, which was the only access to the roof from the building. Several times a year I would have to arrange to let some city inspector or workman go through my apartment so he could check a cable or a drain or something. I had never been up there myself, but I climbed up the ladder now for the first time and unlatched the door. I pushed it open several inches to make sure it was free and to have a quick look around the roof, and then I lowered it shut again, leaving it unlatched. If everything else went wrong, and they came for me without warning, this would be my escape route. From the roof of my building I could climb over to either of the adjoining buildings and work my way around the block. From my terrace I could see several routes from roofs down into the interior gardens in the center of the block, and I would surely find more once I was up there. As long as I stayed alert, I should have plenty of time to get clear.

Next I set out working my way systematically through the apartment collecting absolutely everything that connected me with anyone else in the world: letters, diaries, old tax returns, canceled checks, bank statements. I emptied out my desk drawers, took the photographs off the walls, searched through the pockets of my clothing, carrying everything into the kitchen and dumping it in the middle of the room. Then I began crumpling a handful at a time into the oven and setting it on fire. If they did eventually come after me, they would probably be able to find out everything, but I was at least going to slow them down.

It was more difficult than you might think, burning the photographs, seeing the images of people I had known well, had strong feelings for, melt and disappear in the flame, as if they were being obliterated from my life. Which they were, in fact. It would be easy to become maudlin in this sort of situation. Another problem was that the burning paper produced an unpleasant, acrid smoke, and I was afraid that someone might notice it and report a fire in the building. I would have to go slowly, which would give me time for a last look at everything.

There was also a stack of small, black, leather-bound appointment books, each of which contained one year’s social and business appointments, with precise notations of travel and entertainment expenses, and, in the back, names, addresses, and telephone numbers. The current year’s book was gone forever, invisible, but I had there the previous dozen years or so of my life summarized. I remember that somehow several years were missing — I cannot think how or why. I should, I told myself, stop and study the books and memorize any names or telephone numbers that might be useful. (Useful how?)
Olsen, Orr, Ovinsky.
Odd, the interleaving of people you hardly know — met once or twice in the course of business — and people you have known forever and cared about.
Paulsen, Parker, Petersen.
It is the people you knew as undergraduates that you remember most vividly — even those you no longer see, or even want to see. The madman with whom you stole the clapper of the college bell, or whatever it is you did. The girl lying with you on the grass on a spring night, whom you loved endlessly, past all reason. You never have friendships like that again — I, of course, would presumably never have friendships of any sort again — and although those friendships might not stand up very well under rational adult inspection, you could still find tears running down the face, if you ever let yourself start thinking about these things. Of course, in my case both the tears and the face would have a rather hypothetical quality. The sound made by a tree falling in the forest.

At moments of stress you can be subject to terrible swings in mood.

Still, I could not resist going through those books, reviewing my life in outline form: each business lunch (with cost and method of payment, people present, business topics discussed), each dinner party (with the name and number of any promising new person met), each weekend in the country (with times of trains or of the last ferry). And always the cost of each taxi and ticket.
December
19. 5:30
squash U Club/Carstair 7:30 (LG)dinner/Simons [GU warrants] taxis:
$3 75 $4.50.
dinner: amex
$76.00. And in the corner:
Martha Caldwell
860-8632. Gone. It verges on the poignant, seeing your whole existence laid out like that and reduced to numbers — to times, addresses, telephone numbers, and incidental expenses. Driving force: loneliness, lust. Organizing principle: tax minimization. It may seem a banal life to you — I suppose it often did to me — but at that particular moment it seemed to me that it had been quite beautiful, and it was irretrievably gone. Well, that’s the thing about all these lives: they pass. We all grow old and die. If we are lucky. And there isn’t much chance of even that if we don’t stop ourselves from dwelling on these things.

Onto the fire with all of it. I read and burned, drinking as I worked, on into the evening. Beginning tomorrow I would really not be able to drink like this. My last night of safety. Then a new leaf. I went to bed early, trying to ignore the unpleasant sight of the bedclothes suspended over the missing human form. All night long I dreamed of telephones and doorbells ringing.

O
n Tuesday morning I woke early again, but this time I climbed out of bed immediately, moving steadily along with grim, fearful efficiency. I washed myself carefully and put on all of my invisible clothing. Then I pulled open the dresser drawer and carefully loaded all the invisible objects into my pockets. From now on, all of my invisible possessions would remain on my person. I reinspected the gun, opening and closing the magazine and testing the safety to be sure I would be able to fire it when I needed to. Three bullets.

I felt no hunger whatever, but I went into the kitchen, sliced some fruit into the food processor, and ground it into a thick, homogeneous slime, which I forced myself to eat, several spoonfuls at a time, for the rest of the morning. My intestines were perfectly clear again, and this way I would be visible for only a few minutes at a time. Indispensable tools, food processors.

It was still too early to call anyone. I made the bed and cleaned up the apartment again. Impossible to read or listen to music. Although I dreaded making the call to Leary, I was eager to get it over with. It would be hours before he would be setting out to meet me, but I could not afford to wait till the last minute. I had to be sure to reach him beforehand, and he might be out of his office all morning. It was presumably his job to be out investigating things. Damn him. The sooner I called the better.

I called at five past nine. The same inscrutable female voice answered by repeating the number I had just dialed, I asked for Leary, and after the same brief warble, Leary was on the line repeating his own name.

“Leary.”

“Hello, Mr. Leary. This is Nick Halloway.” I paused momentarily to let him say hello in return, but he said nothing whatever, so I continued. “We had an appointment scheduled for two this afternoon.”

“Yes, that’s right, Mr. Halloway.”

“Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask if we can’t reschedule. I’m terribly sorry about this, because I know you want to get it out of the way, but something’s just come up, and I’m on my way out to the airport right now. Tell me, are you free anytime toward the end of the week?”

There was an unpleasant pause before he replied.

“The best thing would be if I came straight over now. It will only take a few minutes. Are you at your office?”

“Golly,” I said, as earnestly as possible, “I appreciate your offering to do that on such short notice, but that really isn’t possible. I’m going out the door the minute I hang up. How is first thing Friday morning? Nine-thirty. Or would you rather I called Thursday when I get back, and we can set up an appointment then?”

“Nine-thirty Friday morning will be good. At your office?” His tone had shifted somehow, and I found his compliance more ominous than his former dogged insistence.

“At my office. You have the address?”

“I have the address. Thank you, Mr. Halloway.”

“Goodbye,” I said.

Fine. I had put him off for three more days. On Thursday I would have Cathy call and say I wouldn’t get back to New York until next week. Everyone gives up eventually. In this kind of situation, the most difficult calls are the early ones. After a while they get used to being put off. I might well deflect Leary. And yet I didn’t have a good feeling about the call. It was his sudden willingness to wait until Friday. Well, at the very least I had bought myself another day. If Leary did anything right away, it would be to call my office for confirmation of my trip. Cathy would satisfy him. I could relax for today, have a drink even.

But I didn’t have a drink. Although over the past few days I had grown used to walking around without clothing, I sat there in my invisible business suit and brooded uneasily about how an entirely invisible human being might quietly live his life unnoticed. Not a trivial question, I can tell you, and I grew steadily more uneasy as I considered it. As long as I had my apartment and my bank account, I could order up food and eat it in safety and sleep in peace. But if they drove me out, how was I to get along? Where was I to go? It sounds as if it ought to be easy, but when you think about it, the desirable nooks and crannies across the face of the earth are pretty well inhabited. Still, there are worse problems. I could be dying. I wondered once again if I
was
dying already from the radiation or whatever had got me. I felt all right. It seemed possible that I was dying at the same rate as everyone else. Perhaps I should leave right now and go to another city. Another country. Which?

I think I must have spent several hours sitting there, turning these tedious thoughts over in my mind. I had been indoors by myself too long, thinking the same things over and over. I should have gone outside and cleared my head. As it was, I don’t think I noticed the ringing of the doorbells right away. Rather, I became aware that they had been ringing, but I couldn’t say for how long, or exactly where. Right now it was the doorbell in the apartment right below me that was ringing, but I was almost certain that the one in the third floor rear apartment had been ringing before that. And perhaps the Coulsons’ bell before that. There was normally no one in the building during the day except sometimes my landlady, Eileen Coulson, and with the building empty, you would hear things like doorbells and telephones.