Unwelcome Bodies (19 page)

“Of course I did,” Giancarla said. “Altruism is a thing of the past. I take bring-forwards in for the same reason everyone else does—for my own gain. I spent a lot of money to buy out someone else’s breeding credit so I could trade it in for her, and it paid off three times over in body sculpting commissions. María Luisa was worth every peso.”

“And me?”

“Oh, you I took simply for the notoriety. You’re already getting me invited to the best parties, with the caveat that I bring you with me, of course. The first two are this Friday. It’ll be fabulous—you’ll be the center of attention all night long. No one’s ever been brought forward from so far back, or from so wretched an existence.”

“That’s the reason you volunteered to take me in?” Joseph asked, aghast. “For party invitations?”

“Well, you came cheap. But that’s just how the world works, Joseph. No one does something for nothing.”

Dr. Treves had. Or had he? Joseph had taken it on faith that Dr. Treves had helped him because it was the Christian thing to do. But had he profited in some way from Joseph’s care? It had certainly seemed to gain him notoriety in many upper-class social circles, and Joseph had heard murmurs that he’d been introduced to the royal family…

Had Dr. Treves only helped him so he could get ahead?

Joseph rested his head in his hands and wished he could order the floor to swallow him up along with the sofa.

Giancarla had the floor conjure up an easy chair and sat in it, adjusting her wrap with her lower two hands. “So, I also hear that you saw one of Jean-Pierre’s little shows.”

Anger spiked through Joseph, fierce and hot, and he rose to his feet and paced the far wall, his hands balled into tight fists.

“It’s not your body anymore. I don’t see why you’re so bothered by it.”

“What he’s doing is highly improper.” He clasped his left hand around his right fist, holding it back from punching who knew what.

“It’s not like he’s defiling something that you want back.”

“It’s just…” Joseph struggled to articulate the complicated mixture of repulsion and shame roiling in his gut, waving his hands helplessly in front of him. He gave up, and collapsed back onto the sofa. “Why do I care so much what happens to that body?”

Giancarla shrugged. “It’s a bring-forward thing. You all see your bodies as so permanent.”

“But they—”

“—aren’t.”

Joseph sagged as all his breath left him. “I spent my entire life in that body, trapped helplessly in a flesh and bone prison that grew ever more deformed over time. I should be glad to be rid of it.”

“Well, if it’s any consolation, Jean-Pierre’s paying a heavy price for what he did to you. The court has awarded you all of his assets and his slot in the breeding queue. You’re officially rich. Congratulations.”

“He has no money? But what will he do?”

Giancarla waved both of her left hands. “Oh, don’t worry about him. He’s living comfortably off of the curious and the lascivious. And I’m sure his father will take him back once people get bored with him. You, on the other hand, now have the same problem that he did, namely, trying to figure out what to do with all that wealth while trapped under a dome.”

Joseph shook his head. “I have no idea.”

Giancarla’s eyes twinkled, literally. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

* * * *

Joseph special-ordered a new dressing bag that very evening.

* * * *

Joseph didn’t leave home for the next several days. He had a barber come by to give him a proper haircut, and when they determined that his hair was too curly to lie flat, he had it cut down to half an inch and used a pomade to flatten it. Sometimes he’d sit in his room just running his hands over his scalp, marveling at how small and smooth his skull was.

He ordered more things for himself through the computer, including new templates for the furniture in his room. By day, his space was configured to be a proper sitting room, complete with a Berber rug, a richly upholstered reading chair with matching ottoman, a chestnut coffee table, and two sofas for guests. At night, the room switched over to a four-poster bed with an exotic South American throw.

And most importantly, he started granting interviews.

He hadn’t planned to. But after Giancarla had left for the office one morning, he’d stood in the middle of the living space, staring at the front door, desperate to come up with a way not to have to go through it any time soon. LeShawn shuffled out of his room and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“She’s going to bring me to parties.”

“Yeah. She does that.”

“I fear I won’t like them.”

“No, you won’t.”

“What can I do?”

LeShawn chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip, then said, “Use up your fame now.”

“Won’t that make your mother angry?”

And then Joseph saw something he’d never seen before: LeShawn’s smile. “Most definitely.”

LeShawn set up a battery of interviews, booking Joseph on all the major entertainment channels. He made it clear that if Jean-Pierre made an appearance, either in person or on the wall, the interview was over. Each reporter came into Joseph’s room in turn, marveled at the reproduction antique furniture and his overly-modest clothing, and then launched into a series of questions about Joseph’s past and what he thought about the present. Joseph followed LeShawn’s instructions and answered calmly, but with candor, even when the subject turned to María Luisa, who one reporter brought in on one of the walls.

“Joseph, I’m so sorry. I just…” She winced and trailed off, staring down at her clasped hands.

Joseph put on a fake smile and tried to ignore the knife twisting in his gut. “I understand how hard it is to be disabled. You just wanted to be whole again.”

LeShawn made sure Joseph had a few moments to himself after that interview before letting in the next reporter.

Like the rest, she asked, “So, what do you think of what Jean-Pierre’s been doing with your body?”

He gave her the same answer he’d given every other reporter. “It’s his body now. He can do what he wants with it.”

If he said it enough times, he might eventually come to believe it.

His final interview over, he stood and gazed out his picture windows at today’s image. It was a ground-level view of one of the few remaining rainforests. Most had been destroyed by migrant populations outside of the domes that were desperate for a patch of land, a scrap of food.

Maybe once he understood this world better, he’d see if he could use his money to help some of them. Maybe that could be his life’s work. Philanthropy was a noble cause. Could he build a life around it?

He had to build a life around something.

When Giancarla came home, she was, of course, furious. “How dare you?” she snapped. “No one will care about you by Friday! What am I supposed to do now?”

“Perhaps you should spend some time with your son.”

Twin expressions of shock graced both Giancarla and LeShawn’s faces as he withdrew to his room and closed the door behind him.

From the solitude of his room, he watched the walls to see if his interviews had changed anything. The furor over him grew for a day or two, then subsided once people realized that he wasn’t interested in publicly exhibiting his culture shock any further. He received several interview requests from historians, and one from the New British Museum, but as far as the greater population was concerned, he had become yesterday’s news.

And as much as it pained him, he forced himself to watch his body’s escapades, or, at least, the clean ones. Jean-Pierre was impossible to escape. He was invited to every party in the dome, whether lascivious or chaste. He was the main topic on all the fashion programs, where the hosts would give tips on how to achieve that genuine Proteus Disease look in between discussions of other “Deformity Chic” surgeries. His visit to the ruins of the AT&T Center was covered live by nearly every channel, as was his subsequent boat tour of the Riverwalk.

And then nearly a fortnight later, the coverage stopped.

At dinner, Joseph asked why.

Giancarla shrugged. “I suppose he’s gone out of fashion.”

LeShawn, who had recently begun joining them for meals, nodded in agreement.

The next morning, Joseph ventured back down to the ground floor, into the thick of the St. Mary’s Street Mall.

Nobody gave him a second look.

Joseph stepped into the closest store, a fragrance store, and peered at the racks of amber tubes.

A salesperson came up to him and asked, “May I help you?”

“Oh, I’m just looking. I’m Joseph Merrick, by the way.”

The salesperson smiled. “How nice for you.”

Joseph offered up a silent prayer of thanks that his ordeal was finally over. He bought a small vial of musk, browsed through several other stores, bought something called teriyaki ostrich, and decided, as he was nibbling it off of its genuine faux wood stick, that he liked it better than curry.

Later, as he was putting his purchases away in his room, he heard a chime, and turned, puzzled. He stepped back into the main living space and saw that the elevator door was blinking. “Visitor,” it read.

“Computer, who is it?”

“Jean-Pierre Paredes de García.”

Joseph felt his hands grow numb. Jean-Pierre was here. He was just on the other side of that door. That body…

No. He’d forced himself to watch it on the walls. It didn’t bother him anymore. It wasn’t him anymore.

But there was a big difference between seeing something on the wall and seeing it in the flesh.

He didn’t know if he could face it again.

Joseph swallowed hard, unclenched the fists he’d unconsciously made, and wrapped his arms tightly around his borrowed body. “Computer, relay message: What do you want?”

After a pause, the wall displayed the words: “I need to talk to you.”

Joseph stared at the blinking door, his body breaking out into shivers. Why couldn’t he open it? Why was he still afraid of what he once was? This was madness. He had nothing to fear. It was just a body, a horrible one, but one that had sheltered him for twenty-eight years. It was, he reminded himself, the body that God had seen fit to give to him.

And it was the body he would never have to wear again.

If he didn’t open the door, then that body still had power over him.

Damn it.

“Computer, let him in.”

Joseph looked down at the crumpled heap on the elevator floor and felt a swell of disgust.

“Help me,” Jean-Pierre mumbled.

Joseph narrowed his eyes, feeling his heart grow cold in his breast. “Why should I?”

Incredulity radiated from the body’s one good eye. “I thought you’d understand.”

“Understand?” Joseph scoffed, and realized that his fists were back at his sides.

He saw fear.

Good.

He stepped into the elevator and watched Jean-Pierre whimper and cover his head with his thick right arm.

“Bastard,” Joseph spat, and kicked him instead.

His old body howled and curled up protectively.

Something inside Joseph snapped, and he attacked, pounding fists and knees into the revolting excuse for a human body lying huddled in the back corner of the elevator. Twenty-eight years of torture, twenty-eight years of imprisonment, twenty-eight years of hell on earth, and after all that, it was begging him for a handout? Hadn’t he given enough? Hadn’t he been made to suffer enough? “I hate you!” he screamed, raising both fists over his head and bringing them down hard on the knobby skull again and again. “I hate you!”

Out of swollen lips, he heard the faintest, “Please,” and it was his undoing.

“Oh God,” he gasped, collapsing to his knees next to the bruised and bloodied flesh. “Oh God, I’m so…” He reached a hand out to the quivering body, but it whimpered and pulled away.

What had he done?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll help you.”

Out of the mass of flesh, a shaky, unblemished arm extended itself, and he clasped it, pulling Jean-Pierre to his feet. He put his arm around his shoulders, feeling the cauliflower masses compress under his grip, and led him into the apartment, where he called up a divan and helped him settle onto it. “I’ll get you a blanket,” he said.

Jean-Pierre said nothing, just cradled his massive head with his misshapen arm.

Joseph laid the blanket over Jean-Pierre’s naked body and said, “I am truly, truly sorry. I have no idea what came over me. I’ve never—”

“You’re a heartless bitch.”

“I swear, I didn’t mean—”

“I’d think you’d have more sympathy for this bag of bones.”

Joseph sank down onto the floor and buried his face in his hands. His smooth face. His normal hands. “You gave me this body,” he said. “I should be grateful.”

Jean-Pierre snorted, and it sounded wet.

Joseph looked up and saw Jean-Pierre dabbing blood from his nose with the blanket. “I’m sorry,” he said, putting his hand underneath him so he could push himself to his feet. “Let me get you—”

Jean-Pierre waved him back down with his oversized right hand. “It’s nothing. Well, comparatively.”

“You need a doctor.”

“I can’t afford one.”

Very quietly, Joseph said, “Oh.”

“That’s why I came to you.” Jean-Pierre gestured to his body with his good hand. “I can’t live in this anymore. Not without help. I knew they’d fine me for what I did, but I never imagined they’d take
everything
. I mean, I can barely manage simple things like eating or bowel movements.”

“I know,” Joseph said.

“Not that I have anything much to eat anymore,” Jean-Pierre added. “My friends have decided this body is too tiresome to support. If you could just pay to have this body surgically altered to be easier to live in—”

“I thought your father was a surgeon. Can’t he help you?”

Jean-Pierre looked down at his mismatched hands. “He cut me off years ago. Said I was too much of a bother.”

Joseph looked at his own hands, his new hands, and said, “I know what that’s like.”

Jean-Pierre cocked his massive head to the side, supporting it with his hand. “That wasn’t in the movie.”