What in God's Name: A Novel (9 page)

“How’s Cliff?” he’d blurt out, an extremely forced smile on his face.

“He’s good!” she’d answer awkwardly.

And talk would quickly cease.

 “Who’s this Cliff guy?” Eliza asked.

“Let’s check.”

Craig popped up Laura’s Romantic History—it was brief—and quickly found the boyfriend: Cliff Davenport, an experimental painter at Columbia University.

“Should we run ComCheck?” Eliza asked.

“Why not?”

Craig opened a window, entered the names, and waited for the results to tabulate.

Craig stared at the number in shock. With the exception of some prison relationships, it was the worst long-term pairing he’d ever seen. Laura and Cliff were incompatible on almost every level.

They were repulsed by the smell of each other’s shampoo. They had completely different tastes in baby names. Laura was allergic to the only dish that Cliff knew how to cook. Their knuckles were positioned in such a way that it was uncomfortable for them to hold hands. Their families had never met, but if they did, they wouldn’t get along.

Neither of them liked dark meat, so if they were to roast a chicken, half the carcass would be wasted. Their immune systems were structured in such a way that if one of them got sick, the other would automatically catch the illness. They had drastically different tastes in books and film and even people. They disagreed on how to pronounce “gyro.”

There was only one positive aspect of their relationship: physical compatibility. Cliff and Laura scored a 97 on Sex—an extremely impressive statistic. They found each other’s pheromones intoxicating. Their genitals were proportioned
and
positioned to provide each other with maximum pleasure. Their orgasms were unusually intense and almost always simultaneous.

“Are they still dating?” Eliza asked.

“I’m afraid to find out.”

Craig logged out of the Server and scanned Laura’s present-day apartment, a walk-up on Forsyth and Stanton.

“I don’t see any evidence of a male presence,” he said, eyeing the pink bedspread. “Let me count the toothbrushes in the bathroom.”

He zoomed in on the human’s sink. A lone yellow toothbrush lay behind the faucet.

“That’s a good sign,” he said. “I’ll check her bureau for male underwear.”

“There’s got to be a faster way to do this,” Eliza complained.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Can’t you just check Facebook?”

Craig’s face reddened. “Good call.”

He looked up Laura’s account and smiled with relief.

“Great,” Eliza said. “She’s single. Try Sam.”

Craig typed in the human’s name, but no profile came up.

“Guess he doesn’t have an account.”

“Geez. How antisocial can you get?”

“Let’s watch him for a bit,” Craig suggested. “If he’s got a girlfriend, we’ll find out about it soon enough.”

He opened Omnex, typed in “Sam Katz,” and hit enter. The computer located the human instantly, zooming in on the living room of his ground-floor apartment. Sam was sprawled on a futon, watching a show called
Bizarre Bodies
on Discovery Health.

“He’s lost more hair,” Craig noted.

“Yeah,” Eliza said. “And gained at least fifteen pounds.”

A buzzer sounded in Sam’s apartment, and the human scrambled to his feet.

“Someone’s coming,” Eliza said. “Maybe it’s a girlfriend.”

“Maybe.”

He turned up the volume, and the Angels anxiously leaned forward.

Sam Katz was about to open the door when he realized that he wasn’t wearing any pants. He stood in the hallway for a moment, weighing his options. There were pants in his bedroom, but that was far away—and the buzzer had already rung twice. What was ruder, answering the door in your underwear or making someone wait? He was about to make a mad dash to his bedroom when the buzzer rang a third time, a long, insistent drone. He reluctantly opened the door.

A tall, mustachioed Indian man holding a red delivery bag stared down at him.

“Hey, Raj,” Sam said, handing him a large clump of bills. “How’s it going?”

“Where are your pants?” Raj demanded.

Sam forced a smile. “Sorry, Raj—I just came out of the shower and I didn’t have time to put them on.”

Raj folded his arms. “You did not just shower. You have not bathed all day. Admit this.”

Sam chuckled evasively. “How’s everything? How’s Rubaina?”

“Do not change subject.”

Raj leaned forward and continued in a whisper. “We are worried about you, Sam. Not just me. Everyone at Bombay Palace is worried.”

He held up his delivery bag. “It is too much food for one man. Chicken vindaloo, lamb tandoori, Grand Sultan appetizer platter, soup, naan, mango lassi…” Raj shook his head. “Is too much.”

“It’s not—it’s not just for me,” Sam stammered. “I’m having a party…for friends.”

Raj raised his eyebrows sarcastically. “Oh yes? Tell me then what are these friends’ names?”

Sam averted his eyes. “Let’s see, uh, John…Paul…George…”

Raj shook his head. “Those are Beatles. You are saying the names of famous Beatles.”

Sam looked down at his feet. “It’s all for me,” he confessed.

“Sam?” Raj asked gently. “How long now I know you?”

Sam did the math in his head. He’d been ordering from Bombay Palace since freshman year of college.

“About four years?” he guessed.

“Four years,” Raj agreed. “And we are friends, yes? I give extra puri, deliver past ten?”

Sam nodded. “Sure, Raj. We’re friends.”

“Then here is my advice.”

He leaned toward Sam, his eyes narrowing. “I think it is time you find a wife.”

Sam laughed. “Raj, I’m only twenty-three.”

“By that age I was married with two strong sons.”

“I know, but things are different for me. I mean, your marriage with Rubaina was
arranged.
”

“It is true,” Raj said. “I have been fortunate.”

The two men stood for a moment in silence.

“I include extra puri,” Raj said. “And the green sauce you love.”

“Thanks, Raj. I appreciate it.”

The men shook hands formally and Sam closed the door, clutching his grease-splotched bag. Lately he had begun to order food in such large quantities that restaurants packed multiple sets of cutlery, assuming his meal was for several people. But this time, when he dumped his dinner onto the counter, just a single plastic fork tumbled out. He searched for a knife and spoon—but there weren’t any. Evidently he was such an animal in the eyes of the Bombay Palace staff that they didn’t think him worthy of a complete set. The chef probably assumed that he sopped up the sauces with bread or just drank them out of the plastic containers like a beast.

Sam reflected that he was in danger of going an entire day without wearing pants. He walked into his bedroom and picked up his rumpled corduroys. He could put them on for dinner, he supposed, but they were so tight and unpleasant to wear. He tossed them on the floor and shrugged. It’s not like anyone was watching.

“Well,” Eliza said. “I think we can assume he’s single.”

“I think that’s a safe bet,” Craig said.

“What’s he watching?”

Craig zoomed in on Sam’s television. “
Bizarre Bodies.
It’s a show about humans with physical oddities.”

“He couldn’t find anything better to watch?”

“Well, there’s not much on. It’s the weekend. Most humans are out socializing.”

Eliza shook her head in disgust. “When’s the last time he left the house?”

Craig hit –×50, and they watched Sam’s weekend in rewind. He plucked pieces of tandoori out of his mouth, returned them to their containers, and quickly restuffed the delivery bag. He zipped over to the front door, handed the food to Raj, and took back his money.

“Can you go faster?”

Craig hit –×500, and the action sped up dramatically. Sam’s apartment brightened, darkened, and brightened again as the sun bobbed up and down outside his window. In his kitchen, a moldy baguette shed its greenish spots, regained its shape, and returned to an edible condition. But through it all Sam remained on his futon, as motionless as a corpse. With the exception of a single trip to a Rite-Aid, he hadn’t left the house in three days.

“He’s only six blocks from Laura,” Craig said. “That’s less than half a mile.”

“Why does that suddenly seem so far?”

Craig fast-forwarded back to the present moment and hit play. On the screen, Sam dropped a piece of naan onto his filthy hardwood floor. He paused, looked out the window to make sure no one was watching, and then popped it into his mouth.

“Ugh,” Eliza groaned. “What a mess.”

“I think you’re being a little hard on him,” Craig said. “He’s obviously going through a rough time. But lots of people feel lost at that age. I mean, the guy’s only twenty-three years old.”

“You know who else was twenty-three? Alexander the Great when he conquered the known world.”

“I don’t think that’s a fair comparison.”

“Why not? They’re the same species, same gender, same age. They even look sort of alike.”

Eliza grabbed Craig’s mouse and opened the Server. A search box popped up, and she typed in “Alexander the Great—23 years old.” The Macedonian conqueror appeared on the screen, sword in hand. A hundred captured slaves wept fearfully at his feet.

“I don’t understand what this is supposed to prove,” Craig said.

Eliza opened a window of Sam in present-day Manhattan and placed it alongside the twenty-three-year-old Alexander. They did look pretty similar. They were about the same height, five-seven or five-eight, and stockily built. Alexander was a touch more muscular, particularly in the shoulders. Sam had straighter teeth. Neither of them was particularly attractive.

Eliza and Craig sat quietly in front of the computer, silently comparing the two twenty-three-year-olds.

On the left side of the screen, Alexander pointed randomly at slaves, casually deciding which ones should die.

On the right side of the screen, Sam surfed the Web, in an obvious search for pornography.

“Okay,” Craig said. “So Sam isn’t as confident as Alexander. Who cares? Even if he’s a total coward, things can still work out for him.”

“How?”

“Well, it’s 2012. Men don’t have to make the first move. We still haven’t seen Laura in the present day. Maybe she’s less…”

“Pathetic.”

“I was going to say ‘reserved.’ But yeah.”

He located Laura’s apartment and zoomed in.

“Let’s see what we can find out.”

Laura Potts sat in her darkened apartment watching
Bizarre Bodies.
She’d promised herself at 7 p.m. that she would watch only two episodes: “World’s Fattest Man” and “The Wolf Family.” Then she would put on her clothes, go to a bar, and socialize like a normal human being. But that was hours ago. She’d since sat through “Tumor Lady,” “Conjoined at the Face,” and an encore presentation of “Tumor Lady.” It was 1:20 a.m. Technically, the night was already over.

Laura had turned twenty-three recently, and both of her older sisters had sent birthday cards. She’d displayed them on top of her television: a sparkly one from Katrina and a lengthy one from Dianne.

Growing up, Katrina had always been the “pretty one” and Dianne had always been the “smart one.” Laura wasn’t particularly pretty or smart, but her parents were desperate to give her some kind of identity. When she was nine, they bought her gymnastics lessons, thinking she might turn out to be the “athletic one.” But she couldn’t do even a single pull-up. When she turned ten, they bought her a monogrammed Bible, hoping she could at least become the “religious one.” But she never got around to reading it. One day, at the age of twelve, she took some Polaroids of a tree out of boredom. From this random occurrence, her parents concluded that she was the “artistic one.” They bought her an expensive camera, and she dutifully began to take pictures.

She went to NYU, majored in visual studies, and completed a thesis of abstract nature studies. She worked extremely hard. And by the time she graduated from college, she had discovered two major truths about photography: one, she didn’t really like it; and two, she wasn’t very good at it.

Now she was out of school and totally lost, barely surviving in a kitchenless apartment on the Lower East Side. Her only source of income was a job she’d found on Craigslist. Jack’s Dawgs, a chain of downtown hot dog stands, had received straight Ds in a recent health inspection. So the owner, Jack Potenzone, was paying Laura to improve the chain’s public image. Each day she went online and posted a hundred positive comments on food sites, using fictitious screen names.

“I don’t know how Jack’s Dawgs got such a bad rap,” read a typical review. “Their stores are spotless, welcoming, and there are no rats.”

Her boss had instructed her to insert the phrase “there are no rats” in every single one of her posts. “That way,” he explained, “people will think we don’t have rats.”

Laura warned him that the constant use of the phrase might look suspicious. But Jack was adamant on the subject, and she didn’t see any point in arguing. The job paid $250 a week and she was desperate for the income. In the brief time since college, she’d already amassed over $8,000 in credit card debt. She knew she should move back home, but she was afraid to face her parents. She was afraid to face anyone. With the exception of her daily coffee run to Dunkin Donuts, she rarely left her apartment.

The only people Laura spoke to were strangers who called her by accident. She’d gotten a new iPhone three weeks ago and her number was one digit off from the 101.1 FM sweepstakes line. She got about thirty misdials a day.

“Am I the hundred and first caller?” they all demanded. “Did I win?”

The first few times it happened, Laura apologized and explained that they’d dialed the wrong number—that she was a person, not a radio station. But the people always got so angry when she told them—cursing and arguing—that it made her depressed. Now when people asked if they had won, she usually just said yes.