Glimmering (46 page)

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Authors: Elizabeth Hand

BOOK: Glimmering
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“It started about a year ago,” Jule continued. “When I had to go to court up in Poughkeepsie. I was just coming back, getting onto 684, and she was there”—he pointed at Jack’s seat—“sitting right there. She told me I forgot to put on my turn signal.”
“Oh.” Jack tried to keep his tone even. “So!—was it on? The turn signal?”
“Sure it was on. A little kid, what does she know from cars? But I just about had a heart attack, I can tell you. That’s why I drive around so much. She rides with me, Jackie. She talks to me.”
“Oh.”
“She doesn’t forgive me. I mean, she doesn’t blame me, I wasn’t driving the car that killed her. But all this shit now, my drinking, all that—she doesn’t forgive me, Jackie. She doesn’t forgive me.”
Jack glanced up. He saw Jule’s face, not slack with alcohol but hardened by it, calcified; his eyes dry and glittering as quartz. “Does—have you told Emma about this?”
“Sure.”
“What does she think?”
Jule shrugged. “She doesn’t believe me. She thinks it’s the DTs or something. Actually, what she thinks is that I haven’t processed through my grief. She thinks I’m still in denial.” He stared at Jack measuringly. “I mean,
you
think I’m nuts, don’t you?”
Jack took in his friend’s haggard unshaven face, the carpet of bottles and empty Thermoses covering the floor. What would be nuts right now would be to get into an argument with Jule.
“I don’t think you’re nuts. I think Emma’s probably right—you’re still grieving, or—”
A delivery van pulled in front of them. Jule beat on the silent horn. “Of
course
I’m still grieving.
You’re
still grieving for that guy Eric you were in love with, aren’t you?”
Jack stiffened. “Yes.”
“And Peter and all those other guys?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it doesn’t ever really end, does it?” Jule’s voice dropped. “It’s like you wake up one day and they chopped off your hand. Maybe sometime it stops bleeding and scars over, but you don’t grow a new one.” He added matter-of-factly, “I know Rachel’s dead. I never said she wasn’t dead, I’m not denying that she’s dead. I just said I see her sometimes. She comes . . .”
Jack’s heart welled as he watched his friend tighten his hold on the steering wheel.
“She comes. Right there, where you’re sitting. The first couple of times it was at night—I just looked over and there she was. She’d say, ‘Hi, Daddy.’ I almost went off the road.
“And now she’s here all the time. I mean, no matter what I do, if I drink, if I don’t drink: she’s still there. Afterward, it always seems like maybe I was dreaming; but then she always comes back.”
Unexpectedly he grabbed Jack’s shoulder. “And she doesn’t forgive me. I thought maybe if I explained things, maybe she’d understand. But it doesn’t work that way. I guess they have their own itinerary. Their own way of doing things.”
“Who?”
“The dead. Like people always think they can be summoned, with a Ouija board or a séance or whatever; but really they just do what they want to. Just like us. It’s not even like they have some message. Sometimes they just want to be with us, I think.”
Jack recalled the sound of his grandfather’s tread upon the stairs at Lazyland, the smell of cigarette smoke and Irish whiskey and his touch upon Jack’s cheek, cold and feathery as snow. Before he could stop himself he blurted, “I know—I know what you mean. A few months ago I had this dream, about my grandfather. Only it wasn’t really a dream. He was really there, and he—he gave me something.”
Jule nodded. “What did he give you?”
Jack hesitated. For one moment he considered telling Jule about the Fusax.
“It was just something I’d lost,” he said at last.
“Like your
mind
?
”
Jack forced a grin. “Something like that.”
Around them vehicles slowed as though stuck in quicksand. They were in midtown. A few blocks to the south glittered a vast triangular complex of buildings, glass-and-steel walls shining gold and green and red like some monstrous Christmas ornament. From one side bulged a huge glass-domed arena, ovoid, still fluttering with orange construction tape and DANGER: KEEP OUT signs: the site of the millennial ball two days hence. High overhead, an array of solar shields blinked from black to silver, turning this way and that in an urgent search for light. There were bristling antennae like the spines of some huge undersea animal. Satellite dishes and windmills vied for space with hotel and television logos, a neon sign for a restaurant named Pynchon. Across the central pyramid’s surface, rippling letters splashed bright as water.
Jack gazed awestruck. Jule laughed.
“Don’t get out much, huh?”
“It’s been a while.” Jack smiled sheepishly. “I mean, they built that thing so fast . . . I remember when this was all live sex shows.”
“Oh yeah. The good old days.” He stared up at the monolith with its swags of Christmas lights. “Fucking Christmas. I hate fucking Christmas. And this place,” he said. “I really hate this place. Because they think it makes up for all that other shit, you know? They think you can walk inside and forget about everything
here
—”
He gestured fiercely at the flaming sky that could be glimpsed between the buildings. “They think we’ll just forget. Like with their fucking blimps. They think we can just pick up the pieces and start over again . . .
“But I’ll tell you something, Jackie.” Jule’s words were like granite falling. “You can’t ever start over again. Not once you’ve crapped in your own mess kit like we have. You don’t get a fucking second chance. That’s not how the world works, Jackie. That’s not how it works anymore.”
Jack was silent. Jule said nothing more. The Range Rover inched beneath a marquee whose titles melted into sherbet-colored grids.
THE DANNY SHOW!
SUNSHINE SKYE LIVE!
BONITA & THE WAVETRAMPS
ION JAMIE
THE FOUR SEASONS AT
GLOBAL PYRAMID
GLOBENET INC.
 
 
Jack pointed at the shimmering edifice, the waves of people flowing in and out of revolving doors at its base. “How is it powered?”
Jule slid the car into a long line of idling taxis and limousines. He held up one hand, rubbing together the thumb and first two fingers.
“Dinero,
Jackie-boy.”
“But do they have their own generators? Or what?”
“Yes. And or what.’” Jule peered up at the great Pyramid. “Let’s see. Solar panels, some kind of plasma grid. Windmills. A champagne-effect reflexive waterfall. Supposedly they’ve got their own nuclear reactor, too.”
“So how come I can’t make a fucking phone call?”
“’Cause you’re not GFI Worldwide. Hey, get over it! I mean, here you are
looking
at where they make
The Danny Show
! What else do you want?”
Before Jack could reply Jule gunned the motor. In front of them a lapis-colored limousine slid away from the sidewalk. The Range Rover roared into its spot. A doorman in Four Seasons livery started for the passenger door, but Jack waved him off.
“All right, listen,” commanded Jule. He rummaged in the seat behind him until he found a leather portfolio, sat for a minute staring at his friend. He reached out and rested one hand on Jack’s cheek. “You know how to drive a standard, right?”
“I’m not waiting in the—”
“Listen. It costs forty dollars to park here for five minutes. This’ll take me thirty seconds. You wait here, anyone asks tell them you’re picking up someone from
The Danny Show.
Or Sunshine Skye,” he said, glancing up at the marquee. “A cop comes, just drive around the block, okay? Okay.”
Jack watched as he got out of the car and strode to the sidewalk, carrying the portfolio officiously in front of him. Before he went inside Jule turned. He was swaying slightly, and he looked immeasurably sad.
“Fuck you!” Jack said under his breath, then waved. Jule nodded and disappeared into the crowd at the entrance. Jack turned his attention back to the scene outside. Well-dressed men and women came and went in a steady stream of overly bright colors. Lime green, candy pink, electric blue. Glittering swathes of Christmas lights hung above the revolving doors. A knot of Japanese businessmen in retro Infoguide sunglasses that made them look like extras from
Not of This Earth.
Models in silly masks, posturing with smokeless cigarettes. A bizarrely tall, thin man like a giant insect, surrounded by people waving cordless microphones. Jack tried to keep his expression blank as more vehicles pulled up beside him and honked.
“Shit,” he muttered. At least fifteen minutes had passed, he was sure of that. He could see cars entering and leaving the public parking area with clockwork regularity. He briefly thought of parking—he wouldn’t admit it to Jule, but he was dying to peek inside the world’s most famous corporate complex. But he’d be damned if he’d spend his own money on this idiotic venture.
He leaned forward and starting playing with the Range Rover’s entertainment system. Lights blinked off and on. When he tried the radio he got only static, then a very long advertisement for the Global Pyramid Four Seasons, recited by a woman with a brisk Pacific Rim accent broadcasting from the hotel. Jack craned his neck to look up at the marquee again.
THE DANNY SHOW!
BY INVITATION ONLY: THE PARTY OF THE MILLENNIUM!
STUDIO TOURS LEAVE EVERY MINUTE!
 
 
He opened the glove compartment to see what was in there, found only papers and a squashed plastic cup. He sighed and glanced out the window. There seemed to be a bottleneck at one of the revolving doors. Several uniformed security guards ran down the sidewalk and began pushing their way through the growing crowd. One held a phone to his mouth and was speaking intently, his face grim.
Maybe Danny had a heart attack,
thought Jack. He decided to take his chances with whatever music Jule had been listening to earlier, punched the music console’s Play button, and closed his eyes. Low hissing came from the speakers.
Only Jule would spend an extra three thousand dollars for a state-of-the-art music center, and then have nothing to play on it. He was reaching to stab the OFF button when the static cleared. Jule’s voice filled the car.
“Jackie. I’m sorry this isn’t Brian Eno.” A pause; something clinking against the tape recorder. “This is gonna sound really melodramatic. I’m sorry, Jackie. By the time you hear this . . .”
“No.”
The voice went on, the words blurring into each other—
“. . . because she’s sick, she thinks I don’t know but I heard her on the phone. She may have—she may have gotten it from me—”
“Fuck!”
Jack shouted, pounding the dashboard; “
fuck, fuck!
—”
“. . . can’t live like this. But I—I don’t want you to think it had anything to do with you, Jackie, Emma either. I know it’s selfish—”
—and then Jack was out of the car and running, shoving people aside.
“Hey! Asshole! What—”
“Julie.” He began to shout above his roaring heart. “
Julie!
”
There were armed guards at the revolving doors, eyes flicking nervously across the excited mob. “Let me in!” Jack yelled. “Goddammit,
I know him
! Please, let me—”
One of the guards raised her arms to block him. Her head mic blared, and there was an answering blast from a speaker overhead. When she looked up Jack pushed through the door and into the security checkpoint.
“—WHITE MALE, ARMED, GATE SEVENTEEN—”
More guards, dogs straining at leashes, overturned chairs, and papers blown across the floor. Monitors chattered and shrieked, the high-pitched hum of head mics soared off into static. A masked man in a black suit was shouting at several guards. Directly behind them was the glowing arc of the metal detector, and through that Jack glimpsed uniforms and well-dressed women covering their mouths, people being pushed away by city police, all under a blinding sun. He moved through the shadowy booth, pushing aside a fallen chair
.
The man in the suit turned, his mouth open, but Jack heard nothing. Hands reached for him but he swept them aside, reached the metal detector and passed through it. Then he was in the sun, blinking. A few feet in front of him the crowd had formed a broad half circle, as though watching street musicians. Men and women in uniform knelt on the ground shouting at each other while armed guards waved back the crowd. Someone grabbed Jack and restrained him, he could not pull away so stood there with the rest, staring at the floor.

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