The Subject Steve: A Novel (15 page)

Lem sat down, chucked me under the chin.

"I just want to say that whatever happens, I'll take care of Fiona. I don't want you to worry about her."

"We know what's going to happen."

"Either way," said Lem.

"Okay," I said. "Either way."

"Do you want some morphine?"

"I'm fine."

"Do you mind if I have some?" said Lem. "You know, the stress. My girlfriend's dad is dying."

"Okay," I said. "Do me, too."

The Philosopher and the Mechanic dropped by for occasional visits. Transition maintenance, I heard the Mechanic call it.

Departure management, the Philosopher said.

It'd been nearly two years since my checkup.

"Do you remember when we first diagnosed you?" said the Philosopher.

"Sure."

"The salad days."

It was a time for testimonials, recollections, goodbyes, Godspeeds.

William the Fulfiller wanted absolution.

"What happened with me and Maryse, I know how much pain we caused you. It's tragic the way happiness hurts others."

"It's okay."

"We're happy," he said.

"I know."

"But it hurt you."

"Yes, it did."

"Exactly," he said. "I just wanted to be sure."

The Philosopher and the Mechanic said it could be any day. There was no way to calculate. By their calculations there could be no calculations. Me, I was on the uptick, the pain on slow fade, a new feeling in my veins, a deep living slither. People would be disappointed. I began to flutter my eyelids a bit, affect a weak grip, mutter cryptic phrases tinged with tiny history, a Dutch Schultz delirium of baby talk and birch nest slaughter.

"Cudahy," I said, "don't burn them, they're butterflies!"

"Who's the navigator? I'm the navigator. I'm the snack-giver. I'm your mommy in snacks."

"Some companies make powerful computers. We make powerful people."

"Perhaps the most prevalent trope in fire safety literature is the notion of the regrouping area. The family gathers at a point distant enough from the conflagration to prevent a singeing or charring of the ideation of domesticity."

"Vast gulfs may be received on vast gulf days. One radio equals one radio nation. I heard the tittering of Velcro. Naperton's grapefruit brain, my pupilage. True puny. Renee, Renee, my rivulet ."

"Can't be long now," said the Mechanic.

"Is this all some kind of gag?"

Fiona sang to me, softly, our aardvark song:

Aardvark

Lovely aardvark

I have only the vaguest sense

Of what you look like

I know there's a nose

That works like a hose

Beyond that

I just have certain cultural associations

It was really more of a spoken-word piece.

"Daddy?" said Fiona.

"Yes, darling?"

"Do you remember when I was really sick and you ran through the streets with me in your arms?"

"My doll-daughter."

"What?"

"I remember."

"Do you think I suffered any brain damage from the fever?"

"What?"

"Sometimes I feel like I'm not as smart as I should be."

"You're almost a genius, Fiona."

"And I have to live with that
almost
every day of my life."

"I'm sorry, baby. But I think you're just fine."

"Daddy, when you're dead, I'm going to be so fucking pissed at you. Do you know that? It's a grief mechanism, or whatever, but I'm really going to hate your fucking guts for a while. It'll take a long time to work it all through. I've already warned Lem. He's okay with it. Lem is amazing, Daddy. Thank you for bringing him to me. He's like some kind of inner astronaut. He drifts along in the deep space of his consciousness like no one I've ever been with before. Daddy, do you know what I mean when I say 'been with'? I mean, of course you know. But that's the thing about euphemisms. Most of them are true. Ha! That's pretty funny. But what I really mean, Daddy, is have you ever pictured me being with someone? I know fathers and daughters are supposed to have this bond, I mean, I know they do, even when I was at my most disaffected and had to be boarded at the School for it, even then I felt it, Daddy, and I think we're all adult enough to allow that there's got to be some sexual element inherent in this bond, Daddy, but people tend to leave off right there, don't they? For good reason, I guess. But really, have you ever really pictured it? Like have you ever pictured me being pussy-licked, say? Or maybe titty-tugged? Butt-banged? Clit-bit? Have you, Daddy? Did any of those particular pictures ever light up your inner astronaut viewing screen? Me on my knobby knees, cooz up in the air like a hairy flower, some big cock, some huge anonymous fuck stick jabbing into my tight, wet, almost-genius-caliber twat, me moaning and bucking, moaning and bucking-"

I took her hand, tenderly.

"Ow."

"Not really," I said.

"I'm going to hate you when you're dead, Daddy. It's a fact. Are you going to be all right with that?"

"Fiona," I said.

"I hate you now. Why did you have to be such a bad father?"

"I wasn't so bad."

"You were less than bad, which is worse. I'm fifteen fucking years old. What am I going to do without my fucked-up Daddy?"

She reached for me under the bedsheet.

"You watch," she said, "when you're dead I'm going to cut it off and put it in my ballerina box."

"Fiona!" I said. "Stop!"

Lem burst into the room.

"What's going on?" he said.

"Lem," said Fiona, "have you seen my ballerina box?"

Now the PERPS were popping up. People With PREXIS, all over the news. A rash of them in Wichita, in Wilmington, in Bakersfield, Dubuque. But this was not the crisis predicted, the plague ordained. They weren't dying. They were suing. Class action of the Infortunate.

"We're going after the charlatans," a federal prosecutor announced on the evening news. "This disease is nothing but a marketing ploy. Show me one death from PREXIS! Just one! It's time to close this shop down and show the world who the real perps are!"

The Mechanic came to see me.

"We're counting on you," he said. "Don't fuck it up."

"If you tell me not to fuck it up," I said, "I'll fuck it up."

"Then hang in there, dammit."

"What if I'm not dying?" I said.

"We've been through this before," said the Mechanic. "You're absolutely dying. But the ball's in your court."

That night Maryse wheeled me out to the dining room. The good linen was on the table, the good silver, the good silver napkin rings. There were bottles of burgundy, roses in a cut-glass vase, a rare roast garnished with parsley. I dipped my thumb in the gravy boat, licked it, swooned. Even the twine that bound the meat was beautiful.

"What's the occasion?" I said.

William dickered with a video camera mounted on a tripod in the corner, panned from roast to roses to me.

"I saw this on a TV special about dying," said Maryse. "Everyone gathers for a nice meal. It's the classy way to say goodbye."

"I'm not hungry," I said.

"Do it for Fiona," said Maryse. "The footage might prove useful down the line."

"Did you make yams?" I said.

"No, that's Thanksgiving."

"I just thought, you know, in honor of the time you kissed Cudahy."

"Why can't you let things go?"

"Because I don't have to. Because it seems they just leave of their own accord."

"You drove me away," said Maryse.

"As I remember it, William drove you away in his fucking convertible."

"Can you say that again, Steve?" said William. "I want to try the zoom."

"I hate all of you," I said.

"Wow," said William. "I'm right in there. I know the zoom is hackneyed, but when you're actually controlling it, it's very compelling."

Maryse took my wrist.

"When you're dead you won't feel that way," she said.

Fiona walked in wearing something diaphanous, nearly vampiric, a paste pearl choker at her throat. She led Lem by the elbow to his chair.

"Look," she said, "it's like we're an unconventional but loving family again."

"What exactly is a tilt?" said William. "It's just basically you tilt it, right?"

"Daddy," she said, "I'm sorry about before. It was the strain."

"It's okay, baby," I said.

"I'm ready to let go now, though."

"Baby," I said, "maybe I'm not ready."

"Sorry to interrupt, but . . ."

"But what?" I said.

William lifted his wineglass.

"I want to begin this dinner," he said, "by offering a few words on behalf of our guest of honor. It may be that I've known him longer than anyone here, and in so many ways he's the man I have to thank for my happiness. I can only hope that my friendship has brought him some measure of solace and/or bliss over the years as well. We've been through a lot together, haven't we, Steve? But where you're going now, I guess you'll have to go it alone."

"That's not my name," I said.

"It's a sad thing, death," said William. "I can't think of anything sadder. It really fills me up with a melancholy feeling when I think about it. But what you're doing, Steve, what you're giving us, this gift that you're giving us by letting us share these last days with you, this gift is immeasurable, Steve, priceless, it's the Hope Diamond of gifts, the crown jewels of enriching spiritual experiences, like a Lamborghini with all the trimmings, or a house and real acreage in Malibu, and I mean beachfront, a big sturdy house, too, not one of those washaway, mudslide shitboxes, I'm talking about something built with fucking care, but anyway, that doesn't matter, that's not my point, because the thing is, the thing of it is, Steve, those things, all of those material objects, they have prices, so how could they compare to your goddamn priceless gift that transcends material realms? How could they ever compare to this gift you've bestowed upon all of us here in what is essentially my home but is also, on some deeper spiritual level, your home, too, by dint of you opening your heart to us and allowing us all into your last desperate moments so that you, too, belong as much as I do to what is essentially my house where I have essentially financed all of the comforts you deserve in this last, terrible waning of your life, comforts financed, I should add, with no ponying up by certain nameless cheapskates, though I might mention there were intimations of some kind of contribution from these unnamed nickel-pinching parties, parties who have already profited from your affliction, which is all just to say, really, that my outlay, and I mean my emotional as well as financial outlay, because of the situation here, the situation vis-a-vis Maryse, not to mention the situation vis-a-vis Fiona, this lovely girl, this lovely girl-woman with whom, and I don't mean to hurt you, Steve, in fact I hope it helps in its way, eases your transit, as it were, with whom I've developed something of a paternal bond with, though not forgetting for a moment my emotions as they vis-a-vis you, too, Steve, which is just to say this outlay has its emotional as well as financial aspects-bed, board, medicine, laundry, all the things, in fact, one associates with a well-tended send-off, a lavish bon voyage, a top-shelf sayonara-nonetheless it's an outlay, that, even in toto, in financial and emotional toto, cannot begin to compare with what you've given us, Steve, the gift of witness, here at the end of the ballgame, here at the end of the so-called road, here at the terminus of terminal, where every twitch and murmur of your up-till-now, every dream you've ever dreamed, every sensation you've ever, well, sensated, waves goodbye like doomed doughboys on a troopship. Once more, I must reiterate, how could anything compare to such a gift? Forget my outlay, the Lamborghini, the beachfront joint with crackerjack ground work, or that big rock so many historically oppressed, oxygen-deprived Africans died prying loose, what could rival your gift, Steve, this revelatory, keeps-on-giving gift, wherein you offer up your life to make our lives that much more meaningful, that much more, well, lived. So, to you, I raise, or rather, now, extend, my glass, my love, my gratitude. Thank you, Steve, thank you."

"Thank
you
, William," said Maryse.

"Shit," said William, "was the camera on?"

"The light's lit," said Fiona.

"Let's feast."

"Fuck it," I said.

"What, Steve?" said Maryse. "The roast? It's a lovely roast."

"Not the roast," I said.

"Fuck what, Daddy?" said my daughter.

"Scandinavia," I said.

I decided not to die. Not here, not now. I knew my number was nearing up, but my fettle was nearly fine again. Conundrum? Contradiction? Contraindication? Probably the Philosopher would have sneered it away. Mere remission, he'd have said, malady's lull, death catching its breath, a little pre-crossing picnic by the Styx.

Probably he'd be right.

I got up, cased the joint, cat-burgled around, searched and seized. Jewelry, cash, checkbooks, credit cards. The gold rope I gave Maryse one anniversary. The gold earrings I gave her another. Money from all the places I supposed a typical William to keep it-cookie jars, cigar boxes, smuggler's almanacs, antique licorice tins. I scooped up wallets, keys, coins. I rolled William's convertible out of the driveway, gave myself a swift lecture in stick.

"I am me," I said, aimed for the interstate.

I drove to Cudahy's grave. Cudahy had no grave. I parked and walked the pathways of the tony boneyard where somewhere a sandwich-sized wedge of granite bore his name. We'd cindered him, after all, old Cudahy, poured him into the Florentine-where were his ashes now? In mini-storage? On a hock shop shelf? Beside the chipped china and warped seventy-eights at some old biddy's going-out-of-subsistence yard sale?-but an anonymous donor had sprung for a marker, a simple stone in this spare outer lawn, this necropolitan burb, set aside for the absentee dead.

We'd never discovered the name of the donor. We'd never bothered. Who didn't have the distant dowager aunt somewhere, the rumored relation, the cash uncle who'd let you dangle in your day-to-day but who could be counted on to shout for the quality engravature that pronounced your finitude?