Eyeheart Everything (7 page)

We met that morning at the wide steps of the University, erudite spire jutting from the belly of our industrial skyline. I wore the long tan mackintosh and gray fedora that is the official uniform of our Group, when it’s raining. Ivan brought a duck, in a wire and wooden cage. I pointedly ignored this duck.

Ivan collected signatures while I addressed the throng:

“JOIN THE GREAT BOOKS DISCUSSION GROUP!”

“DISCUSS ... GREAT BOOKS!”

“MEET INTELLECTUALS!”

“UNVEIL NEW HORIZONS OF EXPERIENCE!”

“IMPROVE YOUR STUDY SKILLS!”

But the throng was distracted. They hurried up and down the wide steps, rushing to warmth indoors or to waiting autos, a few pausing to examine the shivering duck, but then continuing on. By noon, Ivan’s few collected signatures had been dissolved into his soaked and limp legal pad by the rain. I sat beside him, and glared at the duck. He hesitated.

“She likes —”

“Ivan!” I shrieked. “What’s wrong with you? You were once so dependable! So articulate! Great books spilled out their truths at your interrogation. Libraries wept!”

Ivan gazed into the deep brown eyes of the cold, cold duck.

“Look at you now! Fickle as the publishers of the Tolstoy Quarterly! More faddish that the deconstructionists of Joyce! Your mind is turning to effluvium over that girl. She’s no good for you.”

“I’m not coming tonight.”

“The Group is adrift without you, Ivan.”

“I can’t apologize enough, I know. Tomorrow night I give my word I will attend. But tonight …” At this he gathered up his duck cage in his spindly arms and smirked. “… I have a date.”

One sensed, from within the University, a great many tests being simultaneously failed.

That evening our Group convened at the Library, vast collective memory of our industrial skyline. I wore the powdered wig and coke-bottle bifocals that are de rigueur for such formal situations.

At that meeting, a motion was put forth calling for Ivan’s expulsion from the Group, on the grounds of his recent lack of dedication and sharply declined attendance.

A lively debate ensued. Attention was drawn to Ivan’s distinguished record of achievement, his seniority, and the questionable validity of the fifty percent quorum. Personal loyalties were also drawn into play. The motion was eventually rescheduled for the next meeting, when we planned to discuss Dante’s Inferno.

The following dusk I found him at the graveyard, that plot where we deposit the casualties of our industrial skyline. He wandered slowly from headstone to headstone, a loose hemp noose dangling from his neck and trailing through the flowers behind him. His arms hung lifeless. His head hung low. His shoulder pack flopped against his hip with each ragged step.

“Fond of death is she, Ivan?”

He submitted to brief, morose laughter, which devolved to a profound shudder. “Actually,” he croaked, “she has a boyfriend. A chemical engineer, who yachts. She’s told me all about him, last night over cabernet and blackened duck.”

We blanched. “Ivan ... you didn’t?”

“I meant to impress her with my multifacilities. However ...” and he sank back into miasma.

We sat there for some time without talking. We had never seen our friend Ivan so devoid of enthusiasm.

“Why,” he asked, “is so much of our great literature concerned with romantic failure? Why do stories of success and suitable endings appear so transparent to us? What is the attraction of tragedy?”

“The attraction of tragedy in literature,” I replied, “is that it happens to others.”

We sat there for some time more, still not talking. It began to rain.

“Ivan?”

“Hm?”

“Did you really slaughter that duck?”

“I did.”

“The Greeks, you know, and the Romans —”

“Auguries, yes. I thought of that as well.”

“Well then, did the entrails of the duck, did they, um, portend anything to you?”

He giggled, and scratched his chin. “To me they foretold unlucky times ahead — for the duck.” At this I chuckled. “And,” he added, “that butchering should be left to butchers. When I slit the poor creature’s belly, all the while thinking ‘You are a great sacrifice to my love, noble bird,’ the guts that spilled out were the most unromantic thing I have beheld since my Biology dissections. I meant to prepare Orange Duck, you know.”

“Ambitious.”

“Yes, well, hubris had quite overtaken me. Blackened Duck was an inspiration attributable more to an overfed hibachi than to me. Nevertheless, I felt the sauce sustained the dish. I copied it from a crumbling old edition of Rombauer, which I found at a bookstore that just opened near the Styrofoam Decomposition Facility — you know, that inflatable building that gets smaller on weekends?”

“Yes, I know the one. Right beside the Darts Academy.”

“Directly across from there, where previously there was a tap dancing studio — forced out by the neighbors, I was told — now sits an antiquarian bookseller’s, operated by the most bizarre little man. You must meet him. He knows from Goethe.”

“That’s exciting, Ivan. Shall we go there now?”

“I could accompany you in less than half an hour, if you would wait while I finish this errand.” He doffed the shoulder pack, and from it withdrew a garden spade, a small ornate crucifix, and a Tupperware box. Inside the translucent plastic box I could see the charred remains of some meal, garnished with a few carrots. “I feel I’ve done this creature an injustice, you see.” And, choosing a spot a few yards from us, he began to dig.

Poor Ivan. He is incurably romantic.

ABSTRACT: Consideration as Plaintiff in Court Case US-783471.913 Class-Action: (Plaintiffs) vs. Dow Corning Manufacturers, Prosthetics & Medical Implements (aka “Dow Corning Breast-Implant Class-Action Suit”)

CONSIDERATION PREPARED BY: Mykle Hansen, freelance lawyer

NAME OF CONSIDERANT: Clay Connaly

AGE OF CONSIDERANT: 31

DATE OF BREAST IMPLANT PROCEDURE: JANUARY 3, 1995

LOCATION (Facility, State) OF BREAST IMPLANT PROCEDURE: St. Francis Church of Christ Hospital, TX

PURPOSE OF BREAST IMPLANT PROCEDURE (cosmetic, reconstructive, other): N/A (see exposition)

DAMAGES SOUGHT BY CONSIDERANT: Fifteen Million, Four Thousand Fifty Seven Dollars ($15,004,057)

INTRODUCTION OF CONSIDERANT:

Clay Connaly (“Client”) is a 31 year-old male. Client was employed by St. Francis Church of Christ Hospital, Loredo, TX between August of 1984 and June of 1986 in the capacity of Nursing Assistant (“NA”). (Employment terminated satisfactorily — see disposition of Church of Christ Hospital Nursing Staff Manager June Cleary, attached.) During this period, Client obtained a “Stealth-Sheen” Dow Corning manufactured artificial breast implant (“artificial breast”).

DESCRIPTION OF INITIAL BREAST IMPLANT PROCEDURE:

Artificial breast had become un-sterilized during routine medical practices on Jan 3, 1985. Specifically, a Church of Christ Hospital cosmetic surgery patient had objected to insufficient volume of artificial breast immediately before surgery, requiring surgeon to move to a larger size. Smaller-sized artificial breast, unsterile, was given by surgeon to Client with instructions to “dispose of (it) in proper manner”. Client disposed of artificial breast in his home, specifically upon 1860’s-era mission-style coffee table (“table”) in downstairs front guest-reception area, utilization characterized by Client as “conversation piece”. This arrangement was considered “proper manner” by Client and constituted faithful execution of instructions and performance of NA duties. Furthermore, it kept with Client’s laudable ongoing efforts to reduce waste and encourage environmentally-friendly practices at Church of Christ Hospital.

DESCRIPTION OF COMPLICATIONS/TRAUMA:

Artificial breast remained stable in client’s downstairs front guest-reception area for several years, beyond Client’s period of employment with Church of Christ Hospital, until date of artificial breast failure: Nov. 23, 1988, under following circumstances:

Client held a pre-Thanksgiving semi-public open house event (“shindig”) in his home, wherein guests became interested in the entertainment potential of artificial breast as party favor. At one point, normal squeezing/groping/fondling of artificial breast — said squeezing/groping/fondling well within design tolerances for this Dow product, and we must note Dow advertising/promotional information sent to doctors in 1983-1984 (see attachment) included photographs of off-duty medical professionals employing similar artificial implant products in similar educational/entertainment capacities, thereby DEMONSTRATING AN INTENDED USE OF THE PRODUCT — said squeezing of Dow artificial breast implant caused implant to burst, traumatically.

INITIAL ASSESSMENT OF DAMAGES DUE TO COMPLICATIONS/TRAUMA:

1) Artificial breast liquid silicone core caused indelible stains, damage to table. Replacement cost assessed in 1979 at $750, adjusted to current dollars at $2127.

2) Liquid silicone core caused indelible stains, damage to Persian rug. Replacement cost estimated at $1200 in 1988, adjusted to $1755.

3) Liquid silicone core caused indelible stains, damage to personal items & clothing of several shindig participants. Client reimbursed participants with complimentary beverages valued at $120 in 1988, adjusted to $175.

4) Damage to Client’s standing in the community as a result of public artificial breast failure is significant, but difficult to quantify. We note this for purposes of arbitration only.

5) Trauma, embarrassment from the artificial breast failure/bursting event left Client with a lingering fear and distrust of artificial breasts (see attached deposition of Dr. Lawrence Fokker, Ph.D, psychiatric consultant to Client). This phobia has significantly hampered the progress of Client’s career in the film industry. Although Client has bravely battled this problem and met with some career success, he has done so though the abandonment of a path towards feature film directing, which his breast-failure-induced phobic trauma makes impossibly difficult for him. Instead Client has channeled his strength and creativity into the field of computer animation. (Attached disposition by Dr. Fokker explains this “replacement-anxiety strategy” as pathological and involuntary.) The net result is a significant, irreversible diminution of Client’s earning power and capacity for joy. It is impossible to know just how high Client may have risen in the field of feature film directing had this terrible trauma not wounded his psyche. Our figure of fifteen million dollars is based on our estimate of only the last ten years’ lost potential, and does not come close to fully reimbursing him for the damage to his future potential.

How did you sleep last night? Did you dream anything? Me too. Did you dream about a long hallway? A boat? A telephone? Did the telephone ring? Did you answer the telephone? Why not? I dreamed I called you last night, and you didn’t answer. Why didn’t you answer when I called? Yes, I know you were asleep, I was asleep too. I called your dream from my dream. How? I asked the operator. Umm ... a black woman I think, sounded like she was about my age or a bit younger. Very helpful and courteous. I don’t remember the number, but I wrote it down on the telephone book in my dream. Umm ... I think she said she was with US West. Yeah, they’re everywhere. But maybe you get to have GTE in your dreams. You’d know if you ever picked up the phone. Yes, I know we call each other all the time. Okay, I call you all the time, sure. It’s fun! I thought, hey, I’m dreaming, I wonder if this phone works. It’s like when I got my cell phone and I called you from all those places? Hey, I’m on a bus! Hey, I’m in an elevator! Hey, I’m in my own hall closet! You know, it was fun. I figured, what if I can call up Nancy in her dreams from my dreams. I bet it would have worked! How? I don’t know how, I don’t even know how my cell phone works. It uses waves. Anyway you can do anything in dreams, that’s the whole point. I read that somewhere. Anyway I didn’t mean to disturb you or interrupt anything. Why, what were you doing when the phone rang? Why not? Just curious, geez. I’ll tell you what I ... yeah, I was um ... in this office, in a really tall building downtown, only it had only stairs, no elevator or escalator, and I worked on the 37th floor, I remember that, it was a temp job that the agency placed me with and I had to get there at exactly midnight and start working, but everybody else was there too, I remember it was very important stuff they did in the legal profession and they all worked 24 hours a day. I made copies. I had to use this photocopier that was on the 34th floor, three floors down from where my cube was, so I had to keep going out into this big stairwell where the stairs didn’t have any railings, and I’d look down this mile-deep stairwell at all the people going up and down, and there’d be big groups of people very precariously trying to squeeze past other big groups of people traveling in the other direction, not passing single-file which would have been the safest way, but instead shoving straight through each other, and I remember watching someone fall from a ledge above me, and the first time I came back from using the copier ... the copier itself had this computer in it, and these big seizing arms, and the copier would work okay if it was left unplugged, but if someone plugged it in it would wake up and get evil. The seizing arms jumped out and yanked my copy jobs away from me and threw the papers into this metal box in its side than sprung open, kind of an iron-lidded incinerator-style box, the copier was also apparently part of the central heating system of this huge building, and I remember it was part of some futuristic head-management environmental control system that was a big cost-saving feature of this brand-new futuristic office building. When the copier finished my copy job (fifteen copies stapled and collated) they came out on this other extendo-robotic arm with a weird cat-litter scoop attachment on the end, I mean, yeah, I mean it had dried bits of cat litter on it and it smelled like serious cat butt, and there were my copies in this little dirty scoop. So I’m all, okay, I grab the copies but the other extendo-robotic arm, the one with the grasping pincer on the end, it has a longer reach and it’s sort of hovering above the cat-litter scoop, grasping pincer wide open, and it looks like it wants to grab me and copy me. So I say to this copier, Where’s My Originals, and the copier laughs — it’s got this little blue screen way on the other end of the room with a little graphical user interface on it, and little individual windows pop up, and each one just says HA! in big type, and they pop up one at a time, HA! HA! HA! HA!, and the extendo-robotic arms jiggle with laughter, super creepy. But while it’s laughing I grab the copies out of its scoop and run out the door, and then I’m back on the staircase only I notice that very very slowly, the staircase, the one with no railing, has been retracting into the walls, so that where it was like three people wide before, winding around this incredibly long 100-story shaft, now it’s like one and seven-eighths people wide, and I head on upwards, and as I do I pass people heading downwards, and they all want me to pass them on the right, which is the outside, you know, the edge of the stairs is there and there’s occasionally people in suits — everybody wears either suits with leather shoes or like jogging outfits with huge Nikes, Nikes the size of ski boots, and these Nikes are like specially designed for traction and agility when climbing treacherous staircases, and the people who have the Nikes on have an automatic advantage in any of these climbing situations, and that’s when I realize that I’m wearing only my underwear, and this pair of little fuzzy duck slippers, slippers that are shaped like ducks — and there’s occasionally people in suits falling, from above, on down towards the bottom of the stair shaft, and they don’t scream or say anything, they just plummet on down and you never hear them hit. None of the guys with the jogging suits have fallen yet at that point, although you can see how even they eventually would. So I’m passing people on the right, where they get to cling to the wall and I have to go around them, and it’s not impossible to do, it’s not like they’re going to exactly push me, but they all seem kind of pissed-off and offended and irritated that when I pass them I stand so close, invading their personal space when I’m passing them, and I touch one guy accidentally and he sort of shoves me as I pass him and I freak out and almost lose my balance, but I don’t. And I can tell that the stairs are still retracting, and the funny thing is that I remember that this particular super-modern office building is designed with Self-Cleaning Stairs, and that there’s all these signs above all the doors that say to Stay Out Of The Stairwell During The Cleaning Cycle, but when the copying job fell in my IN box on my desk in my cube, I forgot to check the clock ... anyway I have to finally pass one of these big phalanxes of like ten guys in Nikes and jogging suits, the suits are all the same color, red, with stripes down the sleeves and legs and with high collars held tight with two metal snaps on each neck, they’re jogging down the steps in single file, and they come towards me and yell “Stand to the right!” but there’s no room, so I turn around and run back downwards aways until I get to the base of the 36th floor, and I duck in the door there, just moments before these joggers shove me into the abyss. But in there ... well, that part’s weird, but after a while I get out again and ... no, well, it’s kind of sexual, that’s all. Well, no, it’s gross. No really. You don’t want to hear about that stuff. I’m boring you, aren’t I? Really? Okay ... well, stop me when it gets too gross for you then, but I open this door and inside there’s this long wood-paneled hallway, with rows of flowers on either side of the hallway, it’s like a very fancy reception area, and I go up to the desk at the end and it’s this receptionist who’s got like no clothes on, at all, just one of those phone headsets. Yeah and ... no, I didn’t “do” her! Shut up! I’m so sure! No, I just said ... I’m telling you, okay, just listen, so I’m all, ahem, Hello there miss, I was just dropping by to get out of the Stairway Cleaning Cycle, and she smiles, and she’s all Oh yeah, the Cleaning Cycle, I hate that, isn’t it a drag? Feel free to wait here in our waiting area as long as you like. Can I get you some Maxwell House International Blend? We have Irish Cream, Italian Zest, Swedish Romp, etc, etc? And I’m like, Well, thanks very much ma’am but I’ve got this very important photocopying job I’ve just got to get back to the head office upstairs, and do you know if there’s any way at all that I can get up there while the stairwell is closed? And she goes Welllll, and then she looks around, and then she whispers to me, There’s an executive elevator that we’re not supposed to use, but I know the combination, come around here, and then she ducks under her desk, and I wait for her to sit back up, but she doesn’t, and when I look around behind her desk I see there’s a little door down there, and when I crawl through the door I’m in a tiny, tiny room, and she’s there too, and she’s still naked and I’m still in my underwear ... and she presses the number 37 on the wall, and there’s a ding, and then I climb out the door and I’m in my office again. So I go back to my desk, and ... no, I don’t remember where she went. She stayed in the elevator. I went back to my desk, but when I got there there was this note on my chair that said CHARLIE! CHECK YOUR VOICE MAIL! but I didn’t have a phone in my cube, and there wasn’t one on the whole floor, and then I remembered, there’s a pay phone in the stairwell. So I stuck my head out into the self-cleaning stairwell one more time, just opened the door and looked out there, and what I saw was the stairs had retracted back to about six inches, and for several floors above and below there were these guys in jogging suits with enormous shoes who were standing on the remaining edge of stairway, backs to the wall, shuffling slowly sideways either up or down the staircase, and I watched as two of them approached each other going opposite ways, and they did this sort of acrobatic maneuver where one of them would spin around on one inside toe so that suddenly he was face to face and sort of ... sort of embracing the other one, and then he’d flip over again, spinning on his other toe, so that he was against the wall and that way the two of them would have passed each other. And they all seemed to be pretty good at this, and without getting huffy with each other either, and I could tell that the stairs were almost retracted and still slowly retracting, but down the stairs to my right only about ten feet away was this pay telephone. So I figured, well, I have to check my voice mail, it’s only ten feet, it’ll be a quick call, the ledge is retracting pretty slowly ... yeah, well, it’s a dream. Don’t you do dumb things in your dreams? I’m always having ... I’m always about to have unprotected intercourse with total strangers in my dreams, that’s pretty dumb. With ... lots of people. Why? People I don’t know sometimes. Well yeah of course it’s all harmless, it’s a dream, so like quit interRUPting me oKAY? I’m so sure. Anyway: I slide down this ledge with my back to the wall, and it’s slow going but I reach the phone, and I get change out of my pocket and put it in the phone but then I realize I don’t know what the voice mail number is. So then, that was when, specifically, I called ... you! First I called 411, got your number from the operator from US West ... sure I have it memorized, but in the dream I didn’t, but I wrote it down on the cover of the phone book, 553-0861. And then ... what do you mean what happened, bitch? Well, did you answer the frickin’ phone last night or what? Did you? No you did NOT! So it just rang and rang, and I redialed ‘cause I thought maybe I dialed it wrong but it just rang some more, and I felt the ledge going out from under my heels so I was just standing on my toes, and hanging onto the phone book that’s like hanging from that little length of cable. Like I knew I had to get off the ledge but I didn’t want to let go of the phone, right? And then I slipped, and I hung there by the telephone handset and the phone book ... and then the alarm went off. Well, not exactly scary ... most of my dreams are like that. I didn’t wake up in a sweat or anything. Why, what are your dreams like?