Résumé With Monsters (27 page)

#

They lay under the covers, staring at the ceiling with its assortment of pipes. Sissy apparently found nothing remarkable about this solution to the leaks.

"This was called bundling in colonial times," Philip said. "People would lie under the covers in bed, fully-clothed, perfect strangers."

"I feel like I've known you forever," Sissy said.

"Today, at work, the power went off and while it was dark, this creature crawled out of an air vent, this horrible little
ghoullike
old man. I couldn't move. I was paralyzed by some sort of nerve gas coming from the vent. I was terrified."

Sissy was silent.

"Well?" Philip asked. "What do you think?"

"Lying in bed with all your clothes on is kind of sexy, you know. Stupid, but sexy."

"Do you think I'm crazy? Do you think I was suffering from some sort of hallucination?"

Sissy pushed her face across the pillow so that it was an inch from Philip's. She had freckles on her nose and on her cheeks, small orange constellations that could, with study and time, be given names and legends. She smiled wickedly and said, "Do you ever screw your therapist?"

"No. Of course not," Philip said, hearing a certain huffiness in his voice.

"I didn't think you did."

Philip smiled, a polite but baffled smile.

"Well I'm not your therapist. I wouldn't want you to mistake me for your therapist."

Sissy reached out and tapped Philip's nose with a silver-dollar-sized foil-wrapped package. "I'm a modern girl," she said. "And this is modern bundling."

#

Sissy made love wordlessly and athletically. Her body was generous and warm and more finely modeled than her midday Polaroid declared. She slid amid the sheets with happy, dolphin grace and got up occasionally to change a CD on Philip's player. She was very particular about lovemaking music and found Philip's collection lacking ("Bob Dylan and Lou Reed may be great artists and everything but they are cold water on naked romance. Oh hey, you've got
k.d
. lang.
 
Now that's more like it".)

#

In the morning, Philip woke early and lay on his side studying the sweet, eloquent and beautifully wanton curve of Sissy's body. She lay curled on her side, facing away from him, revealing the golden arc of her hip, her glorious, confident bottom, and her bright, declarative thighs that flowed into youthful calves and on into feet that were exclamations of delight... the poet in Philip soared, then caught its fleshy feet on a glimpse of the red tuft of hair that flared between her thighs. He snuggled next to her, stiff now, a blind, all-business cock pressing a pliant buttock. He snatched another condom from the end table; rolled it on with clumsy haste, finding something wildly erotic in this under-the-sheets furtiveness.

"
Hmmmmm
," Sissy murmured, as Philip's hand traveled the warm country road of her spine. She thrust back against him. He entered her.

She laughed softly, still full of sensual sleep. Her hand turned backward and brushed his cheek. "Love," she muttered. "
Lovecraft
."

#

When Philip came back from the bathroom, he found the piece of paper lying on the floor where it had fallen out of his shirt pocket the night before.

He knew it instantly, intuitively, for the paper that the ghostly little man had left him the day before.

He unfolded it and read a crude, photocopied flyer entitled
HAPPY TEEMS NEWSLEDDER.

It was hand-lettered, and began,
DONT EATS YOUR PKRDNER. EVERBODY GETS PLENTY
HaPY
IF THEY WORK, TOGEDDER LIK TEEMS. DONT KIL PEOPLES. LIV TOGEDDER. BEST POLICY. KIS KND MAKEUP. DONT BITES WRONG PEOPLES BUT SAY SORY YOU KRE WRONGS AND DONT KIL THAM ANY. DONT STEEL NOTHIN BUT KSK PLEEEZ. ALWKYS DO WHUT YOR BOSSES SKY WITHOUT GROWLS OR SLOBBER. DONT-.
A sinking sensation, as though he were being lowered into his grave, accosted Philip. He knew instantly what he was reading.

*

He showed it to Lily when he went to his session. She put her glasses on and studied it.

She looked up at him over the tops of her reading glasses. "What did you say this was?"

"It's a motivational tract," Philip explained. "Like the ones I got at Ralph’s One-Day Résumés. The author is urging his fellow office workers to live in harmony and be part of a team."

"Doesn't make much sense to me," Lily said.

"I think," Philip said, "that there is a degenerate subculture living within
Pelidyne
, an atrophied race of office workers. I think they have regressed through inbreeding and through their alliance with..." Philip hesitated. He didn't want to talk about this, but he saw no alternative. He had to warn Amelia, and Lily seemed his best hope. He paused, exhaled. "I distinctly heard the creature say 'Dagon.' I think we are talking ancient entities here. I think we are talking malign, distorting forces."

Lily sighed. She lit a cigarette. "Are you taking your medication?" she asked.

"I don't think I can afford to take any drug that might impair my reflexes. It would be different if I could just walk away from the whole thing. But I can't. I think that's clear."

"What does your new girlfriend, this Sissy, think about all this?"

"She says she isn't my therapist."

"Well, she has a point there, but she must have some opinion on your monsters."

"She says all artists have their demons."

AL Bingham came into the house. He had been out back, painting the tool shed green. He wore shorts and a baseball cap, splattered with green paint. His face was sunburned and full of domesticated joy.

"Hey Philip," he said. "How are you doing? That wife of mine shrinking you down to sane size?"

"I guess so," Philip said.

#

But Philip knew Lily was worried. She even spoke of his returning to the hospital. She said she wanted him to talk to Dr. Beasley again. And

Lily had made no firm commitment to warn Amelia of the dangers lurking within
Pelidyne
.

Philip had driven back to his apartment, tormented by a sense of urgency, of conflicting emotions. He found, to his surprise, that Sissy had redefined Amelia. Amelia was his old love, strangely distant, her face and features now remembered with affection—and without yearning or any sense of loss. She was getting married; he wished her well.

A strident, moral voice spoke:
Does this mean you are just going to leave her to her fate?

I'm not well
, he told his conscience.
There aren't any monsters. I'm mistaken about all that.

Hah!
his conscience snorted.

Back at his apartment, Sissy wrapped him in her arms. "I got a job," she whispered in his ear. She had walked down to Dan's Texas Bar-B-
Que
and taken the owner up on his offer.

#

In the weeks that followed, a kind of moral
 
lassitude came over Philip. Circumstances conspired to lull him into denial. He was in love; the world was benign. His temp agency did not return him to
Pelidyne
. His life altered. He was now part of a partnership, a dialogue of mind and body, and only occasionally would he be startled to discover how utterly he had adapted to the concept of
twoness
, the shared toothpaste and alien clutter and additional opinions to be sorted and considered.

One day, when a temporary job placed him downtown near
Pelidyne
, he thought he might stop by and speak to Amelia. But the job was abruptly terminated two days before its scheduled end, and Philip found himself working on the other side of the city. There was something fateful in this near miss, so he called Amelia. He got her answering phone. Amelia and her now live-in boyfriend had created a joint message. Amelia would speak a line, then her boyfriend. The effect reminded Philip of something school children might present at a parent/teacher gathering.

Amelia:
Hello, this is Amelia Price
.

Boyfriend:
And this is Mike Lawson
.

Both:
We are not in right now, but we would love to hear from yo
u.

Amelia:
Please leave a message at the tone.

Boyfriend:
We will get back to you as soon as we can.

Both:
Thank you for calling.

The message was so
unrelievedly
cheerful that Philip winced when he heard his own worried, querulous voice pouring onto the tape. "Amelia, this is Philip," he said. "I was worried about you and thought I'd call and say hi. I worked over at
Pelidyne
for a couple of days some time ago, and it was a disturbing experience, and I just wanted to see how you were doing. Give me a call sometime."

He knew she would not return his call.

I tried, he told his conscience.

Hah!
his conscience said.
And Reagan and Bush tried to help the poor.

Then On Time sent him to
Pelidyne
again.

5.

He was assigned a different office, but the same woman, whose sculpted hair might have represented a thick-bodied bird defending its nest, showed him to his new workspace.

She was in an expansive mood and told him her name, Gladys
Fenninger
. She could not resist showing him her picture in
Pelidyne's
office newsletter,
Personality Bytes
. The photo showed Gladys, sporting a toothy grin that wreathed her face in wrinkles and holding a plaque, thrusting it forward for the camera's scrutiny. The caption under this photo read: EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH.

"Well, congratulations," Philip said.

Gladys giggled. "There's some don't think I should get it," she said with real glee, looking behind her quickly to see if anyone was in the corridor. "There's some think they worked harder, but I say"—here she wobbled her head from side to side while declaiming, harking back to some childhood recitation no doubt— "
There's some must win, there's some must lose. Don't play the game if you can't stand the bruise
. You don't get this award just for being a drone. You need brains to carry the day in this kind of competition. I suggested the sorted paper clip bins, didn't I? I suggested the double-stick recall slips, didn't I?"

Philip smiled, sure that she had. Gladys, in the best of spirits, booted Philip's new computer and showed him how to log the X's and O's this time around.

She patted the computer. She winked. "You might think of a career with
Pelidyne
," she said. "This place recognizes merit, Philip."

He said he would think about it.

Later that day, he thought about working full- time at
Pelidyne
. The thought made his bones feel like rusty pipes wrapped in tar paper.

Day after day, On Time kept sending Philip to
Pelidyne
. The job lasted a week, then two, then three. It was inevitable that he should encounter Amelia. "Philip?"

He turned and there she was, behind him in the cafeteria line. She wore purple lipstick and her eyelids were light blue. In other respects, she was a model of conservative style, wearing a light blue blouse and a gray suit.

"It's okay," he said. "I've got a legitimate reason for being here. I'm a temp."

"I know," Amelia said. "It's okay."

They ate lunch together. Amelia said that after his phone message, she had called Lily.

Amelia had been worried. "You didn't sound so hot.

"Lily told me you did some temp work here," Amelia said. "So when I saw you, I figured that was the case again."