Space Magic (5 page)

“I’m sure. I plan to keep on as a contract artist part-time, at least for a while, but this is what I want to do. Where I want to be. However, I’d appreciate the services of an experienced business lawyer.”

“I would be happy to help.”

The gate was padlocked. I’d never seen it padlocked before.

I stood there for a moment, not knowing what to do, and then I put my hands in my jacket pockets and felt something hard. It was the key Carl had given me the last time I saw him, which was also the last time I’d worn that jacket.

On impulse, I tried it in the padlock.

It worked.

We got inside and wandered around the yard. Ms. Hernandez didn’t seem to think it was odd that I had a key to the gate, and I decided not to mention the circumstances under which I’d acquired it.

We paused before a rank of vacuum cleaners, a faded rainbow of aqua and pink and beige plastic. “Mr. Tatyrczinski was one of my favorite clients,” Ms. Hernandez said. “He gave me a bust of Kennedy for my birthday one year. Kennedy was my hero, but I don’t think I ever mentioned that to him. Somehow he always knew just the right thing to do.”

“Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe the junkyard knew.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Wait a minute, I just remembered something.” I walked down to the end of the row of appliances, paused a moment, turned left. There, on a battered chrome dinette table, was a jar of buttons. I opened it, dug around for a moment. “Here. I think Carl would have liked you to have this.”

It was a campaign pin in red, white, and blue. It was a little faded, but still plainly readable: RE-ELECT JFK IN ’64.

“This must have been some kind of joke,” Ms. Hernandez said.

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s a little memento from a time that never was. A time that was better than this one.”

“What a... a lovely thought. In any case, if I were your business lawyer I would caution you against giving away merchandise to friends and relatives. It’s a common problem for new business owners.”

“OK, I’ll take three bucks for it. Naah, make it two fifty.”

“It’s a deal.”

We stood side by side and watched the sun set over the junkyard.

The receptionist had feathers where her eyebrows should have been. They were blue, green, and black, iridescent as a peacock’s, and they trembled gently in the silent breath of the air conditioner. “Did you have a question, sir?”

“No,” Jason replied, and raised his magazine, but after reading the same paragraph three times without remembering a word he set it down again. “Actually, yes. Um, I wanted to ask you... ah... are you... transitioning?” The word landed on the soft tailored-grass carpet of the waiting room, and Jason wished he could pick it up again, stuff it into his pocket, and leave. Just leave, and never come back.

“Oh, you mean the eyebrows? No, sir, that’s just fashion. I enjoy being human.” She smiled gently at him. “You haven’t been in San Francisco very long, have you?”

“No, I just got in this morning.”

“Feathers are very popular here. In fact, we’re having a special this month. Would you like a brochure?”

“No! Uh, I mean, no thank you.” He looked down and saw that the magazine had crumpled in his hands. Awkwardly he tried to smooth it out, then gave up and slipped it back in the pile on the coffee table. They were all recent issues, and the coffee table looked like real wood. He tested it with a dirty thumbnail; real wood, all right. Then, appalled at his own action, he shifted the pile of magazines to cover the tiny scratch.

“Sir?”

Jason started at the receptionist’s voice, sending magazines skidding across the table. “What?”

“Would you mind if I gave you a little friendly advice?”

“Uh, I... no. Please.” She was probably going to tell him that his fly was open, or that ties were required in this office. Her own tie matched the wall covering, a luxurious print of maroon and gold. Jason doubted the collar of his faded work shirt would even button around his thick neck.

“You might not want to ask any of our patients if they are transitioning.”

“Is it impolite?” He wanted to crawl under the table and die.

“No, sir.” She smiled again, with genuine humor this time. “It’s just that some of them will talk your ear off, given the slightest show of interest.”

“I, uh... Thank you.”

A chime sounded—a rich little sound that blended unobtrusively with the waiting room’s classical music—and the receptionist stared into space for a moment. “I’ll let him know,” she said to the air, then turned her attention to Jason. “Mr. Carmelke is out of surgery.”

“Thank you.” It was so strange to hear that uncommon name applied to someone else. He hadn’t met another Carmelke in over twenty years.

-o0o-

Half an hour later the waiting room door opened onto a corridor with a smooth, shiny floor and meticulous off-white walls. Despite the art—original, no doubt—and the continuing classical music, a slight smell of disinfectant reminded Jason where he was. A young man in a nurse’s uniform led Jason to a door marked with the name Dr. Lawrence Steig.

“Hello, Mr. Carmelke,” said the man behind the desk. “I’m Dr. Steig.” The doctor was lean, shorter than Jason, with brown eyes and a trim salt-and-pepper beard. His hand, like his voice, was firm and a little rough; his tie was knotted with surgical precision. “Please do sit down.”

Jason perched on the edge of the chair, not wanting to surrender to its lushness. Not wanting to be comfortable. “How is my father?”

“The operation went well, and he’ll be conscious soon. But I’d like to talk with you first. I believe there are some... family issues.”

“What makes you say that?”

The doctor stared at his personal organizer as he repeatedly snapped it open and shut. It was gold. “I’ve been working with your father for almost two years, Mr. Carmelke. The doctor-patient relationship in this type of work is, necessarily, quite intimate. I feel I’ve gotten to know him quite well.” He raised his eyes to Jason’s. “He’s never mentioned you.”

“I’m not surprised.” Jason heard the edge of bitterness in his own voice.

“It’s not unusual for patients of mine to be disowned by their families.”

Jason’s hard, brief laugh startled both of them. “This has nothing to do with his... transition, Dr. Steig. My father left my mother and me when I was nine. I haven’t spoken to him since. Not once.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Carmelke.” He seemed sincere; Jason wondered if it were just professional bedside manner. The doctor opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and stared off into a corner for a moment. “This might not be the best time for a family reunion,” he said finally. “His condition may be a little... startling.”

“I didn’t come all the way from Cleveland just to turn around and go home. I want to talk with my father. While I still can. And this is my last chance, right?”

“The final operation is scheduled for five weeks from now. It can be postponed, of course. But all the papers have been signed.” The doctor placed his hands flat on the desk. “You’re not going to be able to talk him out of it.”

“Just let me see him.”

“I will... if he wants to see you.”

Jason didn’t have anything to say to that.

-o0o-

Jason’s father was lying on his side, facing away from the door, as Jason entered. The smell of disinfectant was stronger here, and a battery of instruments bleeped quietly.

He was bald, with just a fringe of gray hair around the back of his head. The scalp was smooth and pink and shiny, and very round—matching Jason’s own round head, too big for the standard hard hats at his work site. “Big Jase” was what it said on his own personal helmet, black marker on safety yellow plastic.

But though his father’s head was large and round, the shoulders that moved with his breathing were too narrow, and his chest dropped rapidly away to hips that were narrower still. The legs were invisible, drawn up in front of his body. Jason swallowed as he moved around to the other side of the bed.

His father’s round face was tan, looking more “rugged” than “wrinkled.” Deep lines ran from his nose to the corners of his mouth, and the eyebrows above his closed eyes were gray and very bushy. It was both an older and a younger face than what Jason had imagined, trying to add twenty years to a memory twenty years old.

Jason’s gaze traveled down, past his father’s freshly-shaved chin, to the thick ruff of gray-white fur on his neck. Then further, to the gray-furred legs that lay on the bed in front of him and the paws that crossed, relaxed, at the ankles, with neatly trimmed nails and clean, unscuffed pads.

His father’s body resembled a wolf’s, or a mastiff’s, broad and strong and laced with muscle and sinew. But it was wrong, somehow. His chest, narrow though it was, was still wider than any normal dog’s, and the fur looked fake—too clean, too fine, too regular. Jason knew from his reading on the plane that it was engineered from his father’s own body hair, and was only an approximation of a dog’s natural coat with its layers of different types of hair.

He was a magnificent animal. He was a pathetic freak. He was a marvel of biotechnology. He was an arrogant icon of self-indulgence.

He was a dog.

He was Jason’s father.

“Dad? It’s Jason.” Some part of him wanted to pet the furry shoulder, but he kept his hands to himself.

His father’s eyes flickered open, then drifted closed again. “Yeah. Doctor told me.” His voice was a little slurred. “What the hell’re you doing here?”

“I ran into Aunt Brittany at O’Hare. I didn’t recognize her, but she knew me right away. She told me all about... you. I came straight here.”
It’s my father
, he’d told his boss on the phone.
He’s in the hospital. I have to see him before it’s too late.
Letting him draw the wrong conclusion, but not too far from the truth.

His father’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “Never could trust her.”

“Dad...
why?
”

He opened his eyes again. They were the same hard blue as Jason’s, and they were beginning to focus properly. “Because I can. Because the Consti...
tu
tion gives me the right to do whatever the hell I want with my body and my money. Because I want to be pampered for the rest of my life.” He closed his eyes and crossed his paws on the bridge of his nose. “Because I don’t want to make any more damn decisions. Now get out.”

Jason’s mouth flapped open and closed like a fish. “But Dad...”

“Mr. Carmelke?” Jason looked up, and his father rolled his head around, to see where Dr. Steig stood by the door. Jason had no idea how long he had been there. “Excuse me, I meant Jason.” Jason’s father put his paws over his face again. “Mr. Carmelke, I think you should leave your father alone for a while. He’s still feeling the effects of the anesthetic. He may be more... open to discussion in the morning.”

“Doubt it,” came the voice from under the crossed paws.

Jason’s hand reached out—to stroke the forehead, to ruffle the fur, he wasn’t sure which—but then it pulled back. “See you tomorrow, Dad.”

There was no response.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Jason leaned heavily against the wall, then slid down to a sitting position. His eyes stung and he rubbed at them.

“I’m sorry.” Jason opened his eyes at the voice. Dr. Steig was squatting in front of him, holding a clipboard in his hands. “He’s not usually like this.”

“I’ve never understood him,” Jason said, shaking his head. “Not since he left. We had a good life. He wasn’t drinking or anything. There weren’t any money problems—not then, anyway. Mom loved him. I loved him. But he said, ‘There’s nothing here for me,’ and he walked out of our lives.”

“You mentioned money. Is that what this is about? You know he’s given most of it to charity already. What remains is just enough to pay for the craniofacial procedure, and a trust fund that will cover his few needs after that.”

“It’s not the money. It was never the money. He even offered to pay alimony and child support, but Mom turned it down. It wasn’t the most practical decision, but she really didn’t want anything to do with him. I think it was one of those things where a broken love turns into a terrible hate.”

“Does your mother know you’re here?”

“She died eight years ago. Leukemia. He didn’t even come to the funeral.”

“I’m sorry,” the doctor said again. He sat down, let his clipboard clatter to the shiny floor next to him. They sat together in silence for a time. “Let me talk with him tonight, Mr. Carmelke, and we’ll see how things go in the morning. All right?”

Jason thought for a moment, then bobbed his head. “All right.”

They helped each other up.

-o0o-

Jason’s father jogged into the doctor’s office the next morning, his lithe new body bobbing with a smooth four-legged gait, and hopped easily up onto a carpeted platform that brought his head to the same level as Jason and the doctor. But he refused to meet Jason’s eyes. Jason himself sat in the doctor’s leather guest chair, fully seated this time, but still not fully comfortable.

“Noah,” Dr. Steig said to Jason’s father, “I know this is hard for you. But I want you to understand that it is even harder for your son.”

“He shouldn’t have come here,” he said, still not looking at Jason.

“Dad... how could I not? You’re the only family I have left in the world, I didn’t even know if you were dead or alive, and now... this! I had to come. Even if I can’t change your mind, I... I just want to talk.”

“Talk, then!” His face turned to Jason at last, but his blue eyes were hard, his mouth set. “I might even listen.” He lowered his head to his paws, which rested on the carpeted surface in front of him.

Jason felt the little muscles in his legs tensing to rise. He could stand up, walk out... be free of this awkwardness and pain. Go back to his lonely little house and try to forget all about his father.

But he knew how well that had worked the last time.

“I told them you were dead,” he said. “My friends at school. The new school, after we moved to Cleveland. I don’t know why. Lots of their parents were divorced. They would have understood. But somehow pretending you were dead made it easier.”