The Bradbury Report (30 page)

There are two things I mean when I talk about “self-love.” I mean the love of self that motivates us to act in our own interests (a form, I suppose, of selfishness). And I mean a genuine love of oneself, which motivates us to act in our own
best
interests, such that we love ourselves, such that we are loved, in the way we'd, in our right minds, most want to love and be loved. I am talking, with regard to Alan, about the second. Is this kind of self-love innate? It must be. Consider Alan. It must be. And yet, though I had loving parents, I can't remember ever having felt it. It is precisely in my lack of self-love—all the disclaimers and qualifications, all the apologies, the relentless self-depreciations—that I can be most boringly self-indulgent.

Other questions I cannot hope to answer: Does self-love equal the desire to love another? Can a person who loves nothing be loved by another person, or by himself? How might it feel to live wholeheartedly?

Nearly as much as he liked his own reflection, Alan liked also to
look at photographs. “In Iowa,” Anna said, “when he was with me, he was keen to look at all my pictures. All the ones in frames I had around the house. Pictures of my husband, my children, my grandchildren. My mother. Family vacations. Prom. Graduation. Team photos. He came back to them again and again. He looked through my wedding pictures page by page, very slowly. Albums I'd made for the kids, scrapbook kind of things. A lot of these pictures were goofy, you know, comical, but he didn't once smile. He was serious. It was weird to watch.” Until Anna started to take pictures of Alan, a thing we'd been explicitly warned not to do—as evidence, if it came to that, these pictures would be damning—he had only one photograph of himself to look at it. This picture, on his driver's license—sullen and stampsized—did not begin to satisfy his appetite. In her wallet Anna kept some snapshots of her grandkids, and these Alan asked to see a couple of times a day. In Winnipeg the three of us went to a flea market set up in the parking lot of a suburban ice arena. It was early in our time there, December, and the day was sunny and dry but painfully cold. Alan, who by that time would behave inconspicuously in public, seemed immune to the weather, to all weathers, as if for most of his life he'd been kept outside. We were able there to pick up seven or eight random old photographs, a few of them framed, most of them black and white, one sepia-toned. Of these flea market pictures Alan liked best the framed sepia print: a man in his early twenties, sitting, his legs crossed somewhat effeminately, on a sidewalk bench set in the boulevard of a city street. The trees visible around him are in thick leaf. He is in dress uniform. Army, I would have said, definitely World War II. The man is very handsome, movie-star quality, but looks sad, wistful, as if he is waiting for someone he knows won't appear. As if he is alone, on his last day of leave. Guesswork, of course, but fun to do. I don't know what Alan thought when he looked at this picture, how he interpreted it, if he interpreted it, which I suspect he didn't, but he could not get enough of it.

Anna decided we should encourage this affinity of his. In the interests, she said, of enlarging his powers of artistic appreciation. I didn't think Alan's avidity had much to do with art, but, at the time, couldn't
marshal a competing theory of my own. (Now I'd say that Alan is enthralled by photographs because they are faithful, if misleading, copies of reality. As he himself is.) In a bookstore in downtown Winnipeg we bought him four oversized and very expensive books of photographs by famous photographers. I'd heard of none of them, and two of them, both women, were long dead. The work of one of these women, named Diane Arbus, from the middle of the last century, was quite remarkable: there were giants and dwarves and bearded ladies and pinheads and transvestites and transsexuals. Mongoloids of indeterminate age and sex dressed in what looked like baptismal gowns. Little white angels. Her pictures were grotesque, some of them frightening; at the same time they were beautiful and moving, full of compassion. She was Alan's clear favorite. Mine, too. (There was a photograph of a maniacal little boy holding a toy grenade that scared the stuffing out of me.) The other woman, Annie Liebowitz, whose work came later in the century, did glossy, stylized portraits of celebrities, most of whom I didn't recognize. The two male photographers—both with the surname Lynch—were more contemporary. One of them seemed to specialize in grayish, monochrome photos of small, blighted Canadian towns, the other in pictures of discarded machines, scrap. After buying at Anna's insistence a number of other outrageously priced volumes, we learned that Alan was not at all interested in landscapes or townscapes. Nor was he interested in still lifes or pictures of animals. What he wanted to look at, all he would look at, were pictures of people, individuals and groups, the more posed and formal the better. In Regina, Anna bought a camera and began taking pictures of Alan, of Alan and me, recording our time together. She took pictures at a zealous clip, until she'd used up the camera's internal memory. We had no way to upload these pictures, nothing to upload them to. When there was a picture she felt she had to take—Alan and I in Regina, standing shoulder to shoulder, like friends (we
were
, by that time, friends) in Victoria Park—she'd delete one she'd taken previously.

 

True to his word, without advance notice, the Tall Man visited us once a month. He came back to Friel Street towards the end of September,
the end of October, and the end of November. He followed this pattern the three months we were in Winnipeg and, again, the three months we were in Regina. Though we were not to see him at any other time, it was clear he was traversing Canada along with us, living in the city we were living in, always close by. Did he have a wife? A family? Were his children also misshapen? Did he have any life outside his service to the group? Did I? On some of his visits the Tall Man showed up alone; on others he brought an accomplice. We saw the taciturn black man two more times. On one visit the Tall Man was accompanied by a young woman. This was in Winnipeg, the apartment on Goulet Street. The girl was Alan's age, and very attractive. She was not his daughter, not, the Tall Man made a point of saying, in any way related to him. She was a tall, angular girl with dark hair and a seductive overbite. She had beautiful hands. Long, thin fingers, shapely nails. I noticed them right off. What on earth was he thinking, bringing a girl like that to see Alan? Was it meant to provoke, torment him? If this was the Tall Man's purpose, he achieved it. “She wanted to see the clone,” was his explanation, which the girl, disappointingly, let stand without objection. Alan, who, until Calgary, would say nothing to the Tall Man on any of his visits, sat still and quiet on the couch, his hands pressed tightly between his thighs, a Winnipeg Jets cap (his team) on his head, watching the girl. She knew he was watching her and, I thought, played to him without mercy. I could see she was driving him wild, enjoying doing so, and I was relieved—I was proud of him, too, poor guy—that he did not act on his impulses, which were visible in every anguished inch of him.

On each of his visits, the Tall Man said to me, “How's the report coming?” And I responded, “It's not coming. I'm not writing it.” Then we'd enact some sort of brief, pugnacious conversation.

“What are we paying you for?”

“I haven't taken a dime from you.”

“That's right. The last of the heavy hitters. Mr. Moneybags.”

“And who are you?” I said. “Jack the giant?” The man flustered me.

“It's Jack the giant
killer
. You want to try again?”

These exercises in provocation and intimidation were ancillary
pleasures for the Tall Man. His main business each month was to monitor Alan's progress. Anna would willingly provide for him her own assessment. She was proud of Alan, proud of her work with him. “Day by day, he's more comfortable with the language. More proficient. He's speaking in complex sentences. Idiomatically correct. Picking up all sorts of colloquial expressions. What did he say the other day? Something he saw really pleased him. ‘That takes me away,' he said. Television definitely helps in this regard, though we try not to let him watch too much. He likes hockey. Last night he was watching a game with Ray. I don't know anything about hockey, but I heard him say, ‘He top-shelfed that one. He buried it.' He seems to know the name for everything he sees. Understands pretty much whatever we say to him. He thinks well, though he can't always articulate his thoughts to his own satisfaction. He's easily frustrated when he can't think of a word, or doesn't know it. He's quite able to conceptualize. Understands notions like love and friendship and kindness and gentleness. Sometimes he tries too hard. He's ready to learn. Humble about what he doesn't know. But he's quick. He's really quick. I just hope I can keep up with him.

“He's emotionally astute. He watches me closely, gauges my feelings. ‘Are you sad?' he'll ask me. Most of the time, you know, he'll have it right. ‘Are you happy now?' He's very solicitous. Not as much with Ray, though they're coming along.

“He's reading pretty well, though he prefers being read to. We've been onto chapter books for a while. We're reading
The Boxcar Children
now. We've got seven of them. He likes these books, though he wouldn't admit it. I can tell he knows they're for younger kids, but he finds them moving. The family attachments. He could almost read them on his own, but he's still not reading silently, and he's self-conscious. So we take turns. I read a page, he reads a page.

“I've tried to introduce it, but he doesn't want to write. I don't force him. He'll try when he's ready. And if he doesn't write, well then, he won't. He's getting the hang of arithmetic. Ray's working with him. He can add and subtract, multiply and divide small numbers.

“He's interested in the world. He's a sponge. He loves to be out
and about with us. He's good now in public. He's sociable. Calm. But he's watchful, still wary of groups of men. We've taken him to restaurants, and he does well. He likes to eat, I'll tell you that. His table manners are good. What else can I tell you?”

“I'd like to see some of this,” the Tall Man said. “Can I hear him talk? Can I see him read?”

But Alan would not speak to the Tall Man or perform in any way, and neither Anna nor I would ask him to. While the Tall Man was in the apartment, Alan sat quietly on the couch watching television or looking at a magazine. When the conversation turned to him, usually he went to his room.

“What's with you?” Anna asked me after one of the Tall Man's visits.

“He doesn't like me,” I said. “I don't like him. I won't be part of your group, Anna. I will not take orders.”

“Fine, Ray,” she said. “But your behavior is childish. What do you think Alan thinks when you act that way?”

“I don't know what Alan thinks,” I said.

“You should think about it. You should be better than that.”

I did think about it. I wasn't better than that.

On his third and last visit to the Friel Street apartment, the Tall Man told us we'd be leaving Ottawa soon. (This was the end of November. I'd turned sixty-six the week before. Anna and I decided not to mark the day. We thought it better not to raise the subject of birthdays with Alan.) We were sorry to hear this. We'd gotten to know the city, and liked it. We were comfortable there, more or less.

“
Why
must we leave?” Anna said. “What's going on?” By this time I did think it the better part of something—valor, discretion—to leave all such negotiations to her.

“We think they may be getting close.”

“Do you mind if I ask,” she said, “what makes you think so?

The Tall Man liked Anna. He had liked her husband. He was only sorry she was saddled with me. “They've looked into your whereabouts,” he said. “They've been to your house. They've talked to your neighbors. They know how long your house has been empty. We believe
they've been all through the place, and your truck, poking around. They're aware of your involvement in the group. They remember your husband.”

“They should,” Anna said.

“They have been to see your children, your daughter in Iowa, your son in Washington State.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Are they okay? Are my kids okay?”

“They're fine. Your children don't know where you are or what you are doing, which is good, and they were eager to cooperate with the government in helping them find you. Which is also good.”

“Okay, then,” Anna said. “So they're okay.”

“For now,” the Tall Man said. “Obviously, for their protection, and yours, you must continue to have no contact of any kind with them.”

“No. I won't. Are they after Ray?”

“It seems they're not. Which is what we'd expect.”

“Good,” she said. “That's good, at least.”

“We'll do our best for you,” he said. “And him,” nodding at me.

“And you think they're close?”

“That's what we think.”

I could keep quiet no longer. “This is the Dolly Squad?”

“Call them whatever you want,” the Tall Man said. “They won't mind.”

“What makes you think they're close? What makes you think they exist? Have you got tangible evidence they're closing in?” It was embarrassingly easy to collapse into the jargon.

“They're here,” he said. “And if they're not here, they'll be here soon.”

“Fine,” I said, “but how do you
know
?”

“An epistemological question, or just another one of the pedestrian things you're prone to say?”