The Dream of Doctor Bantam (18 page)

The midterms came. Upbeat, synthesized jazz played as the white girl handed her paper to a smiling young teaching assistant and as the black boy programmed a computer to create a simple three-dimensional racing game. The grades were posted in the hallway and the black boy and the white girl jumped up and down excitedly when they saw that they had gotten the highest scores in the class. It’s incredible, said the black boy. I’ve never scored so high on a test in my entire life!

It’s like a dream come true, said the white girl. Say, where’s our friend? I wonder how he did.

The upbeat jazz stopped playing; a nervous element crept into the music.

An ambulance was parked outside the white boy’s dorm as the two friends walked up to check on him. The white girl screamed his name and ran over to the stretcher being carried out by two paramedics, one of them played by the same actor who had played the angry computer science teacher.

His heart gave out, said the paramedic/teacher. Looks like he was taking some illegal drugs to help him study. We see it all the time.

Will he be okay? asked the black boy.

Don’t worry, said the paramedic, smiling. We’ll give him the best treatment science can give him.

The black boy and the white girl looked sad as the white boy was carried away. The music swelled, purpled with mournful strings. The camera faded out.

The next shot was of a smiling man in a pinstriped suit standing in front of a green-screen background of the Milky Way. He did get the best treatment science could give him, said the man, He got death.

Julie turned off the TV.

It’s not over yet, said Patrice. He’s going to talk about the books we sell.

That was the most loathsome thing I’ve seen in my entire life, said Julie. Is this seriously what you want to show people to convince them to take classes with you?

Patrice sighed and rattled popcorn kernels against the metal bowl.

There isn’t always enough money in the budget for these things, she said. But its heart is really in the right place.

The movie is about how if you don’t take courses at the Institute, doctors will murder you, said Julie. That’s what the movie is about.

Sometimes I think you are a very superficial person, said Patrice.

They were on the carpet, lime green copy paper and scissors and rubber cement between them, Julie in boxers and Patrice in gray sweatpants and a pink T-shirt with the genie from
Aladdin
on it. They were making glitter-pen circles around columns of advertising copy (
What are the limits of Western science? Do you really know all you could know about your memory? Is time travel possible? We give you the answers
) when Patrice got the call. When she walked to the phone the fabric around her thighs zipped against itself.

Yes, she said. Oh. Hello.

We’re not interested, shouted Julie. Hang up on them.

Oh, no, said Patrice. Did he call you? Did he look, you know, sick the other day?

Take us off your list, said Julie. She’s deceased. Please don’t call this number again.

Okay, said Patrice. Okay. No, you’re right. Okay, fifteen minutes. See you then.

She replaced the cradle and sighed. Julie put her scissors down.

Wrong number, she said.

No, said Patrice. I’m sorry. Brian didn’t show up for his shift. He was ten minutes late. I have to go in.

You just did like—eight hours there this morning, said Julie.

I have to go in, repeated Patrice.

She went back toward the closet and the bedroom. Julie looked at the construction paper scattered all around her, the glitter glue and the scratch-n-sniff markers. She stood up and walked back to the bedroom.

Patrice shrieked when she pushed open the door, navy
Institute-issue skirt halfway over her knees.

Jesus Christ, said Julie. I’ve seen your stupid naked legs before.

I have to go in, said Patrice, crossing her ankles where she stood, trying to summon her robot stare. Don’t try to talk me out of going in.

I won’t try to talk you out of anything, said Julie, clenching her fists. When will you be back?

Patrice adjusted the waist of her skirt and frowned at a point on the wall.

An hour, she announced.

An hour, said Julie.

Yes, said Patrice. I will be back in an hour.

She left, and Julie figured out how to set the alarm on her cell phone, and she sat on the floor and worked on flyers. She wrote titles in huge, looping letters all over the photocopies:

SCIENCE WILL KILL YOU! INQUIRE WITHIN

She was coloring in a drawing of a bunch of topless stick figure girls whose heads were exploding when the cell phone alarm went off. She set it for an hour later, lit a cigarette, and kept coloring. After three hours she took a bath, read fifty pages of her book, and went downstairs, unchained her bike, and rode it to the Institute through the deserted black streets.

Patrice was sitting at the INTAKE desk, her skin grayed out and purple under her eyes.

Julie, said Patrice. Oh my God, I’m sorry; I was about to leave, then I had to work with Gregory on an emergency intervention; this man came in saying that he was losing his grip on things, that he couldn’t say what year it was, he wanted us to tell him what he should do, it took forever to calm him down, and then Thomas didn’t show up to relieve me like he said he would, so I said I would, you know…

Julie leaned over her desk and picked up the phone receiver. Locking her eyes, she dialed the number for Patrice’s apartment. She let it ring four times.

Hi, Julie, she said in an alto monotone. This is Patrice. I’m sorry, but my religious instructors want me to spend all night talking to other crazy people and then I have to work an eight hour shift in the morning, yes, that’s right, twenty-four hours in all! So don’t wait up for me or anything like that. Good luck leading your imperfect, unstructured life!

She hung up. Patrice had a pen in her hand; she tapped it against the edge of the desk.

I do not sound like that, she said.

Gosh, said Julie. I guess it must not have been you who called.

She was furious and she wanted to get stoned, so she called Robbie.

Julie, he said. I called your house like, five times.

I wasn’t there, she said. Can I come over?

He gave her a good price, only about a quarter of what it was worth. They rolled one joint together and passed it back and forth between them, sitting on his bed, and she started to feel better about things. The roach burned her fingers and she put it out in the Navajo ashtray. He smiled at her and she smiled back.

Thanks, she said. It’s really late. I should go.

He leaned over the ashtray and kissed her. She toyed with the idea of saying no, sorry, thanks, I have a hot girlfriend now, and then she thought of Patrice sitting behind the INTAKE desk—she was probably still there now; maybe someone had gotten a splinter and she was trying to heal it using the Machine, some fucking thing—and by the time she had decided that she should probably go he had taken her panties off and was kissing, experimentally but hastily, down her leg, so she figured what the hell and stayed where she was. This time she had an orgasm when he came in her; Janis Joplin’s voice exploded in her head singing
Get it while you can
in a shower of guitars; Patrice’s face was shining
.
Her breathing slowed down; she rolled over on her side; she saw Robbie there grinning like a fool and panting beside her. He’d knocked over the Navajo bowl and his leg was covered in ashes.

She lingered, responding in monosyllables, until the point where she figured he wouldn’t conclude that she was some kind of marijuana whore, and then sat up and started to get dressed.

Thanks, she said, stupidly. Got to get a move on. Got to get an early start tomorrow.

It’s summer, he said. Oh wait, but you have that job, right. How’s it going over there?

It’s a job, she said. It’s okay. It’s not forever.

He insisted on walking her out. The living room, lit up, was wide and white, its carpet lush and its walls decorated with old science fiction movie posters. There were three swords hanging over the fireplace, which was real but which didn’t look as if it had been used in some time; a basket beside it contained iron pokers, a Jack-in-the-Box antenna ball, and a red plastic claw toy. His aunt Julia was sitting one of the two black leather couches arranged in an L. She had a bowl of chips and salsa in front of her and she was watching the TV listings on the biggest set Julie had ever seen.

Robbie, said Aunt Julia, standing up.

Aunt Julia, I wanted you to meet my friend, he said. This is Julie Thatch.

We’ve met, muttered Julie.

She realized just after she said it that this was a stupid thing to say, and she hunched her shoulders. Robbie and Aunt Julia sat on either side of her, smiling.

I’m Julia, Aunt Julia finally said. It’s wonderful to meet you. I was just about to watch a movie. Would you be? I mean if you’d like to?

We’d love to, Robbie chirped. Right, Julie? It’s no trouble?

Um, said Julie.

Wonderful, said Aunt Julia. I’ll just put some pizza rolls in
the oven.

Please don’t, croaked Julie.

It’s no trouble at all, said Aunt Julia, and she shuffled toward the kitchen. Robbie came up beside her and bounced on the balls of his feet.

After all, it’s just a job, right? he said with some kind of mischievous air.

They sat side by side on one of the couches—Robbie lounging with his hand near her shoulder; Julie stiff with her arms folded under her breasts—while Julia, under a plaid afghan, took up the other one. A plate of greasy pepperoni rolls in foil sat on the coffee table between them along with a wide cerulean bowl of ranch dip that Robbie and Julia would, one after the other, dip their pizza rolls into with relish. Julie had none of the pizza rolls. They watched
Labyrinth
, Aunt Julia’s favorite movie, and Robbie sang along with some of the songs.

What I like about this movie is that it’s a love story, said
Aunt Julia. A love story is the most beautiful kind of story in the world.

When it was over, Robbie offered to drive her home. She accepted, then slipped out the back door of the house while he was in the bathroom and pedaled back to Patrice’s as quickly as
she could. She practiced in time with the rotation of the wheels as she pedaled:
I forgive you. I forgive you. I forgive you
.
She had it flawlessly by the time she made it up the Christmas-lit stairs.

It was hard to learn to sleep with someone. You had to learn how to hold your legs, where to put your elbows. You had to get used to someone’s regular hot breath on your back. You had to deal with someone’s sweat cooling on you. You had to deal with someone shifting in their sleep, putting their arm in the space you’d just vacated with your own.

Most nights she woke up early. She slid out of bed and hunted up her T-shirt from the floor, slipped jeans over her bare ass. The moon was out and the night was warm—every night, dry and warm—and she made coffee and sat on the porch in a T-shirt and jeans, drinking coffee with milk, and she watched the sun rise over the lawns, the trees, the power lines.

Sometimes, around dawn, Ira joined her in his boxers and his flannel shirts. He’d finish beers and he’d sit in his rocking chair and he’d shiver, because his skin was sensitive to the cold dew on the grass, because he didn’t have a red light bulb inside of him like an incubator, keeping him warm and hatching the golden chicks that peeped and bobbed around in her stomach, mornings, because he couldn’t run his tongue over his mouth and taste the salt-and-lime of Patrice on his lips.

I worry about you, he said.

I know what I’m doing, she lied, and she smiled and squinted at the failing August sun.

2

Julie and Ira kept up the board game. She was beginning to enjoy it, if not beginning to win: Germany was still sweeping backward out of France, consolidating in Berlin, caught between the vice of Ira’s Britain and Russia. (He was keeping the Americans out of the fight this game,
trying to redeem world history.
) She would have lost long ago if their games hadn’t always devolved into Ira pulling out the second six-pack, asking questions about just what she was doing upstairs with his landlord (questions she answered in explicit detail, sucking on the bottle for emphasis), then her throwing up in the bathroom off the kitchen, eyes locked on the centerfold attached to the tank of the toilet with packing tape (why, she thought, heaving, why would you put it on the tank?) while Ira sat on the edge of the bathtub and told her it would be okay, watching her shoulders strain and her ass stick out. Then she’d go upstairs and fall asleep.

Being a grown-up is great, she said once.

It only gets better, Ira assured her.

On another night, he was making his final assault on her capital, she was reeling in her chair, when he set his bottle down and looked over the rim of his scotch-tape glasses at her.

So I’ve been doing a bunch of reading about the Institute, he said. Have you ever asked Wednesday Addams up there about their history?

God, I wish she did look like Wednesday Addams, Julie said. But no, I haven’t asked her. Why, what’s their history?

It’s pretty fucked up, Ira said. This guy Dr. Bantam? He kind of came out of nowhere and turned up in New York to start this whole group, right? So apparently a lot of people think that he was actually this other person altogether out West during most of the sixties. This kind of creepy academic radical guy, Dr. Bronwyn. Involved in some nasty shit with undergraduates. He got asked to leave and apparently like—pulled a gun on the head of the physics department. The story gets cited in a bunch of books on campus rebellions and that kind of shit.

Nuts, said Julie. It wouldn’t surprise me or anything, though, I guess, if they were the same person.

You’re pretty cynical, then, said Ira.

Yes, said Julie.

She took another pull from her beer and studied the game board. Ira kept studying her until she looked up.

What? she said.

There’s more stuff, said Ira. The group is like, linked to all kinds of crazy things. Suicides among members. Weird financial scams. Murders.

Murders? asked Julie.

Just one murder, said Ira. But I mean, that’s still a murder.

Can I ask you why you’re telling me all of this stuff about my girlfriend’s religion? asked Julie. Also, are you going to move your pieces or anything?

Can I interview you? asked Ira. About the stuff you’ve been telling me, about our friend?

Julie set her beer down and stared at him. He stared back at her. He picked up his own beer and drank it, wiggled the end of the bottle in a way that she knew was supposed to be casual and that completely irritated her.

No, you can’t interview me, she said. Fuck you, actually. Why would you want to interview me?

This is interesting subject matter, he said. And your stories give it kind of, you know. A human touch.

Julie balled up a fist.

I’ll give you a human touch, she said. Fuck you, okay?

Sorry, he said, clearly not sorry.

No, fuck you, said Julie. You’re like the one person I can talk to about all of this stuff. My, you know, my romantic life. I pour out my heart to you. Don’t tell me that me pouring out my heart to you gives your private research obsessions some kind of
human touch
.

Sorry, he said again. I shouldn’t have asked. I won’t ask you again.

He drank his beer, set it down, and started studying the board. Julie tapped the bottle against her elbow.

I don’t care if Patrice is in some kind of murder-suicide cult, she said. She won’t be forever. I’m not worried about anything. I can take care of her.

Ira laughed without smiling.

That’s rich, he said. You’re
seventeen
.
I’m a little dubious about your ability to take care of someone who’s a member of a murder cult.

Julie stared down at the board. Then she slammed down her bottle as hard as she could—hard enough, she hoped, to smash it—and she started for the door. She could hear Ira grumbling behind her as he got up to follow her, to apologize or change her mind or some shit. She liked that grumble; she was happy she could have such a negative effect on him. He got around her, stood in front of the door.

Look, he began.

I don’t want to look, she snapped. Move.

Look, he began again. Julie. You’re a great kid, you know? You’re a really great kid. But you can’t like, be this girl’s mother.

Tabitha could, when she was seventeen, said Julie. Tabitha took care of me.

And look how good a job Tabitha did, said Ira.

Then the beer bottle hit him, and he shouted, and Julie knew she had thrown it, and knowing this, she stalked back into the kitchen, took one of the dirty cups out of the sink and threw that too.

Jesus fucking Christ, said Ira. Do you want me to call the cops or …

Tabitha fucked up, she said over him, that’s true, Tabitha fucked up, but I’m not like her, do you understand? I’m better than her; I’m not going anywhere …

She threw another cup, then a dish, and then she saw that Ira wasn’t moving. He was standing still in the pile of broken glass she was making, watching her.

Fuck you, she said, and still he didn’t move.

She went outside, walked off of the porch and down the street. She threw up against the Children Crossing sign at the corner. Then she lay on the lawn for a long time, wondering if he was going to come out after her, wondering if Patrice would see her on her way in.

The woman was older than Patrice, older than Julie’s mom, even. She was wearing sweats, gray ones, with two cats side by side printed on the front: one orange, one black, one with devil’s ears and one with angel’s wings. She looked like she’d just come from teaching kids about Johnny Appleseed and counting, and she was trying hard not to cry while Patrice was standing over her like that, talking to her.

The important thing is to tell the truth, isn’t it, Doris, Patrice said. When we’re moving through our identities, Doris, when we’re going deep on ourselves, Doris, what are we trying to do, Doris? What is the point of what we are doing?

We want to get a good ending for the session, said Doris.

Wrong, Doris, said Patrice. Look at me, Doris.

Doris’s eyes had tried to escape into her cats. Patrice leaned low over her face, her hands on her knees. Her skirt stretched over her legs. Julie adjusted her grip on the bag of day-old pastries she was carrying from next door.

Look at me, Doris, Patrice’s voice thrummed, and Doris looked. The point of what we are doing, said Patrice, is to get a
true
ending to the session. That’s what Dr. Bantam says. Did you even
read
Dr. Bantam?

Of course I did, said Doris, it’s just I wanted—

Truth, said Patrice. Truth.
Does truth even matter to you, Doris?

Who wants bagels, chirped Julie.

Doris stiffened up and straightened her neck at Julie. Patrice was no longer looking at her; Patrice was looking at Julie too. That metal wall formed around her eyes. Julie’s pelvis shivered. It was nice to know, she guessed, that she had a
type
: cult fascist with good legs.

Do not interrupt a counseling session in progress, Patrice breathed.

I wasn’t, said Julie. I was offering you bagels, so you’d have the strength to keep yelling at this nice old woman.

The veins in the nice old woman’s neck puffed out.

Is that supposed to be funny? asked Doris. I can help myself. Can you?

Julie looked at her, at the cats straining at her chest.

Actually, yes I can help myself, she said, and she took out a bagel and bit into it. She wiped her mouth and offered it around. It’s good. It’s vegan. Anyone?

The kid at the INTAKE desk was whispering into the phone receiver and craning his neck.

Doris, go home, said Patrice.

Doris slid out of the chair and looked down the sights of her nose again at Julie. Julie pushed the bagel further toward her. She circled around Julie, not turning her back to it, like it was a switchblade, and went slowly to the door.

Julie smiled and turned to offer the bagel to Patrice again. Patrice slapped it out of her hand.

How can you be so disgustingly timebound? she asked.

Her legs, in black stockings today, were planted apart, so she didn’t fall over when Julie, forehead hot and crumbs drying up on her tongue, hit Patrice back on the cheek.

The steel melted out of Patrice’s eyes.

You hit me, she said.

I’m sorry, said Julie, suddenly ash-white.

What’s going on, called Gregory as he stepped out of the steel elevator and walked, quick on his leather soles, across the green tile lobby. And in an instant, Patrice’s eyes froze up again.

She hit me, Patrice screamed. She’s an, an intellectual bigot. She’s a destruction addict!

Did you hit her? Gregory asked. If you did, you need to leave.

She needs to leave, Patrice shouted. She needs to leave
existence
.

You hit me first, you bitch, cried Julie. You hit my bagel.

Nobody hit anybody else’s bagel, said Gregory. Let’s just work this out …

Throw her out, shouted Patrice.

She didn’t wait to see if Gregory would actually throw Julie out. She went first, stalking across the tiles in heels. She kicked the bag of pastries as she went. It was a girly kick; the bag went maybe a foot and a half. She couldn’t even kick a bag of pastries across the floor. The doors slapped open and slapped closed again.

Julie swallowed, then went over to the bag. She hunkered down over it, picked it up, and hefted it in her hand.

Do
you
want a bagel? she asked Gregory.

He didn’t answer. She put the bagel back into the bag and stood up.

You all have a really awesome day, she called to the room.

She was at the door when she felt Gregory’s hand on her shoulder: two fingers, like he was afraid of her. She spun around and he backed away.

What? she snapped. You going to kick me out?

Do you want to get a cup of coffee? he asked. There’s a good place next door.

She ended up standing in the Institute line at the Retrograde with him. This close to him, the fidget energy was powerful, like the time in middle school when she was the one picked to hold her hand to the static generator in the science demonstration, a slow agitating jolt that teased her hair up. The gawky barista already had Gregory’s coffee in a paper cup before he even made it to the counter.

Could you put it in a regular cup for me? he said. We’re staying today.

She looked at him, then took a porcelain cup, emptied the coffee into it, and tossed the paper cup into the trash.

And for you? she asked Julie. Weren’t you just in here getting pastries or something?

Julie gave the barista two dollars.

One is for coffee, she said. The other is to donate to a really good environmental organization.

You’re always so hostile, smiled Gregory. Is that how you cope with having a mis-integrated identity?

Did you invite me to get coffee so you could also be an asshole to me? she asked. Because if you did, you have to at least buy the coffee.

He put a dollar on the counter in front of them.

Come on, he said, and took his coffee to a table. She stared after him.

He didn’t get milk, and neither did she; she wanted it, but fuck him. They sat across from one another and she took a long sip of coffee to put off having to speak.

How long have you been dating Patrice? he asked.

She put her own cup down and let the bitterness settle on her tongue.

A while now, she said. Maybe a month or so. Five weeks maybe.

That’s a while now? he asked, snickering. How old are you?

Why? she asked. How old are
you
? You look, like, twelve.

He drank his coffee and stared at her.

Sure, she said. I think five weeks is a long time. Why not? How would you know? You don’t even believe in time, period.

I believe in communicating with people, he said. How old are you, really?

I am every age and no age, how’s that? she said.

Do you love her? he asked.

Of course, Julie said quickly. Why would I even be dating her if I didn’t?

I dated her, said Gregory. And I didn’t.

“Baby
Love” was on the speakers, playing in some kind of minor key; no, it couldn’t be. She looked into her coffee, black as ink.

Patrice has issues, Gregory said. We all do. She’s working through them. But she grew up strangely. She was very alone. She doesn’t know how to handle people. She’ll get better.

What’s your point, she said.

Don’t think that this is something you did, he said. Chances are it’s not.

He closed his eyes and finished his coffee. He smacked his lips. She kept looking into her cup.

That’s a pretty cowardly theory of relationships, she said. Don’t you think?

He opened his eyes and smiled at her, a tight smile, like a wince.

You’re hostile, he said, when you feel challenged. It’s an interesting dynamic. If you want to come in for counseling to explore that dynamic some time, I’ll comp your session.

She cackled and looked at him.

Is that all this was? she said. Did I just fall for the Institute of Temporal Illusions free coffee and relationship talk sales pitch? Listen, do you seriously believe that shit can help anyone?

It’s the only thing that can help anyone, Gregory said. It helped me deal with having her leave me.

He stood up. Her eyes followed him.

It’s no loss to me if you don’t realize that yet, though, he said. You’ll realize it one day, or you won’t. If you do, the Institute will be around.

She’d already hit one person today; she could start a streak.