The Man Who Melted (14 page)

“No,” he said after a long pause. Time distending and contracting. “I don't think of my feelings for Josiane as sick.”

“Do you want me to call Joan for you?” Roberta asked, somewhat anxiously. “She could be here—”

“No, again.”

“It's like with Josiane, isn't it?”

“What do you mean?” Mantle asked, seeing the smooth pit before him, the silver and black exit inside him, that had always been inside him. He felt the burning, the cold fire, turning him to ash, giving him escape.

“Josiane serves to hide something; Joan was a way of finding it.” The words seemed isolated, a metallic mobile hanging in a dark room.

“I don't understand any of that,” Mantle said, and the room seemed elongated, hard and hollow, as he began to scam down, falling through the thinnest layers of the world as vision changed from eye to mind's eye, as colors faded to silver and passed into darkness.

Mantle caught himself, tried to hold himself back. A last clinging to the world.

“Where are you from?” he asked Roberta, as if the mundane could hold him back from the pit.

She smiled now, a nostalgic smile, that of one lover saying good-bye to another, and said, “I'm from Missiri, above Saint Raphael, but I grew up and went to school in England. But I am French….”

And it began. A long, rushing relief, a tearing away. Better to fall through the world and die, get it over with.

Then Roberta was on top of him. She felt cold as metal, as if she were a silver construct, a perfectly molded, moving embracing icon of a woman. Her hair, now dark as the pit through which he fell, hid her face; and she made him hard and, without foreplay, pressed him into her, then pumped him, this strong metal being moving up and down upon him, a silver spider planted squarely above him, heavy as lead.

She watched him, her face impassive, and shrank into Joan. Became smaller, a child, and Mantle took her with him as he slowly fell.

And she changed again, into a woman thing with knots on her arms and face and body, and still she pumped, and changed again and again, as long as he watched: she became the leaden spider, and a scorpion, and then transformed herself into other women he had known; but the scorpions and spiders were wriggling inside them, only to crawl out their mouths in ecstasy.

Later that night, Mantle awakened. The room was dim, the videotect still hung in the air—a shadowy mass without weight—and still everything was black and silver and in between grays; still he saw with his mind's eye from one world into another. This was the real world, he thought, the bottom of everything, the inside, the underpinning, and on the outside was flesh and color and life—all sham, an intricate illusion. Here was where the Screamers lived, in the dead places, the empty places; but Mantle heard no voices, remembered only falling.

This episode was only emptiness. Where were the monsters of his soul, the phantoms, the demons, the seraphim and cherubim, the powers and dominions? Where were the apparitions, Josiane's face, and the Screamers themselves? Where were the voices, the whistlings and rustlings, the ululations, the glossolalia of words almost apprehended?

He tried to remember, but remembered only emptiness.

He tried to remember being plugged in. He tried to remember what had happened during this episode…. Roberta's metallic touch. Something about that….

Roberta moved in the bed beside him, both hands clasped together upon the pillow, her face resting on them. She slept in the fetal position, her knees together and just touching Mantle. He turned toward her and found her staring at him, her eyes as large and hard as the dark stones of an icon.

Again he awoke, and found Danielle in bed with them; Danielle, silver-gilded, with her long, dark hair and delicate, yet openly sensual, face. She and Roberta were beside him, facing and comforting each other, resting their weight on their knees, and they felt each other's breasts and sucked on each other's fingers and kissed.

Mantle propped himself up on one arm and watched them. He felt their distance—even though they brushed against him—yet welcomed their presence. He was seeing and reaching across an eternity, looking through a window into a world of flesh and life, even if everything around him was dead and silver.

He reached across the abyss and touched the small of Roberta's back, felt a tuft of soft hair, while Danielle leaned across her and took Mantle's penis into her mouth. Her lips felt cold as a crypt.

Mantle was not afraid. He had passed through life into death and found nothing: no Screamers, no specters, no horrors, just emptiness. Perhaps this would be an easy passage, even if he awakened to find that this episode was a blind, leading nowhere. He had no desire for the world. He wasn't falling anymore. He would simply wait out this episode, no matter how many subjective eternities it might take.

He was as hard as the walls now, a part of the underthings, no longer flesh.

As Danielle, who had a good, earthy, sour smell, ran her mouth up and down his penis, Mantle watched her work like some intricate machine, hard and impenetrable; and then she changed, became scaly, grew row upon row of teeth like a shark. She hurt him with her cold mouth, and Mantle, grateful for the emptiness and surcease, was carried through the dead places.

He swam through the dark spaces where everything drifted in an eternal Now, where past, present, and future were one and the same.

Josiane was calling him, or so he thought….

And he was an eyeless shark, caught, and being reeled in.

TEN

A man and a woman wearing identical cowled masks sat across from Joan and Pfeiffer. The partition had been slid back, revealing the oval shape of the gaming table and doubling the size of the wood-paneled room. The dealer and the gamesmaster sat on each side of the long table that lay between the opponents. The dealer was a young man with an intense, roundish face and straight black hair cut at the shoulders; he was most likely in training to become a gamesmaster.

The gamesmaster's face was hidden by a black cowl; he would be hooked into the game. He explained the rules, activated the psycondutors, and the game began. Joan and Pfeiffer were once again hooked in, but there was no contact, as yet, with the man and woman across the table.

Pfeiffer cleared his mind, just as if he were before lasers or giving an interview or teaching. He had learned to cover his thoughts, for, somehow, he had always felt they could be seen, especially by students and those who wanted to hurt him politically and on the job.

White thought, he called it, because it was similar to white noise; he had once told Raymond about his technique, but the crazy fool could only use it as a title for one of his techtonic sculptures.

Pfeiffer could feel Joan circling around him like the wind, but he could hide from her. Although he couldn't conceal everything, the most dangerous thoughts were safe: the psychs had given him a lock on his mind. Joan was a tough, elastic
bitch, but Pfeiffer could use her, just as she could use him. They had reached an accord via mutual blackmail. Somehow, during their practice hook-in, Joan had forced herself into Pfeiffer's mind; shocked, he had attacked her.

So now they knew each other.

They built a simple symbol structure: he was the world, a perfect sphere without blemish, made by God's own hands, a world as strong and divine as thought; and she was his atmosphere. She contained all the elements that could not exist on his featureless surface. She was the protective cloak of his world.

They built a mnemonic in which to hide, yet they were still vulnerable to each other. But Pfeiffer guessed that Joan would remain passive: she had the well-developed conscience of a mystical liberal. She would not expose him to danger to gain her selfish ends. He had seen that—or thought he had.

Pfeiffer congratulated himself for being calm, reinforced his calmness. Perhaps it was Joan's presence. Perhaps it was the mnemonic. But perhaps not. He had the willpower; this was just another test. He had survived all the others, he told himself.

Joan rained on him, indicating her presence, and they practiced talking within geometric shapes as a protective device—it was literally raining geodesic cats and dogs.

When the gamesmaster opened the psyconductor to all involved, Joan and Pfeiffer were ready.

But they were not ready to find exact duplicates of themselves facing them across the table. The doppelgängers, of course, were not wearing cowls.

“First, Mesdames and Messieurs, we draw the wager,” said the dealer, who was not hooked in. The gamesmaster's thoughts were a neutral presence. “For each organ pledged, there will be three games consisting of three hands to a game,” the dealer continued. “In the event that a player wins twice in succession, the third hand or game will not be played.” His voice was an intrusion; it was harsh and cold and came from the outside where everything was hard and intractable.

‘How do they know what we look like?' Pfeiffer asked, shaken by the hallucination induced by his opponents. But before Joan could reply, he answered his own question. ‘They must be picking up subliminal stuff.'

‘The way we perceive ourselves,' Joan said. The doppelgängers became hard and ugly, as if they were being eroded by time. And Joan's double was becoming smaller, insignificant.

‘If we can't cover up, we won't have a chance.'

‘You can't cover everything, but neither can they,' Joan said. ‘It cuts both ways.' She noticed a fissure in the otherwise perfect sphere below, and she became black fog, miasma, protective covering. Pfeiffer was afraid, and vulnerable. But she had to give him credit: he was not hiding it from her, at least.

‘Did you pick up anything from them, an image, anything?' Pfeiffer asked.

‘We've been too busy with ourselves, but they can't hide everything. We'll just wait and be ready when they let something slip out.'

‘Which they will,' Pfeiffer said, suddenly confident again.

From deep inside their interior symbolized world, Joan and Pfeiffer could look into the external world of croupier, felt-top table, cards, wood-covered walls, and masked creatures. This room was simply a stage for the play of thought and image.

Pfeiffer was well acquainted with this sensation of perceiving two worlds, two levels: inside and outside. He often awakened from a nightmare and found himself in his living room or library. He knew that he was awake, and yet he could still see the dream unfurl before him, watch the creatures of his nightmare stalk about the room—the interior beasts let loose into the familiar, comforting confines of his waking world. Those were always moments of terror, for surely he was near the edge then and could fall, just as Raymond had.

The dealer combined two decks of cards and placed them in a shoe, a box from which the cards could be slid out one by one. He discarded three cards: the traditional burning of the deck. Then he dealt a card to Pfeiffer and one to his opponent. Both cards landed face up. A Queen of Hearts for Pfeiffer. A Nine of Hearts for his opponent.

So Pfeiffer lost the right to call the wager.

Just as the object of blackjack was to draw cards that added up to twenty-one, or as near as possible, the object of blind shemmy was to draw cards that added up to nine. Thus, face cards, which would normally be counted as ten, were counted as zero. Aces, normally counted as eleven, became one; and all
other cards had their normal pip (or face) value—with the exception of Tens, which, like Aces, were counted as one.

“Monsieur Deux wins, nine over zero,” said the dealer, looking now at Pfeiffer's opponent. Pfeiffer was Monsieur Un and his opponent Monsieur Deux only because of their positions at the table.

‘A hell of a way to start—' Pfeiffer said.

‘Keep yourself closed,' Joan said, turning into mist, then dark rain, pure sunlight and rainbows, a perceptual kaleidoscope to conceal Pfeiffer from his enemies. ‘Look now, he'll be more vulnerable when he speaks. I'll cover you.'

‘Your choice,' said the gamesmaster. The thought was directed to Pfeiffer's opponent, who was staring intently at Pfeiffer.

‘Look now,' Joan said to Pfeiffer.

“Since we both turned up hearts, perhaps there is where we should begin,” Pfeiffer's opponent said, speaking for the benefit of the dealer. His words felt like shards of glass to Pfeiffer. “They're the seats of our emotions, so we'd best dispose of them quickly.” Pfeiffer felt the man smile. “Do you assent?”

“It's your choice,” Pfeiffer said tonelessly.

‘Don't let anything out,' Joan said.

Pfeiffer couldn't pick up anything from his opponent and the woman with him; they were both empty doppelgängers of himself and Joan. ‘Pretend nothing matters,' she said. ‘If you're to see his cards and look inside him for weaknesses, you must be removed.'

She's right, Pfeiffer thought. He tried to relax, smooth himself down; he thought white thoughts and ignored the knot of anxiety that seemed to be pulling at his groin.

“Cartes,” said the dealer, dealing two cards from the shoe, facedown: one to Pfeiffer, the other for his opponent. Another two cards, and then a palpable silence; not even thoughts seemed to cut the air. It was an unnatural waiting….

Pfeiffer had a natural nine, a winning hand (a Queen and a Nine of Diamonds), and he looked up, about to turn over his cards, when he saw the furry boy sitting across the table from him.

‘What the hell—'

‘Call your hand,' Joan said, feeling his glands open up, a warm waterfall of fear. But before Pfeiffer could speak, his opponent said, “My friend across the table has a natural nine. A Queen and a Nine, both diamonds. Since I called his hand—and I believe I am correct, then…”

The dealer turned Pfeiffer's cards over and said, “Monsieur Deux is correct, and wins by call.” If Pfeiffer's opponent had been mistaken about the hand, then Pfeiffer would have won automatically, even if his opponent held better cards.

The dealer then dealt two more cards from the shoe.

‘You're supposed to be covering my thoughts,' Pfeiffer said, but he was composed, thinking white thoughts again.

‘I'm trying,' Joan said. ‘But you won't trust me. You're trying to cover yourself from me as well as your opponent. What the hell can I do?'

‘I'm sorry,' Pfeiffer thought.

‘What are you so afraid I'll see? Your memories of Ray?'

‘This is neither the time nor the place.' His rhythm of white thought was broken; Joan became a snowstorm, aiding him, lulling him back to white blindness. ‘I think the gamesmaster is making me nervous, having him hooked in, privy to all our thoughts….'

‘Forget the gamesmaster,' Joan said.

“Monsieur Un, will you
please
claim your cards,” said the dealer. The gamesmaster nodded at Pfeiffer and thought neutral, papery thoughts.

Pfeiffer turned up the edges of his cards. He had a Jack of Diamonds—which counted as zero—and a Two of Spades. He would need another card.

‘Don't think about your cards,' Joan exclaimed. ‘Are you picking up anything from the other side of the table?'

Pfeiffer listened, as if to his own thoughts. He didn't raise his head to look at his opponent, for seeing his own face—or that of the furry boy—staring back at him from across the table was disconcerting, and fascinating. An image of an empty hollow without any organs, formed in his mind. He imagined her as a bag somehow formed into human shape.

‘Keep that,' Joan said. ‘It might be usable.'

‘But I can't see his cards.'

‘Just wait.'

“Does Monsieur wish another card?” the dealer asked Pfeiffer. Pfeiffer took another card, and so did his opponent.

Pfeiffer had no idea what cards his opponent was holding; it promised to be a blind play. When the cards were turned over, the dealer announced, “Monsieur Deux wins, six over five.” Pfeiffer had lost again.

‘I'm playing blind,' Pfeiffer said anxiously to Joan.

‘He couldn't see your cards, either,' she replied.

But that gave him little satisfaction, for by losing the first two hands, he had lost the first game. And if he lost the next game, he would lose his heart, which, white thought or not, seemed to be beating in his throat.

‘Calm yourself,' Joan said, ‘or you'll let everything out. That was the easy part….'

‘What?'

‘If you trust me, and stop throwing up your defenses, I can help you. But you've got to let me in; as it is, you're giving our friends quite the edge. Let's make a merger.' There was laughter in that thought, but Pfeiffer was in no mood. His fear was building, steadily, slowly.

‘You can fold the game,' Joan said. ‘That is an alternative.'

‘And give up organs I haven't yet played for!' The smooth surface of Pfeiffer's sphere cracked, and Joan let herself be swallowed into it. The surface of the sphere changed, grew mountain chains, lush vegetation, flowers, deserts, all the mingled moods of Joan and Pfeiffer.

Pfeiffer was no longer isolated: he was protected, yet dangerously exposed. Inside him, in the human, moist dark, Joan promised not to take advantage of him. She caught a fleeting thought of Pfeiffer's dead mother, who had been a fleshy, big-boned, flat-faced woman. She also saw that Pfeiffer hated his mother, as much now as when she was alive.

In the next hand—the opening hand of the second game—Pfeiffer held a Five of Clubs and a Two of Spades, a total value of seven points, which wasn't bad. He would not take another card unless he could see his opponent's. But when he looked up, Pfeiffer saw the furry boy, who blew him a kiss.

‘You're exposed again,' Joan said, and they thought themselves inside their world, thought protective darkness around themselves, except for one tiny opening through which to see into the enemies.

‘Concentrate on that image of the empty woman,' Joan said to Pfeiffer. ‘She has to be Monsieur Deux's wife or woman. I can't quite visualize it as you did.' But Pfeiffer was trying to smooth down his emotions and the dark, dangerous demon that was his memory. The image of the furry boy sparked memories, fears, guilts. Pfeiffer remembered his father, who had been a doctor. There was always enough money, but his father extracted emotional dues for every dollar he gave his son; and, as a result, the young Pfeiffer had recurrent nightmares that he was sucking off his father. Those nightmares began again after his mother died: she had seen that homosexual fantasy when Pfeiffer hooked into her on her deathbed.

Pfeiffer still had those nightmares.

And now, the image of him sucking off the furry boy passed through his mind, drawing its train of guilt and revulsion. The boy and his father—somehow one and the same.

‘You're leaking,' Joan said, her thoughts an ice storm. She could see her way into Pfeiffer now, into those rooms of buried memories. Rather than rooms, she thought of them as subterranean caverns; everything inside them was intact, perfect, hidden from the harmful light and atmosphere of consciousness. But she could not find any memories of Ray.

Pfeiffer collected himself and peered into his opponent's mind. He thrust the image of the organless woman at the man.

It was like tearing a spiderweb.

Pfeiffer felt the man's pain as a feather touching flesh: the organless woman was Monsieur Deux's permanent wife. Pfeiffer had broken through and into his thoughts; he could feel his opponent's name, something like Gayah, Gahai,
Gayet
, that was it, and his wife was used up. Gayet saw her, in the darkness of his unconscious, as an empty bag. She was the compulsive gambler who had spent her organs; and Gayet hated gambling, but she possessed him; and he hated her and loved her and was just beginning his self-destructive slide.