She waves a chubby pish-tosh at me with her freckled hand and walks over to the
chimney, leaving me staring at the sky, knees bent, waiting for the stretcher
crew.
When they arrive, Caitlin watches as they strap me onto the board, tying me
tighter than is strictly necessary for my safety, and I realize that I'm not
being tied *down*, I'm being tied *up*.
"Thanks, Caitlin," I say.
"You're welcome, Art."
"Good luck with the ventilator -- sorry again."
"That's all right, kid. It's my job, after all."
18.
Virgin Upper's hot tubs were more theoretically soothing than actually so. They
had rather high walls and a rather low water level, both for modesty's sake and
to prevent spills. Art passed through the miniature sauna/shower and into the
tub after his massage, somewhere over Newfoundland, and just as the plane hit
turbulence, buffeting him with chlorinated water that stung his eyes and got up
his nose and soaked the magazine on offshore investing that he'd found in the
back of his seat pocket.
He landed at JFK still smelling of chlorine and sandalwood massage oil and the
cantaloupe-scented lotion in the fancy toilets. Tension melted away from him as
he meandered to the shuttle stop. The air had an indefinable character of
homeliness, or maybe it was the sunlight. Amateur Tribal anthropologists were
always thrashing about light among themselves, arguing about the sun's character
varying from latitude to latitude, filtered through this city's pollution
signature or that.
The light or the air, the latitude or the smog, it felt like home. The women
walked with a reassuring, confident *clack clack clack* of heel on hard tile;
the men talked louder than was necessary to one another or to their comms. The
people were a riot of ethnicities and their speech was a riotous babel of
accents, idioms and languages. Aggressive pretzel vendors vied with aggressive
panhandlers to shake down the people waiting on the shuttle bus. Art bought a
stale, sterno-reeking pretzel that was crusted with inedible volumes of
yellowing salt and squirted a couple bucks at a panhandler who had been
pestering him in thick Jamaican patois but thanked him in adenoidal Brooklynese.
By the time he boarded his connection to Logan he was joggling his knees
uncontrollably in his seat, his delight barely contained. He got an undrinkable
can of watery Budweiser and propped it up on his tray table alongside his
inedible pretzel and arranged them in a kind of symbolic tableau of all things
ESTian.
He commed Fede from the guts of the tunnels that honeycombed Boston, realizing
with a thrill as Fede picked up that it was two in the morning in London, at the
nominal GMT+0, while here at GMT-5 -- at the default, plus-zero time zone of his
life, livelihood and lifestyle -- it was only 9PM.
"Fede!" Art said into the comm.
"Hey, Art!" Fede said, with a false air of chipperness that Art recognized from
any number of middle-of-the-night calls.
There was a cheap Malaysian comm that he'd once bought because of its hyped up
de-hibernate feature -- its ability to go from its deepest power-saving
sleepmode to full waking glory without the customary thirty seconds of
drive-churning housekeeping as it reestablished its network connection, verified
its file system and memory, and pinged its buddy-list for state and presence
info. This Malaysian comm, the Crackler, had the uncanny ability to go into
suspended animation indefinitely, and yet throw your workspace back on its
display in a hot instant.
When Art actually laid hands on it, after it meandered its way across the world
by slow boat, corrupt GMT+8 Posts and Telegraphs authorities, over-engineered
courier services and Revenue Canada's Customs agents, he was enchanted by this
feature. He could put the device into deep sleep, close it up, and pop its cover
open and poof! there were his windows. It took him three days and an interesting
crash to notice that even though he was seeing his workspace, he wasn't able to
interact with it for thirty seconds. The auspicious crash revealed the presence
of a screenshot of his pre-hibernation workspace on the drive, and he realized
that the machine was tricking him, displaying the screenshot -- the illusion of
wakefulness -- when he woke it up, relying on the illusion to endure while it
performed its housekeeping tasks in the background. A little stopwatch work
proved that this chicanery actually added three seconds to the overall
wake-time, and taught him his first important user-experience lesson: perception
of functionality trumps the actual function.
And here was Fede, throwing up a verbal screenshot of wakefulness while he
churned in the background, housekeeping himself into real alertness. "Fede, I'm
here, I'm in Boston!"
"Good Art, good. How was the trip?"
"Wonderful. Virgin Upper was fantastic -- dancing girls, midget wrestling, hash
brownies..."
"Good, very good."
"And now I'm driving around under Boston through a land-yacht regatta. The boats
are mambo, but I think that banana patch the hotel soon."
"Glad to hear it." Art heard water running dimly, realized that Fede was taking
a leak.
"Meeting with the Jersey boys tomorrow. We're having brunch at a strip club."
"OK, OK, very funny," Fede said. "I'm awake. What's up?"
"Nothing. I just wanted to check in with you and let you know I arrived safe and
sound. How're things in London?"
"Your girlfriend called me."
"Linda?"
"You got another girlfriend?"
"What did she want?"
"She wanted to chew me out for sending you overseas with your 'crippling back
injury.' She told me she'd hold me responsible if you got into trouble over
there."
"God, Fede, I'm sorry. I didn't put her up to it or anything --"
"Don't worry about it. I'm glad that there's someone out there who cares about
you. We're getting together for dinner tonight."
"Fede, you know, I think Linda's terrific, but she's a little, you know,
volatile."
"Art, everyone in O'Malley House knows just how volatile she is. 'I won't tell
you again, Art. Moderate your tone. I won't be shouted at.'"
"Christ, you heard that, too?"
"Don't worry about it. She's cool and I like her and I can stand to be shouted
at a little. When did you say you were meeting with Perceptronics?"
The word shocked him. They never mentioned the name of the Jersey clients. It
started as a game, but soon became woven into Fede's paranoid procedures.
Now they had reached the endgame. Within a matter of weeks, they'd be turning in
their resignations to V/DT and taking the final flight across the Atlantic and
back to GMT-5, provocateurs no longer.
"Tomorrow afternoon. We're starting late to give me time to get a full night's
sleep." The last conference call with Perceptronics had gone fantastically. His
normal handlers -- sour men with nasty minds who glommed onto irrelevancies in
V/DT's strategy and teased at them until they conjured up shadowy and shrewd
conspiracies where none existed -- weren't on that call. Instead, he'd spent a
rollicking four hours on the line with the sharp and snarky product designers
and engineers, bouncing ideas back and forth at speed. Even over the phone, the
homey voices and points of view felt indefinably comfortable and familiar.
They'd been delighted to start late in the day for his benefit, and had offered
to work late and follow up with a visit to a bar where he could get a burger the
size of a baby's head. "We're meeting at Perceptronics' branch office in Acton
tomorrow and the day after, then going into MassPike. The Perceptronics guys
sound really excited." Just saying the name of the company was a thrill.
"That's really excellent, Art. Go easy, though --"
"Oh, don't worry about me. My back's feeling miles better." And it was, loose
and supple the way it did after a good workout.
"That's good, but it's not what I meant. We're still closing this deal, still
dickering over price. I need another day, maybe, to settle it. So go easy
tomorrow. Give me a little leverage, OK?"
"I don't get it. I thought we had a deal."
"Nothing's final till it's vinyl, you know that. They're balking at the royalty
clause" -- Fede was proposing to sell Perceptronics an exclusive license on the
business-model patent he'd filed for using Art's notes in exchange for jobs, a
lump-sum payment and a royalty on every sub-license that Perceptronics sold to
the world's toll roads -- "and we're renegotiating. They're just playing
hardball, is all. Another day, tops, and I'll have it sorted."
"I'm confused. What do you want me to do?"
"Just, you know, *stall* them. Get there late. Play up your jetlag. Leave early.
Don't get anything, you know, *done*. Use your imagination."
"Is there a deal or isn't there, Fede?"
"There's a deal, there's a deal. I'll do my thing, you'll do your thing, and
we'll both be rich and living in New York before you know it. Do you
understand?"
"Not really."
"OK, that'll have to be good enough for now. Jesus, Art, I'm doing my best here,
all right?"
"Say hi to Linda for me, OK?"
"Don't be pissed at me, Art."
"I'm not pissed. I'll stall them. You do your thing. I'll take it easy, rest up
my back."
"All right. Have a great time, OK?"
"I will, Fede."
Art rang off, feeling exhausted and aggravated. He followed the tunnel signs to
the nearest up-ramp, wanting to get into the sunlight and architecture and warm
himself with both. A miniscule BMW Flea blatted its horn at him when he changed
lanes. Had he cut the car off? He was still looking the wrong way, still
anticipating oncoming traffic on the right. He raised a hand in an apologetic
wave.
It wasn't enough for the Flea's driver. The car ran right up to his bumper, then
zipped into the adjacent lane, accelerated and cut him off, nearly causing a
wreck. As it was, Art had to swerve into the parking lane on Mass Ave -- how did
he get to Mass Ave? God, he was lost already -- to avoid him. The Flea backed
off and switched lanes again, then pulled up alongside of him. The driver rolled
down his window.
"How the fuck do you like it, jackoff? Don't *ever* fucking cut me off!" He was
a middle aged white guy in a suit, driving a car that was worth a year's wages
to Art, purple-faced and pop-eyed.
Art felt something give way inside, and then he was shouting back. "When I want
your opinion, I'll squeeze your fucking head, you sack of shit! As it is, I can
barely contain my rage at the thought that a scumbag like you is consuming *air*
that the rest of us could be breathing! Now, roll up your goddamned window and
drive your fucking bourge-mobile before I smash your fucking head in!"
He shut his mouth, alarmed. What the hell was he saying? How did he end up
standing here, outside of his car, shouting at the other driver, stalking
towards the Flea with his hands balled into fists? Why was he picking a fight
with this goddamned psycho, anyway? A year in peaceful, pistol-free London had
eased his normal road-rage defense systems. Now they came up full, and he
wondered if the road-rager he'd just snapped at would haul out a
Second-Amendment Special and cap him.
But the other driver looked as shocked as Art felt. He rolled up his window and
sped off, turning wildly at the next corner -- Brookline, Art saw. Art got back
into his rental, pulled off to the curb and asked his comm to generate an
optimal route to his hotel, and drove in numb silence the rest of the way.
19.
They let me call Gran on my second day here. Of course, Linda had already called
her and briefed her on my supposed mental breakdown. I had no doubt that she'd
managed to fake hysterical anxiety well enough to convince Gran that I'd lost it
completely; Gran was already four-fifths certain that I was nuts.
"Hi, Gran," I said.
"Arthur! My God, how are you?"
"I'm fine, Gran. It's a big mistake is all."
"A mistake? Your lady friend called me and told me what you'd done in London.
Arthur, you need help."
"What did Linda say?"
"She said that you threatened to kill a coworker. She said you threatened to
kill *her*. That you had a knife. Oh, Arthur, I'm so worried --"
"It's not true, Gran. She's lying to you."
"She told me you'd say that."
"Of course she did. She and Fede -- a guy I worked with in London -- they're
trying to get rid of me. They had me locked up. I had a business deal with Fede,
we were selling one of my ideas to a company in New Jersey. Linda talked him
into selling to some people she knows in LA instead, and they conspired to cut
me out of the deal. When I caught them at it, they got me sent away. Let me
guess, she told you I was going to say this, too, right?"
"Arthur, I know --"
"You know that I'm a good guy. You raised me. I'm not nuts, OK? They just wanted
to get me out of the way while they did their deal. A week or two and I'll be
out again, but it will be too late. Do you believe that you know me better than
some girl I met a month ago?"
"Of *course* I do, Arthur. But why would the hospital take you away if --"
"If I wasn't crazy? I'm in here for observation -- they want to find *out* if
I'm crazy. If *they're* not sure, then you can't be sure, right?"
"All right. Oh, I've been sick with worry."
"I'm sorry, Gran. I need to get through this week and I'll be free and clear and
I'll come back to Toronto."
"I'm going to come down there to see you. Linda told me visitors weren't
allowed, is that true?"
"No, it's not true." I thought about Gran seeing me in the ward amidst the
pukers and the screamers and the droolers and the *fondlers* and flinched away
from the phone. "But if you're going to come down, come for the hearing at the
end of the week. There's nothing you can do here now."
"Even if I can't help, I just want to come and see you. It was so nice when you
were here."
"I know, I know. I'll be coming back soon, don't worry."
If only Gran could see me now, on the infirmary examination table, in four-point
restraint. Good thing she can't.