JUST A LOOK Part 1
story by Patrick Breheny pjbreheny@hotmail.com
The eyes were grey. You might first say---? No, dark green? No. Grey. A mix of genes They were prominent even though he wasn’t trying---and maybe particularly that he wasn’t trying--- to influence. Yet they were magnets that directed the eyes of others.
You’d think he’d be used to it, but he often asked himself, Why are people staring at me? And the always unspoken answer was, somehow you’re making them.
He didn’t understand it, nor why he was sought to resolve conflicts or answer questions to issues for which he had no experience with, nor opinion about.
It wasn’t physique or size or great looks. He was ordinary, average on those counts, just had those eyes that mesmerized and found him sometimes in fortunate situations, though he had no idea how to use that quality
to long term advantage. Just accepted good luck if it came his way.
Shortly after high school, with a basic diploma and a so-so grade average, he went on an interview to become a clerk at an insurance company in midtown Manhattan. He turned in the application they’d given him to fill out.
The HR greeter, herself only a few years older than he, though at 17 a few years is a lot, looked into his eyes and said, “Do you mind? I’d like to stop for a moment and consult my supervisor.”
He agreed and she went, but he thought, I should just leave. I can work on the docks or in construction. Being a clerk is steady and easy, but actually harder too. He had none of those skills of his time---shorthand, taking steno, fast typing, dictation, and those were women’s jobs. All they could assign him to would be filing or the mail room, or directing documents to the right department via the chute. Maybe he could be an in-house furniture mover-around. That wouldn’t be so bad. He shaped up now mornings in Manhattan, sometimes getting picked, loading freight for a company that shipped frozen meat overseas, and sent him to the Red Hook docks to unload. The Brooklyn longshoremen didn’t like members of their union coming over from Manhattan---they had a hand painted sign on a wall to express that--- but that was not directed at unloading trucks onto pallets for the dock crew to pick up with a fork lift. Maybe the meat shipper would hire him permanently. They were starting community colleges now, Bronx Community where he lived, and his brother attended nights. He had neither a New York Regents diploma, needed for a four year college in that time, not to mention the grades nor the funds. Seventeen already, and didn’t know what to do with the rest of his life. There was still the draft, the Korean War over, taking them at 22 now unless they already had two children He had to go in the service. He didn’t want four years in the Navy or Air Force or Marines. The Army was three if you joined, but only two if drafted. He could push his draft at 18, by going to the draft board and signing a Take Me Now. That was an option. He didn’t see marriage and two kids looming at 22, but if he did go in at 18, what after two years? Service out of the way, and faced with the same decisions.
The little older than him interviewer came back with a woman who looked like she must be forty at least, and introduced her as Mrs Fritz. Despite the age, Mrs. Fritz was a slender and attractive brunette, crisp and smart in business attire. Yet she looked at him and exclaimed, almost as if in a bar after work hours, “On the job, Ellen!”
She quickly reestablished her decorum, sat at the interview desk beside which he was seated, and looked at his application. He had no resume because…well. What was on the application in regards to experience was the only steady employment he could cite, working part time Saturdays and after school weekday afternoons for Ed and Hy’s Grocery.
Mrs. Fritz asked, “What was your position at the grocery store?”
“Delivering groceries. Sometimes I stocked shelves. Even the register if one of them wanted a break.”
“In the Bronx. You were 15 and 16. What did you think of the job?”
“I was hired to deliver groceries, several boxes at a time in a cart. Stocking and ringing the register weren’t part of the deal, but there was occasionally a time gap until they had enough orders to send me with the cart, and seemed to feel if they were paying me they could use me other ways.”
“You didn’t care for that in- the- store part of it?”
“No. I wasn’t told that would be expected.”
“Did you object?”
“No. I mostly made deliveries. And could be a little slow getting back so there would be more orders waiting.”
“I admire your honesty.”
“Wasn’t that a little dishonest?”
“I mean your honesty now with me. No, you weren’t dishonest. Honesty is a subjective evaluation. You did what they hired you to do. But you did like delivering?”
“Yeah. I got tips and it was social. Got to talk to people and joke with them.”
”Did you make more from the tips than from the salary?”
“A lot.”
“Why was that, I wonder?”
“Well, the more orders I went out with, the more tips I got.”
“Of course, but would you say people gave generous tips?”
“Definitely.”
“Did you ever wonder why they did?”
“Because I carried their groceries up the stairs.”
“But you say generous. Would they be that generous with everybody?”
“I think so.” But he didn’t.
“Were they more generous to you?”
“Maybe.”
“Was it because they liked you?”
“ I have no way to compare what other guys got. I liked the customers, mostly. Like I said, it was sociable.”
“And those eyes. Can you wait a little longer while I speak to Mr. Anderson?”
“Sure.”
Ellen asked, “Would you like a cup of water?”
“I bet he likes coffee. Don’t you?”
“Yeah, but….”
Ellen said, “No bother. Cream and sugar?”
“Okay.”
“”Two?”
“One for you?”
“Two sugar”
“I know. Joking.”
Mrs Fritz laughed, so Ellen did too. Mrs Fritz said with feigned admonishment, “That’s nothing to joke about. Make it three coffees, Ellen. And a pitcher of cream with lots of sugars.”
“Coming up.”
Mrs Fritz said, “You have a great look, kid.” And left to find Mr. Anderson.
Ellen came back with the coffee set up, sat, and stared so intently into his eyes that, if he wasn’t accustomed to it happening, he might think she wanted to make love right there in the office. He could fantasize anyway. But if he was brazen enough to say it… maybe …later… elsewhere? He wouldn’t be breaking any Human Resources rules. He was the subordinate
He didn’t articulate that though, it was after all a job interview, but Ellen said what he heard variations of just too often, even from (especially from) his devout platonic girlfriend Veronica, aka Ronnie round the neighborhood.
“I know what you want but I don’t yet. If I can just look at you, that’s enough.”
Mrs. Fritz returned with a tall man wearing a blue pin stripe suit, years older than even Mrs. Fritz. He introduced himself with a smile and said, “You have no resume?”
“Nothing to put on one. High school, delivered groceries, shape up now to unload trucks on the docks.”
“Its okay. Its the algo I want to look at.”
Mr. Anderson produced a small flat rectangular object Randy had never seen before from his front pocket. He pushed some of the tiny typewriter keys and buttons at the bottom, and smiled even wider. The coffee service was largely being ignored.
“Right. Personable. Shows humility. Nice guy. From a deprived working class background.”
“I don’t know where you got THAT…”
“Well, no, you couldn’t think that…”
“I’m not from an underprivileged background..”
“Of course you don’t think you are.””
“I’m not.”
“Good, good. As you wish. And you signed the contract.”
“Huh?”
“This, the contract.”
Mr. Anderson showed him the gadget, with printing across the screen that read:
I will never accept any credit or blame for anything I have ever done. When I terminate, there will be no record or legacy of me. Any accomplishment or infamy will be attributed to another non-person
“What is this supposed to mean?”
“You signed it.”
“No I didn’t”
“Yes you did. To be here.”
“Here where?”
“Where you are now”
“When do you say I signed it?’
“A long time ago in the future when they actually make movies with performers that act out fantasies like yours toward Ellen.”
“You’re saying, like, at some point in the time to come, I sold my soul?”
Mr Anderson laughed heartily and glanced back at the algo. “Yes, I see you are programmed religiously. Selling your soul is a good metaphor for what you did. And you’re thinking about joining the Army. You won’t, we’ll need you, we’ll get you deferred and there’s going to be another war….”
“If there is I’d want to go in.”
Anderson, still scanning the device, noted, “Yes, patriotic too.”
“This is really bewildering.”
“Understandably, but if you did go in the Army, the first thing a basic training
sergeant would tell you is, ‘Give your soul to God, because our ass belongs to me.’ I like that analogy. It will belong to us for a while.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t understand what the hell you’re talking about.” He wasn’t so anxious about getting this job now.
“”You are pardoned. You’re not supposed to know. This computer that I hold in my hand, with the algo in it, its from a future where you’ve seen it before and where you’ll see it again--- a future that’s your past, the time when this little device got invented.”
“What kind of insurance company is this?”
“Not insurance. Assurance. Life Assurance. Special. We mean our name. We’re Perpetual Life Assurance. We insure you keep living. Forever. And you, Randy, are going to be our spokesman to recruit young people. Can you tell me why you picked us, from all the companies in Manhattan, to come and ask for a job today?”
“I… don’t know.”
“That’s a standard HR question, and you failed it. Not your fault, programming. I’ll give you a second chance though. Try to answer.”
“Well, like you said, Manhattan, 38th Street, midtown. Any direction you look you see skyscrapers. There are jobs in them. Even if just food service, janitorial, or yes clerical.”
“But you picked us. Why?
“Randomly.”
“Mr Anderson laughed. “Wrong answer again in the HR manual, but the right one for me. Where’d you get those eyes, kiddo?”
“Born with them.”
“Ah-ha-ha. Yes. Yes you were.”
“I am not a…a program.”
“You just don’t know.”
“No. I have a family. A sister and brother. My father is a construction carpenter. I have a girlfriend, going to make her a fiancé.”
“All of which you believe. Good.”
“You’re crazy. I don’t want to work here.”
“I haven’t told you the salary yet.”
“It couldn’t be enough to give you my soul.”
“That again. You don’t have one. You’re fulfilling a mandate.”
He was becoming afraid they wouldn’t allow him to go.
“I can leave, right?”
“Sure.”
He stood up to do so.
“Land of the free, but its enough money to get you into any college, your brother and sister too., let your father go from making buildings with his hands to ordering their construction. Give your mother the opportunities she missed, do the things she always wanted to.”
“So what’s the salary?”
“Two hundred thousand dollars as a golden parachute in, with commission for every person you recruit.”
“Right now I’m taking that option to leave.”
“Good, good. You play well. Go ahead and think. You need a week or five more minutes? I at least need five. Ellen, we all let the coffee get cold. Another round please. Randy, if you’re still here in five, we’ll talk, or you can call us when we’re ready.”
The staff departed for the announced short break. Five minutes? Randy sat down again. Ellen returned with a fresh coffee brew, then Anderson and Mrs Fritz came back.
Anderson said,” Good choice.”
“Tell me what you’d want me to do.”
“Better to do that is Arthur. He’s the TV recruiter of elders. Your generation is our future, but we still need the present older folk who feel more urgency about it.”
“I never heard of this Arthur, but you say he’s a TV preacher? What’s his last name?”
“He’s not a preacher. Last name? Thank you. I hadn’t thought of that. You haven’t heard of him because for now he’s just on Channel 13 late at night.”
“So then how do you know this will work?”
“Oh we know.”
“What’s the gimmick? I told you, I’m Catholic and we...”
“We’ve addressed that. Your faith or your delusion, depending on opinion. There’s no religion involved, no motivational speaking, nothing but soothing talk to get them to listen, but most of all to look, into those eyes. Yours and Arthur’s”
“To give them the same eyes?”
“Oh no. Give them shiny eyes. The eyes of followers. And here is Arthur.”
And somebody was there.
“Arthur, just like that. You didn’t even snap your fingers.”
“He comes when summoned.”
“God does that.”
“Have it your way. Sometimes Arthur does too.”
Arthur was a middle aged, rotund smiling man, also in a suit, but a brown frumpy weave of one that he might sleep in. He said, in a deep voice that elongating the vowels, “Good afternoon”. He spoke English with an accent of unrecognizable origin and had eyes the color and apparent solidity of granite. He hurt Randy’s hand when they shook.
Randy said, “Ow! Where are you from?”
Arthur laughed heartily at that.
“I just don’t have an ear for your speech pattern.”
Arthur’s laughter only intensified. He said “No one has.”
Mr. Anderson interjected, “He can be culturally American. Your first assignment is to watch his show late tonight on Channel 13.”
“They just show products for sale on that channel at night.”
Arthur, with his stretching vowels, concurred. “Pre-cIse-ly.”
On the ride home on the subway D train up to the Concourse in the Bronx, he wondered what he was going to tell his parents about his new job. And explain the salary. He decided, wait with that. Talk is cheap. He hadn’t signed any contract, even if loony Anderson said he had.
A spokesman, that’s what he was. Just had a look they wanted. Yet Mr. Anderson was more or less telling him his parents didn’t exist, were his imagination, part of his algo, his dad was an illusion. What was Dad’s algo? Sometimes he was Robert Young in “Father Knows Best”, wise, confident, consoling, counselling. Sometimes he could be Ralph Cramden in “The Honeymooners” too, but in that show there was never any mention that Norton and Trixie or Ralphie Boy and Alice had any children. Dad, like Randy, loved the Yankees, colorful Yogi and Casey Stengel, Whitey Ford and Micky Mantle. Dad had a few brews at Daly’s but never came home inebriated. Randy had found the Avon, on the other, west, side of the Concourse, though he wasn’t old enough legally yet. He didn’t want to intrude into Dad’s drinking turf. And owing to lack of experience, Randy did sometimes overdo it. Dad had coached him once, bought him two beers at Daly’s, then said, “Now we go home. Tomorrow is another day.” All this was algo? His older brother Danny mostly referred to him as “Schmucko”, but pretended it was affectionately, just implying Randy had a lot to learn yet. Danny was learning, going nights to Bronx Community College, taking requirements for transfer to a four year university, however financially unlikely that prospect. He was working days as a bellhop at a five star downtown. Tips were good there too, so Randy was considering that, but Dan advised, ”Another hotel.” Sally was still in high school, a math whiz, and Mom wanted her to get that Regents diploma and go to college, do what Mom might have done herself. They were all a delusion, made of an assortment of qualities? Randy loved the Church, his family, his friends, his neighborhood, his life. It was Mr. Anderson who was deluded, as was his staff. He must have played magic tricks presenting Arthur, and with the algo. But that salary. If they meant it, he could do a fake, go along like he didn’t know Mr. Anderson was a lunatic, hopefully harmless.
It was over dinner at the kitchen table, when all five were seated, eating a meal of roast chicken, mashed potatoes with brown gravy, string beans, that he told them about his incredible job offer as a spokesman. But not the salary.
Mom asked, understandably, “How?”
”They just said I had a look.”
Sally said, “You do. Oh, you do. If you ever heard my girlfriends. I won’t tell you.”
Mom said, “He is kind of cute.”
Danny taunted, “A spokesman for what, mediocrity?”
Randy tried fending off with humility. “I think some kind of self help stuff.”
“Some bullshit.”
Mom said, “Daniel!”
Daniel continued, “He’s the Before. They’re going to turn him into the After.”
From Sally came, “I think he starts as the After.”
“After what? A dog’s turd after a rain shower?”
Mom said, “Stop that at the table. We’re just after saying Grace for the food, so show some gratitude.”
Dad waxed toward conciliatory Robert Young, was even wearing a sports jacket.
“He looks like any kid.”
Daniel agreed. “ANY.”
“Sally cooed, “Its his eyes.”
Daniel countered, “We all have eyes.”
“Not like his.”
Randy was thinking, this would be some programming if what Mr Anderson said about his life and family was so---conflicts, loyalties, jealousy, all of it.
Mom said, “He certainly is something special. I know that.”
Randy had a small TV in his room and stayed up until 1:00 AM to go in and watch Arthur. Danny came close as he left the living room and whispered. “Jerk off time?” Randy thought, No, they couldn’t make this up.
On TV, Arthur was still bland and spoke in his monotone.
“Hello again. I’m not going to bring you religion or psychology, just common sense. Whatever you are doing is enough. If you’re retired and you were a construction worker or a secretary, a cashier or a CEO, you were taking care, providing. And if you were doing nothing….” he used quotation marks fingers….’between jobs’ a lot’,,,” well that was your calling, setting a bad example.”
He was so blasé, his voice flat. He was not to be listened to, except that the center of focus, the draw, were those eyes like marbles, even on black and white TV. What he looked like otherwise, his sagging posture, his unpressed suit, didn’t matter, nor did what he said. Seeming to be out of words without a script, he began reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, by rote, as you eventually did in elementary school, words memorized and repeated to the point where content was buried deep. Arthur could shout “Fire”--- if he was capable of shouting---and nobody would move. But those eyes. Just like Randy’s. Randy wanted to keep looking at them, but forced himself to stop.
When he went back to the living room, Danny was still up and quipped, “A quickie?”
Randy didn’t honor that with a reply, indicated the living room TV Danny still had on, muted, others sleeping.
“What are you watching?”
“A program.”
“Well, that’s enticing.”
“A rerun of some old sitcom.”
“About?”
“People like us as far as I can tell. Would you believe that?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I would.”
He went back to Perpetual Life Assurance later in the morning to get coached by Arthur.
“You watched me last night?”
“All I could take.”
Mr. Anderson said, “Arthur can’t teach you to be like him. He’s for his generation. But he can guide you.”
“What do I do?”
Arthur instructed, “At first you should say nothing, just stare into the camera.”
‘How many people you figure watch your show?”
Anderson answered. “We started with ten. Went to 300.. Now we’re at thousands. We’ve set up our own studio. We’re paying to move to network with Arthur still late night, more like prime time with you, except just on Chanel 13 in the beginning”
“I just stare?”
“We have to test with you first, a trial show, but you have Arthur’s endorsement.”
That, Randy thought, was quite a referral. Could Randy be boring enough to put people to sleep too? Was that the purpose?
They scheduled the trial shooting for the next afternoon. They had a sound booth and control room. Randy was sent into the booth alone, and Mr. Anderson, Arthur, Mrs Fritz and Ellen watched through the glass panel of the control room.
He asked, “Is there any script? Do I say anything?”
Anderson answered. “We want to you to entrance people. Some you will no doubt bore, but we don’t want them anyway. And so you don’t get too bored yourself, we’ll have a call-in line. It’ll be different from Arthur’s show. Just don’t react. No emotion. Answer questions like Spock…”
“Who”
“I forgot, you don’t know. Answer like a talking dictionary.”
“I never heard of a talking…”
“PRETEND you’re one”
“What if there are hostile callers?”
“Especially with those. And you’ll get some.”
“How do they know to call in?”
“We’ll have the phone number up. Today we have actors and extras who will call. So they’ll be realistic and not inhibited, I won’t know which is calling. We won’t air this one, its for practice, but their calls will be their own, improvised, to give you practice. Now just sit at your desk, devoid of any expression, and look at the camera. You’ll need some acting discipline because you have to stay expressionless regardless of provocation.”
An invisible technician’s voice said, “Speed”
Another, “Ready”
He saw Anderson in Control as he shouted “And, Action.”
He knew he was being filmed then, but…Action?
He did his long minutes of staring. He knew it was at the camera, but what he saw was the group beyond the glass panel in the control room He was told a red light in front of him would flash when he had a caller and he was to press the light.
Following instructions, he looked without interest at the group behind the glass partition.
Arthur had advised him, “Be as if you just woke up and are staring at a blank beige wall drinking coffee and waiting for it to start working.”.
That had motivated him to ask if he could actually have coffee, but Anderson said that would be a distraction, not to mention a stimulant. He was allowed a small flat bottomed cup of water.
He sat for fifteen minutes. It became excruciating. Doing nothing made his back hurt. Tension. The cup was so tiny he didn’t want to squander the water by drinking just to be active, and not have any if he really got thirsty. He couldn’t show his impatience. He was paid not to show anything. He didn’t have to be told that napping wasn’t allowed. His eyes were the message, but he wasn’t sure he could keep them open.
Just when he thought he couldn’t stand any more, but couldn’t show that either, the red light mercifully lit up.
Anderson’s voice boomed, “We have a caller. Randy, press the button. Go
ahead, caller.
A young sounding male voice said, “You’re dull, pal.”
Randy paused, as was expected of him, did his disinterested demeanor, then said,
“Dull is without veneer, or uninteresting, or without shine like a cloudy day,
depressing.”
“I didn’t ask for the meaning, but that’s you definitely.”
Anderson’s voice intervened. ”You’re first to call. I didn’t explain the rules. You’re allowed only one statement or question. But since you didn’t want the definition of dull, I’ll give you the opportunity to say something else.”
“Okay…What do you think of the expression ‘fight or flee’? Do you agree?”
Randy was grateful to be active. “I think there are…”
Anderson cut in. “You have to be slower, Randy. Look and stare first, contemplate.”
Randy did that, then, showing no interest in the context of his answer, then finally said, ”There are several choices in a life or death situation. Fight or flee, but also freeze, stay and take it, surrender, of kill yourself. In documentaries, many POWs appear to be walking unwounded. So they stopped fighting and didn’t or couldn’t flee.”
“What do you think of honor then? Aren’t those surrendered POWs pussies?”
Anderson screamed, “We’ll edit that. That kind of language won’t be allowed. We have network censors, so there will be a minute lag during live taping. As to only one question or statement, we might have to amend that format. I think dialogue will be inevitable, but Randy, always be slow to answer, stare contemplatively first. You see why we’re testing. You wouldn’t want to go live without practice. Goodbye, obscene caller if good actor. Back into character, Randy. Stare at the camera. Crew, continue. “
The button flashed again.
Randy said, “Caller, you’re on the air.”
The voice was female, kind of husky sexy. ”What IS this? What’s so special about you?”
Randy pondered as directed, looking long and, yes, dully, before saying, “If you know I wouldn’t have to tell you, and If you don’t know I could never tell you.”
Which caused the caller to laugh.
Anderson was back. “The one thing you DON’T want to be is funny, Randolph.”
His full name, that he despised, couldn’t get an answer about for from even his parents who were embarrassed that he didn’t like it, and it got him giggles from his classmates during roll call when he was in school.
Anderson was going to use it to punish him if he tried in any way for humor.
The caller asked, “What’s your target audience?”
Anderson answered her. “Everyone who tunes in is our target. This is the segment for young people.”
“This is about nothing.”
“Seems so, doesn’t it, but it’s not. Goodbye, ma’am.”
The light was flashing like a school kid waving his hand frantically to be called on. He guessed that meant multiple callers.
Randy pressed the button without being told, and said, “Caller, you’re on the air.”
It was another female voice. “I broke into a funeral home and had intercourse with a corpse. What do you think of that?””
Randy just looked indifferently out at her.
She said, “Since you won’t ask, I’ll answer your unspoken question. That rigor mortis makes for one great erection.”
Randy, deducing this as a prank, and thinking he had adequately stared enough, said. “That’s not a nice thing to do.”
“He was go-od!”
Anderson was in the mix again. “Randy, I won’t be able to do cut in like this when you’re on your own. Caller, you’re overtime. Crew, we’ll make that lag five minutes. I can see this becoming entertainment, but that’s counter to our objective. Good job not taking the bait, Randy.”
The caller was still there. “You think this is a joke? Are you implying you don’t believe me?”
“Goodbye, Ms. Pervert. But good improv. Randy, take the next call.”
“Caller, you’re on the air.”
Another male voice said, “I know where the bodies are buried.”
Randy didn’t reply. If he wanted to ‘confess’ something, let him. He thought to ask his name. Live, he probably would. The police would no doubt monitor a show like this.
“Don’t you want to know where and who.?”
Randy remained mute. The caller waited too, until,
“Everybody who died, and the bodies are in the graveyard.”
Randy had himself a good bored stare.
Anderson said, “You’re such a wit! Goodbye .You’re doing well, Randy. Let them talk, you look. But we don’t want to become the highest rated TV program because we’re entertaining.”
Randy had to ask himself, Why wouldn’t you want to become the highest rated entertainment program?
Anderson was continuing, “That’s not our agenda. Answer the next one. Do what you’re doing. Whatever they say, remain impassive.”
Randy had an idea for his insurrection, but probably so would a lot of producers. This could be a great show. Those other producers would no doubt consider the format, but wouldn’t they want a charismatic actor, not nobody Randy. He was stuck with what he was, ordinary. He had found his---no, his niche had found him.
The next caller was male and said, “I just want to look into your eyes.”
Randy didn’t think he was messing with him. Through the glass he saw Anderson giving a thumbs up with one hand, a finger over his lips with the other. Don’t say a word.
It went like that, from jokes and bragging confessions of real or manufactured crimes, to taboos, to total worshipping accolades for the magnetism of Randy’s eyes.
But this had just been practice.
The next day in the green room, Anderson, alone with Randy, explained, ”We’ll be promising a living will. Not the one you make for when you die, but a will to live. Forever. Those who will die, they’re not believers If you believe, you will live. Perpetual Live Assurance. With a monthly monetary premium, of course.”
Andersons’s own eyes had become became enlarged, lit with the flame of conviction. He wanted that fanaticism in Randy, just not exposed, but Anderson couldn’t contain it in himself. ”If you believe and start to doubt, you will weaken, begin to fail, and then you will die. Those who die will bring it on themselves.”
So Mr. Anderson apparently had quite had a shock a week later when Arthur was reported to have died of Sudden Cardiac Arrest. There was a viewing, a good deal of publicity, but at the closing of the casket, Arthur opened one eye and smiled. The funeral director tried to be non-plussed. ”Post rigor mortis movement,” he explained. “It happens. People exhumed for autopsies have moved, but the were embalmed, definitely dead.”
A reporter asked, “Was Arthur embalmed?”
The director asked one of his staff, “Wasn’t he?”
A humble appearing fellow reluctantly replied, “At Perpetuals Life’s request…he was not.”
Anderson snarled, “Embalmment is murder.”
To prove Anderson right, and promote Perpetual Life’s premise and promise of living forever, Arthur sat up. He was wearing an uncharacteristically well pressed dark suit and climbed out of the expensive satin lined box.
The same reporter got sarcastic. “Are you positing he just resurrected?”
Anderson said, “Not at all. He never died. We’re just making a point.”
“For promotion?”
“Unintentionally maybe. He was declared dead by some quack who should lose his license. Wonder how often that happens that nobody knows about? You want a story for your rag, why don’t you follow that?”
Something happened to Mr. Anderson. He died. Many suspected by poison, or some kind of assassination.
There was quite a bit of media at his public viewing. Anderson did not wink, smile, nor sit up. He was dead as a doornail. And once they closed the air tight lid on the casket, if he hadn’t been really dead, he would be shortly.
The hearse drove to the cemetery, and cameras showed the dirt shoveled on top of him.
The grave was watched for months by free lance journalists who monitored with CCTV, hoping for another twist in the story. There wasn’t one.
In a news TV debate with Arthur, Randy said, ”If the founder of Perpetual Life is dead, Perpetual Life is a fraud.”
Arthur replied, “This is indisputable. Anderson is not dead, just biding his time.”
“Should we dig him up in six months and see how he looks?”
Declared dead legally, his corporation had to refund all the premiums, with compensation cases pending for pain and suffering.
A TV production company hired Arthur and Randy to just play their old characters in a comedy show, still with people calling in. Arthur’s eyesight was fading, and with it the magic of his glance, and Randy had enough of enough, always wore sunglasses. It didn’t matter. No audience still thought it was reality.
They hadn’t achieved immortality, nor given it to anyone else, but for them life got a lot easier. As good as it gets. Never forever.
Still when Randy, retired from show biz in a show that eventually lost ratings,
he worked as a doorman at the five star where his brother was one a bellman. The Regent was tickled to have a former reality star out in front like a general in full dress uniform, opening doors and haling taxis, and though they willingly paid him well for the promotion, Randy was making more in tips than salary, just as he had at Ed and Hy’s Grocery
But now that he was at the age of algos and smart phones, he did have to ask himself, how did Anderson have those things back then?
He was about to find out. He worked just two blocks from the Empire State Building, and like most New Yorkers he’d neve gone up to the top. Having finished a shift one late afternoon, he decided on impulse to go up. It was still summer daylight, and the view was nothing short of breathtaking, looking down on the spires of all the skyscrapers around that were diminished by the height of this building.
Confirming his premise that New Yorkers didn’t much hang around there, he heard foreign accents, U.S southern and midwestern accents---but---the voices too of one familiar New York accent and another familiar accent of undeterminable origin.
Anderson and Arthur were there, Anderson not looking a day older than he did at his wake, and Arthur the same as last he’d seen him.
He blurted at Anderson, “You were proven dead.”
He heard that smug “Ah-ha-ha” again, and, “That was my replica robot twin. And now that you’ve had lots of practice with that comedy program, its time to continue our mission as first intended. Remember the contract I showed you so long ago. Just sign on the bottom line so I can show it to you again back in the day, and we can proceed to where we are now. You know you have to sign, because otherwise that past never happened, there is no present, and then where will you be?”
“Where?”
“Nowhere. So be a good lad, scroll out your signature again right there.”
Randy calculated that whether his past was real or had never been, it was gone. He still had the present, and he wanted to live, but at what ultimate cost? His sister Sally was an accountant. Danny a real estate broker. Ma and Pa passed, but it hadn’t been bad. His own children were adults, and he couldn’t explain why he looked no older than they did. Nor explain how he came up to the Empire State Building’s top and ran into dead Anderson accompanied by Arthur--- Anderson with the g.d. smart phone Randy had once seen, and with that algo and contract on the screen again.
“I didn’t see my signature on it back then.”
“Which is why I need it now.”
No algo could have made his family up. You HAD to be there.
“I won’t sign that.”
Anderson prodded, “The present we’re in, your siblings, your own children, they won’t exist.”
They were real or they weren’t. If they never were, was that because he wouldn’t…sell…his…If they never were, and he never was, how could they miss themselves, he himself? How could anybody miss anybody? He thought, we grieve the deceased because we remember them, but isn’t it also because they can no longer remember us, for good or for bad? Is unreciprocated memory the sound of one hand clapping? The acorn falling in the forest when no one can hear?
“You have a strong will, but consider the consequences.”
“I have a stronger won’t.”
Anderson ordered, with his former authority, contempt and condescension, “Sign, Randolph.”
He was never part of their vile scheme, whatever its objective. He hadn’t consented.
“No.”
The duo were disappearing in front of him, Anderson’s bravado weakening as he and Arthur started to become vaporous. Anderson extended a now translucent arm., somehow still able to hold the phone up, desperation on his cloudy face
“This magnificent city we’re over, it can be yours. To do with as you wish. Sign and you can be king.”
An old childhood expression for pretentious delusions came back to him, appropriately it seemed.
“King shit.”
Anderson whimpered, “Otherwise...”
“What?”
“We’ll all be gone.”
Randy didn’t bother replying again.
And getting no response, Anderson’s last word was a pathetic plea.
“Please.”
And then Anderson and Arthur were gone, wherever the hell to.
Randy knew sooner or later that transition from this life was inevitable. Would it be now for him?
It seemed not. He could see all his moving parts were in order and functioning correctly.
But he needed to find a mirror.
What did he look like?
Did he age just a little bit today?
PART 2 JUST A LOOK
Why couldn’t he see it before? Or course he had aged, just like everyone. He was used to looking at himself in delusional mirrors. No one ever looks as good as under the full front and back lighting of a department store dressing room, nor do the clothes they decide to buy. And it was part of his job to put on his uniform as one of Napoleon’s generals in such a dressing room every working day. Of course he looked---not young exactly, but elegant, reverential.
It was just now, descending fast through decades of floors in seconds on the express elevator from the Observation Desk of the Empire State Building, where he’d just refused to sell his soul, in that lift’s mirrored walls, that he saw for the first time that his hair had not gone brownish from blonde as he’d believed, but was in fact grey, just not yet fully white. He was a more than middle aged man and really didn’t anymore need those designer shades. His eyes had lost the magnetism.
He’d been deluding himself in the mirror of the Regent’s doorman’s dressing room. It was like looking at the mirror behind the amber bottles in a bar, where one can progressively become better looking, smarter, richer, better dressed and occasionally even invincible. In his costume, he felt himself as of a manifest design, even if he was doing something so obsequious as hailing a taxi on a public street and holding open its door for real rich people.
Still, he had a good job all things considered, among those things the incredible luck in the past of getting cast for a part in a comedy show that lasted years, a show where he gave ridiculous advice to young callers with ridiculous made up problems, while his schmuck co-host Arthur gave the same kind of advice to older folk with silly fake problems.
He knew that had all been the doing of Mr. Anderson, and Arthur was his lacky, but he’d just bid farewell to both of them at the top of the building, where they’d dissipated to add even more pollution to NYC’s air.
He lived in Jersey now, Fort Lee, in a house worth ten times what he paid for it in the day, mortgage done, his kids adults, and Veronica, or Ronnie, his wife and former girlfriend living with him. His sons, bless them, were Cornelius and Alloysius, respectively a corporate attorney and a history professor. Ronnie, ready to soon retire, was a public school teacher in Palisades Park.
Being a born Bronxite who’d travelled by public transit, he saw it as less hassle to just take the train into Manhattan, then a bus, than deal with the time consuming employee parking structure for the hotel.
On his street in Fort Lee, it was quite a shock to say the least to see those big plastic toys, one a truck, the other a tank, on his lawn as though a family with little kids lived there. And then his key wouldn’t fit the lock. And the name on the mailbox said PARK, not his name. And then the door opened and a young Asian guy said, not exactly welcoming, “What are you doing?”
“What are you doing in my house?”
The door closed as quickly as it had opened and before he could even absorb what had transpired---was he on the wrong street in front of a house that looked like his?---a Fort Lee police car arrived. It was piloted by a young Latina female officer, her partner a white male who looked like he should be in high school today.
The boy was apparently good cop. He asked politely, “What seems to be the problem, sir?”
“I just thought I was at….No, this IS my house.”
“Not according to the call we got.”
“Somebody’s occupying it.”
The door opened again, and the same man was there with a pretty wife and a young boy and girl. He explained it all for the police with two words. “Mental case.”
Now it was the female officer’s turn. Her tone wasn’t nice. She said to Randy, “Do you have any ID sir?”
“Of course. With this address.”
He produced a wallet---not his, at least not his now, old, and his ID was a draft card from the 1960s that showed his DOB and his old Bronx address.
“This is the most recent you have.”
“All that’s there, it seems. I threw that card away decades ago.”
“You did?”
“Well, I thought I had…I mean…”
To the owner she politely said, “You can go back in, sir. We have this.” And to Randy, “Just stand here a moment.”
The two officers went close to their car and conferred. When they returned, the boy said, “There’s no law against crazy, but there is against trespassing.”
She added “And attempted breaking and entering.”
“We won’t cuff you if you’re good, but we want you to get in the back of the police car.”
Seeing little choice, Randy got in the car. They drove him back to the train station.
The younger one said, “You’re not in any trouble if you just go back to the city and don’t come into Fort Lee again.”
“I live here.”
“Uh-uh-uh!” The woman said, “You want to see our nice new jail or the New York pavements?”
“I’ll take New York.”
“We’ll wait to see you get on that train.”
First he went back to the Regent to see if he had left his wallet in the dressing room. But the evening doorman, his pal Harry, opened the door for him and said, “Good evening, sir. May I see your reservation?”
“Come on Harry.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I’m Randy. Out of uniform.”
“If you’re a cop, I have to see your badge.”
“I’m the day doorman, Harry.”
“Stop calling me Harry. I’m Mister Harold Stubech and I work two shifts, day and evening.”
“Look, stop the shit. I think I left my wallet in the dressing room. I have to look.”
“You can’t come in here without a reservation.”
“I have to. Let me talk to Mr Penn.”
But Mr. Penn was already there. “What’s this about, Harold?”
“He says he works here.”
To Randy he asked, “What department do you work in?”
“Mr. Penn! Come on! I’m your day doorman.”
“Don’t make me call security, okay, wise guy. Do yourself a favor and just get out of here.”
He took the C train up to the Bronx because…Why not? That had always been New York to him. He got off at the 183rd Street station and walked over to Valentine Avenue, to his old apartment building across the street from Slattery Park. My, how the neighborhood had changed ethnically. Maybe nobody would get mad at him if he just wanted to look at the door of Apartment 4D at 2222 Valentine, explained his nostalgia: “I grew up here.”
No explaining necessary. Ronnie heard him out there and opened the door, with “Kids, the oldest grocery store delivery guy is home.”
And inside were his sons, not as adults, still children. Veronica was still young, but looking tired. Stepping inside for… sanctuary?... he saw in the hall full length looking glass that his age had changed again too, back to mid thirties.
Ronnie said, “You never took that TV offer. Can’t you talk to them again?”
“They’re gone… somewhere.”
“Well we’re still here. My job at Safeway and your delivery tips barely keep us alive.”
He explained it to her, all of it, from the first interview at Perpetual Life.
“They wanted my soul.”
“How do you know that? Maybe they’re time travelers.”
“What would they want then?”
“Who knows. Maybe fun.”
“If you like, I can go back to the Empire State Building tomorrow, see if they show up. Have that other life we had that I told you about.”
“I hope to they return, that you didn’t just blow it.”
“You hope to…? I can try, but I don’t know how many lives you get. I’m afraid I left those two in the breeze today. How do we know this isn’t better than anything else?”
“This?”
“It isn’t over yet, is it?”
“Like maybe there’s some good fortune ahead for us?”
“Yeah, like maybe.”
“Now there’s hope talk. Could have used that on your never happened TV show.”
“I did. And I learned that anything is possible.”
“Hang in for the ride, huh?”
“Got a better idea?”
“I’ll try to come up with one.”
“If you do, I promise I’ll listen.”
Randy went back to the Observation Deck the next day. More tourists there, like a shift turnover of extras in the movie he was star of. He didn’t want to see Anderson or Arthur again. He believed they’d returned to dust, fulfilling the prophesies. To nothing, which the Buddhists sought as ultimate purpose, though to Randy the idea of all those other lives was better, depending of course om the circumstances. He was relieved that today brought no more spirits, or whatever Anderson and Arthur were, and he could truthfully go home and tell Ronnie he tried.
As he lined up with today’s transients for the elevator back to Ground, though, there was suddenly someone beside him brushing his elbow, a large unpleasant looking man who said, “Hello, Randy.”
He sounded Southern, yet not exactly, like an actor doing a regional caricature not specific to anywhere. To test this theory, Randy asked, “Where are you from in the South?”
“Georgia.”
Randy bluffed, “You don’t sound like Georgia.”
“You’re used to the Atlanta sound. I’m from Columbus.”
“I’ve been in Columbus.”
He had. He was remembering it from when he’d been in training in the Army at Fort Benning, Except he had never been in the Army. Had he?
His new companion said, “I travel around. Lived some in Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee.”
“You don’t sound like anywhere exactly”
“Pre-cise-ly.” Said a little too much with inflections like Arthur’s, but Arthur tended toward England speech. Wasn’t that where Southern speech came from?
Then with a deep inner guttural voice he said, “I can sound like I come from anywhere. Auschwitz, Pnom Penh. And why are you back today, Randolph?”
If he knew he was Randolph, and didn’t like being called it, he knew everything. “Made a promise to my wife.”
“Ah, those good intentions. We all know the road they pave.to. So go ahead, get on the elevator, go back to the Bronx, Veronica and Valentine Avenue, and you can tell her you are both about to have an adventure.”
Ronnie told him his sons were doing overnight at their cousin’s, her
sister’s kids, and she just finished her Safeway cashiering shift. But a funny thing happened. They were no longer in an apartment, but a wooden building with a low ceiling. Stepping outside, they saw that their and all the apartment buildings in the neighborhood were gone. Where Slattery Park had been there was a farm. There were still two paths forming a corner, and a sign posted that said Valentine Avenue, with a coach being pulled by horses along the unpaved road.
To comprehend the shock, they returned to the billet they’d just left. There was a man in there who wasn’t there…a moment ago…was he? But he didn’t seem averse to company. “I rarely have guests. Welcome visitors, to the home of Edgar Allen Poe. Is it me in particular you came to see?”
“Well shit, yes, I’d say so”, Randy blurted.
“Ah you speak with modern crudity, that I find candid and refreshing. Please, both of you have a seat, as soon as I clear these chairs of manuscripts and my…um…obsessive love letters”
Randy had been to the relocated and restored tidy cottage in Poe Park on The Grand Concourse, and it was that ‘Poe cozy nook’ that inspired the words for the name of a tavern across the street on the opposite side of the Concourse. But the real Mr. Poe didn’t seem inclined toward fastidious housekeeping. Scattered about the single room were his mentioned literary scrawlings, and the letters he’d acknowledged to be of unfulfilled passion giving off a floral scent of perfume, several empty wine and spirits bottles yet to find their disposal, and a long pipe that had its own odor that didn’t resemble tobacco’s.
Randy was ready to politely decline the offer to sit, but Ronnie was quicker. “We’d be delighted to, Mr. Poe.”
“Please let us not be formal. I detest the convention. I am Ed, if you don’t mind.
Would you care for a glass of wine? I have a rare vintage yet to be uncorked, and saved for the event of splendid visitors, which I now have.”
Randy said, “Well, this street was all five story apartment buildings five minutes ago, so we could use a drink.”
Ronnie concurred.”
“And your names?” Ed asked.
“I’m Randy, this is my wife Veronica, and we are from the twenty first century.”
“Oh! Ah-ha-ha.”
“I’m not joking..”
“Oh, I know you’re not. I’ve been to the 17th Century here in New York. Do you know about the Bronck family?”
“We’ve heard of them. Local folklore,”
“They owned all the land here, and what is most entertaining about them is they had no IDEA what was referred to then as ‘the Bronck’s’, their estate, would become in time.”
“Couldn’t begin to imagine.”
“Not it the least. Now there’s another diversion here, besides the vintage wine, that I’m reluctant to offer you because of the risks, but you seem adventurous souls. Have you ever smoked opium?”
“I took a hit on a crack pipe once.”
Ronnie was truly shocked. “You did?”
“I just remembered. In another time plain. It felt like a hydrogen bomb exploded inside my head.”
“A 20th Century drug. But you didn’t try it again?”
“I was afraid to. You only do that f you have nothing else to do for the next twenty years, and you never get that first rush again.”
“A bit true of this pipe, but I try to be moderate with it. Well, if you had the discipline to try crack and then leave it alone…Randy?”
“I will once.”
“Veronica?”
“Oh, what the fuck. We’re here, wherever we are.”
Poe fired up the kindling, they all inhaled directly, and when they were riding that magic carpet, Poe got to other time travel reminiscences.
“I met Vincent in France.”
“Vincent?”
“Van Gogh. A kindred soul. They’re not always right about his expressionism. When he painted Starry Night he was painting what he saw.”
They all dozed a while in the euphoric reverie, and when Randy woke up, he was 17 and back in the old Bronx apartment with his family. He told them of his odyssey. Danny was looking at him differently now, like he’d completely lost his mind. He could see he was losing Sally’s adulation, and Mom was worried.
But Pa said, “I had ideas like you once.”
Pa?
“I can teach you carpentry, get you in the union. Then you can do the service, and when you come back, marry Veronica. But if you have other ideas, to wander, you’ll have a trade to make a living. The world is full of fools. Just learn not to suffer them.”
“I think I have already.”
It was great growing up where he was. But he wanted more, or different. There were free life things happening out west. Ronnie had the spirit, but was traditional and he didn’t know if she’d go for it. He could try. With her or without her, he as going.
They had no money, but there was the travel-by-thumb program. Might meet more adventure than you wanted along the route. There wouldn’t be anybody in L.A. holding a sign with his name on it. No family. No friends. No community. And, as mentioned, no money.
But so what? There was no status quo anywhere, so everything would change again. He was going. Just to have a look. Somebody might ask about that too--- just a look?--- but he didn’t think he’d be there long enough to ever have to answer them.