FaceMate

by Steven M. Greenberg

  “Well you’re wrong then, Ben—Hah! Not only did I run it by him, but I’m pretty sure he’s going to tell you yes.”

  “Alex? You’re saying Alex is actually going to speak enough to tell me something? To tell me anything?”

  “Yep. Wait till you see him. Alex Daugherty is a different guy completely from the Alex Daugherty you met two months ago.”

  “How is that possible, Rajiv, huh? Some new psychiatric wonder-drug one of your tenants downstairs put him on?”

  “Those guys? You mean the two medical shysters renting office space on One? If that’s what you’re asking me, Ben, heck, I wouldn’t let them treat a dog—and I don’t like dogs all that much. No, it’s not them. Actually, it’s not anyone—other than Linda, I mean. She’s the one that brought about the change.”

  “Linda? A girl, you’re saying? You’re trying to tell me that Alex is actually interested in a girl?”

  “Not only interested, but he’s in love. I mean like love—like, l-o-o-v-e.” Rajiv widened his lips to stress the elongated word. “Hey. wait till you see him, Ben. He’s actually talking to everyone—like saying things right out loud—Well, not talking to everyone, that would be an exaggeration—But he’s talking to some of us, and I’m pretty sure, when he comes over, he’s gonna even talk to you.”

  “Wait a minute: He’s coming over? Over here?” That was Eddie expressing his disbelief, and, in the process, sounding every bit as disbelieving, as to Alex exiting his bunker and presenting himself in public, as Ben himself was.

  “Yep. Soon as I call him, he’ll be over right away, I’m telling you—Hey. Andi,” Rajiv hollered, and no sooner did he holler, than her skinny face appeared in the open doorway to his cubicle. “Hey, you wanna give Mr. Daugherty a call for me, Andi?—Or text him, I mean—and tell him his presence is requested. Here in my office—OK?—Oh, and bring another chair, would you? I think there’s still a little room.”

  The chair came within a minute, and there was a little room, though not much more than just that little, on Rajiv’s side of the desk. But for Alex to wend his way to Rajiv’s cubicle—that took a bit more time. Five minutes, six, passed—during which Ben thought, with a mix of irony and sarcasm: What? Polishing those jogging shoes perhaps? Scraping some of the pizza drippings off his fly? Slipping in a brand new pocket protector? Or maybe….

  But all of sudden there he was, in the flesh; and—Amazing!—the contrast between the Alex of eight weeks ago and the Alex of today—It was dramatic enough to totally blow your mind! No stains, no rips, no raggedy hair, but instead the kid looked totally presentable: clean clothes, a nice new shirt and pair of pants, sans stains, sans wrinkles—And the hair that Ben had laughed about for weeks after taking one quick look at it! Not bushed-out here, flattened there, not chopped up with a pair of kiddie scissors on the sides with scraggly whiskers running down his cheeks the way they were before; but styled, fashionable… almost what you’d call … becoming!

  “Alex!” Beside the aspect of surprise, which gave the name a bit of undue stress, Ben greeted Alex in the way you’d greet a normal, average guy. Yes, but Alex wasn’t quite a normal, average guy in the strict sense of the usage of those terms. There was still no evidence of warmth, no sign of personal recognition: Eye contact? Forget it; Alex was still constitutionally incapable of that.

  But he was mentally in the same room with you now, making definite, albeit minimal, acknowledgement of your being there. He wouldn’t look at you, of course—that was beyond his capacity. But his eyes moved in a way that you could tell he was attentive to the various other people in the room—his eyes moved, that is to say, along the floor toward the feet of the person who was talking at any given time. Not much, you might think, but actually, it was a sea-change at the least, a quantum leap at the most optimistic, from where he’d been two months ago. Whichever pole he tended to, the difference between the Alex of old and the Alex of this morning, was something wondrous to behold!

  The chair that Andi had brought into the cubicle had been placed behind the desk, right beside Rajiv’s, and Alex gravitated there. Strange—unnerving, in fact. Not too comfortable facing a person who lacked the ability to look at you—It gave you the creeps, truthfully, big time! But at least you got the feeling that you could communicate with him, however indirectly; and Ben took advantage of that fact to begin:

  “So—Alex—Nice to see you again. Rajiv here tells me he ran our project by you and you’re not totally averse.”

  The kid spoke. He actually did speak. Rajiv wasn’t kidding. Alex said:

  “No, not averse.”

  “You might be interested, then?”

  He spoke again, with impressive clarity, offering:

  “Yes. Might be. Might be.”

  “And you understand what’s involved? The amount of money we’re talking about?”

  “Understand. Yes. I understand.”

  “Well, let me introduce you then to Tommy, Tommy Mulroy: He’s the guy who’s going to mastermind the venture. Do you want to ask him any questions?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK … and what questions would you like to ask? Tommy’s working on his PhD in automotive engineering at Cal-Davis, top of his class—which is supposedly the best program in the country—probably best in the world. And the idea he’s come up with: It’s a modular car, which means….”

  He spoke again, two sentences, replete with subjects, verbs, an adverb, and a dependent clause—Amazing! He said:

  “I know already. I looked it up on the Net.”

  “You did?” Ben asked. “I didn’t know it was on the Net—Is it, Tommy? Did you know your modular car idea was on-line?”

  “Sure,” said Tommy. “There’s a whole YouTube segment on it. And a couple of papers I published, one in Ward’s and one in Automotive Quarterly. And some other articles and interviews that different guys have written up—None of the proprietary secrets, but enough out there to give the public a general idea of what’s involved. I’ve had a ton of feed-back, all of it positive, of course.”

  “OK, so—Great!—Alex—you’re at least a little bit familiar with the concept, then, from your research on the Net or whatever. What I’m proposing isn’t that we plunge right in with a huge amount of money just yet. What I’d recommend at this stage of the….”

  “Did you like the match?”

  “What?” Ben asked.

  “The match—Did you like the match?”

  It was strange hearing a question coming from that mask-like face with its downcast eyes, its lack of animation, the mono-tonal flatness of the voice. Ben was taken aback; and it took several seconds for him to respond. And when he did respond, he did so hesitantly, tenuously:

  “The match? You mean … you mean the FaceMate match? … The pictures?”

  “Yes, pictures, FaceMate. Were you happy the pictures were so close?”

  “Sure. I mean….” Ben looked around the room. Everyone was staring at him, everyone but Alex. Alex was staring at the floor, through the desk, as though the desk weren’t there, in the direction of Ben’s feet. His face was mask-like; his eyes were marble statue-still.

  “As you can see, Alex—Tommy and I are so similar, even in our traits and habits, that … well, in just a couple of weeks, we’ve started to relate to each other in a really amazing way. So it wasn’t just the pictures that were identical, but….”

  “So you’re happy then, Ben? I want you to be happy. I want you to be very happy. I like you a lot.”

  “Great. I’m glad. And I am happy now, Alex; I really am—more-so than I’ve been in years—more than in decades. And I think Tommy is happy too with our new relationship. Your program was really a godsend to us. It’s changed my life. It’s changed my whole outlook on life. Truthfully, Alex, we can’t thank you enough. Don’t you feel that way, Tommy? Aren’t you grateful to Alex too?”

  Alex didn’t wait for Tommy’s response. Tommy couldn’t get the words out fast enough; he couldn’t have beat Alex
to the punch, however hard he’d tried. Before his lips were even open, Alex asked:

  “And what about the other picture, Ben? Was that one close too? Did that one make you happy, Ben? Didn’t that one make you even happier than the first one did?”

  At which point, Eddie, who’d been sitting immediately to Ben’s left, jumped straight up and did his best to make a diversion. He waved his hands in front of Alex, waved them like a five-eight guard trying to block the jump shot of a six-ten center, trying just as hard, and just as ineffectively, to tell him: No—NO! DON’T GO THERE, ALEX. DON’T! DON’T!, conveying this, not in words—for there wasn’t time for words—but rather in gestures, violent gestures, futile gestures. But it was too late. Everybody in the little cubicle knew it was way too late the instant that Ben rejoined by asking the pertinent and inevitable question:

  “What other picture?”

  And when Alex responded in turn, in his own inimitable, mask-like, and laconic form:

  “The one of the girl.”

  Well, damn it all to hell! The cat was out of the bag—A very large cat had pounced clean out of a very incapable bag.

  And the fuckin’ game was up.

  Oops!

  39

  “Liliana, eta tui?’

  “Da, Mama, Ja doma, Zdrastvui. Kak dela?”

  “Xorosho, xorosho—Kto-to zvonil. Iz Ameriki, dumaio.”

  “Iz Ameriki? …

  From America? Liliana wonders. Maria? Could it be Maria? Or—well, not Mr. Kenny; not likely she getting call from him. But who otherwise she know who will call from USA? Not Mr. Marty—he would not dare, so rude he was, so nasty. But if not single one of people she know from America—only three she know is all—then who could it possibly be?

  Good. Mama has number of the person wrote down on piece of paper, and person’s name as well, right here—imya or familia or otchestvo—first or last or second name—impossible to know which one. ‘Cindy’, what it say, in Mama’s sloppy writing. Is proper thing for her to call this Cindy person back? But how much ruble cost for this? What will calling to America they charge? Is important question, yes, but person who called, this person Cindy—she spend lot of money maybe making call to Russia, no? So if important enough for Cindy calling Moskva, just equally important calling back to Cindy from Moskva now….

  And so she calls: Two digits here—this going to be USA country code pretty sure. And then three digits more—maybe for province—or in America such provinces people call them ‘states’—And then seven more digits, this for individual telephonical device—many number, like in Moskva or Peterburg, although outside Moskva and Peterburg, Russia not needing so many of digits like this. America maybe having lot more telephones.

  She hear the ringing: Funny ring, not like buzz like Russian telephones. And after two ring only, telephone get answered by high-pitch lady’s voice:

  “Hello.”

  “Yes, hello, excuse please only little bit of English on telephone. Talk in person better, but on telephone not so good, excuse please. Speaking here is Liliana Alexandrovna Glinskaya, and I have notification of person from this telephone number recently call our flat—Yes? Is correct?”

  “Ah, yes, great, sure! Liliana—so nice to talk with you. My name is Cindy, and I’m calling on behalf of the person I work for. His name is….”

  “Izvenite—I cannot understand these things you say. You say too fast. I am sorry. You say half of person? This I do not understand, half of person. You will kindly please explain?”

  “No, not half a person. On behalf of a person—that means on his behalf—for him, I mean. Oh, how can I put it clearer? I’m calling instead of him, in his interest, OK? Look, rather than him calling you himself, he had me call—do you understand me now?”

  “Yes, yes. I apologize. My English not so good as I like to be. Was pretty good before, but long time since I speak and practice. But if you talk slow, very slow, maybe I will understand—OK?”

  “Yes, OK, fine. So—anyway: There was a picture—is that slow enough?”

  “Yes. Yes I can understand better when you talk slow like this. Picture, yes, I understand what picture meaning.”

  “OK, well there was a picture sent into FaceMate—are you familiar with what I’m referring to?”

  “FaceMate? Yes, I send picture long time ago. Two months, or three, I do not know exact time I send. FaceMate email picture back of very pretty girl afterward. She look like me, a lot I think, but they say she not living anymore. I was sad to hear this in different email from nice man whose name I forget now. Was Edgarn, Edburn, something like this. This is person you maybe know?”

  “Yes, Edward. Edward Parker—Is that the man you mean?”

  “Yes, I think so; maybe. Yes. Edward, yes. This name, it is sounding right.”

  “OK, good, well he’s the one I’m calling for—on behalf of, like I said. You understand?”

  “Yes, I think. ‘Behalf’ meaning instead. You call instead of him—right?”

  “Right, great—good. Now one more link in the chain of insteads and behalfs—Or forget that; forget what I just said; it’s way too complicated; you won’t understand all that. Listen—can you listen to me carefully and try to understand? Is that slow enough for you to understand it?”

  “Yes, this last part I understand pretty good, but not part about chain. I do not understand at all this chain you talking first part what you say.”

  “OK, forget the chain. Listen to this, listen carefully: Edward is the person who asked me to call—You understand that?”

  “Yes, Edward asked you to call, right?”

  “Right. He asked me to call for someone else—another man, a different man—Do you understand that?”

  “Yes. A different man. Who is different man?”

  “His name is Ben. He’s a very important man, a very rich man, do you understand that?”

  “Yes, this is easy to understand. A man named Ben is very rich.”

  “Yes, and he’s very ill right now—Do you understand me when I say he’s very ill? Sick, I mean. Ben is very sick.”

  “I am sorry to hear he is sick. I hope he will soon be better health.”

  “I do too. I can’t even tell you how much I do too. But here’s the important thing: Ben would like to see you, to meet you—Do you understand what I’m saying when I tell you that?”

  “Yes, Ben, the person who is sick, he want to meet me. Why he want to meet me?”

  “That picture you sent in and the picture of the girl that FaceMate sent back—Oh, look, forget it; this is hopeless; this is driving me nuts! Listen, Liliana, are you going to be home for a while?”

  “Yes, I will be here at home—in flat—We with Mama live in flat—I staying here until tomorrow morning. Then I go to work at ballet.”

  “OK, let me get back to you. I’m going to find someone who speaks Russian and have them call you back. This is too fucking important to handle in some pidgin English, stupid, half-assed goddamn way.”

  Alex sat on the floor, arms clasped around his knees, rocking rhythmically side to side, and, with every third or fourth lateral movement, knocking his head—bang!—against the wall. The walls of his enclosure were solid, plaster over concrete block, built to his specific specs to make them impervious to any possible intrusion, built to make them soundproof, and to ensure they were excellent at thermal insulation. The temperature inside the room, accordingly, was eighty-six degrees. Alex was sweating profusely, and he was crying as well. Rajiv had seen him sweat before, that was not an issue. But he had never seen him cry. Nevertheless, it wasn’t the sweating or the crying or the stifling heat that was so disconcerting to Rajiv at the moment. It was those solid walls and Alex’s motion, and the resultant fear that he might seriously hurt his head. And so Rajiv got down on the floor next to Alex, reached out his arms, and held his partner tightly to his chest, arresting the motion and thereby protecting his best friend’s head, and doing his best to comfort this acutely suffering soul, in hop
es of which, he whispered very softly in Alex nether ear:

  “It’s OK, Aley, it’s OK. You couldn’t have known. It really wasn’t your fault.”

  Alex’s response was not what was expected. No, his response was, to escape from Rajiv’s tight restraint, to move his body violently to the right, and, for at least the dozenth time, to bang the wall again with his bleeding head.

  “Don’t, Aley. Don’t do that. What good is that gonna do?”

  “I hurt him, Rajiv. I did something bad to Ben.”

  “You didn’t know, Aley. How could you possibly have known?”

  “I’m not dumb, am I? Do you think I’m dumb?”

  “How can you even say that? How can you even ask me that? You’re smart as hell. You’re the smartest guy I know.”

  “But I did a dumb thing. I really did a dumb thing.”

  “It wasn’t dumb if you didn’t know, was it?”

  “I knew about the heart, though, The computer warned us about Ben’s heart.”

  “No it didn’t. All it said was, there was a possibility that Ben might be affected by some rare disease, not that he’d get it for sure. Nobody knew he actually had it, not even Eddie, not even Ben’s wife—He never even told her. Eddie called the doctor who did the test a little while ago, and he had to threaten to sue the guy to get any information out of him—besides which, I guess there’s this Federal law that says a doctor can’t give information out without the patient’s consent. And anyway, Ben made the doctor promise not to tell anyone, even despite the law. So it was only Ben and the doctor who really knew. You sure couldn’t have even suspected—No way.”

  “OK, but even if he didn’t have the heart thing, I shouldn’t have asked about the girl. I thought they would have told him about the girl. The reason I put the girl in to get matched was because I thought Ben would want to see her again. I thought Ben would be happy to see her again. I never thought it would upset him.”