Fictions

by Nancy Kress

  I couldn’t do it again.

  “If you don’t phone by nine o’clock, I’ll call the feds with what I’ve found about J-24, without checking it out with you first. So call me, Bucky.”

  Usually on Saturday afternoon I went to the hospital to see Margie. Not today. I sat at my kitchen table with algebra tests from 7B spread over the tiny surface, and it took me an hour to get through three papers. I kept staring at the undecorated wall, seeing Bucky there. Seeing the photos of Lydia Smith and Giacomo della Francesca. Seeing that night thirteen years ago when Bucky had his stomach pumped. Then I’d wrench myself back to the test papers and correct another problem. If train A leaves point X traveling at a steady fifty miles per hour at six AM. . . .

  If a bullet leaves a gun traveling at 1500 feet per second, it can tear off a human head. Nobody realizes that but people who have seen it. Soldiers. Doctors. Cops.

  After a while, I realized I was staring at the wall again, and picked up another paper. If 3X equals 2Y . . . Some of the names on the papers I didn’t even recognize. Who was James Dillard? Was he the tall quiet kid in the last row, or the short one in shoes held together with tape, who fell asleep most mornings? They were just names.

  On the wall, I saw Jenny Kelly holding the hand of Jeff Connors’s little brother.

  At seven-thirty I shoved the papers into my briefcase and grabbed my jacket. Before I left, I tried Bucky’s number once more. No answer. I turned off the living room light and limped along the hall to the door. Before I opened it, my foot struck something. Without even thinking about it, I flattened against the wall and reached behind me for the foyer light.

  It was only another package. A padded mailer, nine by twelve, the cheap kind that leaks oily black stuffing all over you if you open it wrong. The stuffing was already coming out a little tear in one corner. There were no stamps, no address; it had been shoved under the door. Whoever had left it had gotten into the building—not hard to do on a Saturday, with people coming and going, just wait until someone else has unlocked the door and smile at them as you go in, any set of keys visible in your hand. In the upper left comer of the envelope was an NYPD evidence sticker.

  I picked up the package just as the phone rang.

  “Bucky! Where are—”

  “Gene, this is Jenny Kelly. Listen, I need your help. Please! I just got a call from Jeff Connors, he didn’t know who else to call . . . the police have got him barricaded in a drug house, they’re yelling at him to come out and he’s got Darryl with him, that’s his little brother, and he’s terrified—Jeff is—that they’ll knock down the door and go in shooting . . . God, Gene, please go! It’s only four blocks from you, that’s why I called, and you know how these things work . . . please!”

  She had to pause for breath. I said tonelessly, “What’s the address?”

  She told me. I slammed the receiver down in the midst of her thank-you’s. If she’d been in the room with me, I think I could have hit her.

  I limped the four blocks north, forcing my damaged knee, and three blocks were gone before I realized I still had the padded envelope in my hand. I folded it in half and shoved it in my jacket pocket.

  The address wasn’t hard to find. Two cars blocked the street, lights whirling, and I could hear more sirens in the distance. The scene was all fucked up. A woman of twenty-one or twenty-two was screaming hysterically and jumping up and down: “He’s got my baby! He’s got a gun up there! He’s going to kill my son!” while a uniform who looked about nineteen was trying ineptly to calm her down. Her clothes were torn and bloody. She smacked the rookie across the arm and his partner moved in to restrain her, while another cop with a bullhorn shouted up at the building. Neighbors poured out onto the street. The one uniform

  left was trying to do crowd control, funneling them away from the building, and nobody was going. He looked no older than the guy holding the woman, as if he’d had about six hours total time on the street.

  I had my dummy shield. We’d all had our shields duplicated, one thirty-second of an inch smaller than the real shield, so we could leave the real one home and not risk a fine and all the paperwork if it got lost. When I retired, I turned in my shield but kept the dummy. I flashed it now at the rookie struggling with the hysterical girl. That might cost me a lot of trouble later, but I’d worry about that when the time came.

  The street thinking comes back so fast.

  “This doesn’t look right,” I shouted at the rookie over the shrieking woman. She was still flailing in his hold, screaming, “He’s got my baby! He’s got a gun! For Chrissake, get my baby before he kills him!” The guy with the bullhorn stopped shouting and came over to us.

  “Who are you?”

  “He’s from Hostage and Barricade,” the rookie gasped, although I hadn’t said so. I didn’t contradict him. He was trying so hard to be gentle with the screaming woman that she was twisting like a dervish while he struggled to cuff her.

  “Look,” I said, “she’s not the mother of that child up there. He’s the perp’s little brother, and she sure the hell doesn’t look old enough to be the older kid’s mother!”

  “How do you—” the uniform began, but the girl let out a shriek that could have leveled buildings, jerked one hand free and clawed at my face.

  I ducked fast enough that she missed my eyes, but her nails tore a long jagged line down my cheek. The rookie stopped being gentle and cuffed her so hard she staggered. The sleeve of her sweater rode up when he jerked her arms behind her back, and I saw the needle tracks.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Two back-up cars screamed up. An older cop in plain clothes got out, and I slipped my dummy shield back in my pocket.

  “Listen, officer, I know that kid up there, the one with the baby. I’m his teacher. He’s in the eighth grade. His name is Jeff Connors, the child with him is his little brother Darryl, and this woman is not their mother. Something’s going down here, but it’s not what she says.”

  He looked at me hard. “How’d you get that wound?”

  “She clawed him,” the rookie said. “He’s from—”

  “He phoned me,” I said urgently, holding him with my eyes. “He’s scared stiff. He’ll come out with no problems if you let him, and leave Darryl there.”

  “You’re his teacher? That why he called you? You got ID?”

  I showed him my United Federation of Teachers card, driver’s license, Benjamin Franklin Junior High pass. The uniforms had all been pressed

  into crowd control by a sergeant who looked like he knew what he was doing.

  “Where’d he get the gun? He belong to a gang?”

  I said, “I don’t know. But he might.”

  “How do you know there’s nobody else up there with him?”

  “He didn’t say so on the phone. But I don’t know for sure.”

  “What’s the phone number up there?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t give it to me.”

  “Is he on anything?”

  “I don’t know. I would guess no.”

  He stood there, weighing it a moment. Then he picked up the bullhorn, motioned to his men to get into position. His voice was suddenly calm, even gentle. “Connors! Look, we know you’re with your little brother, and we don’t want either of you to get hurt. Leave Darryl there and come down by yourself. Leave the gun and just come on down. You do that and everything’ll be fine.”

  “He’s going to kill my—” the woman shrieked, before someone shoved her into a car and slammed the door.

  “Come on, Jeff, we can do this nice and easy, no problems for anybody.” I put my hand to my cheek. It came away bloody.

  The negotiator’s voice grew even calmer, even more reasonable.

  “I know Darryl’s probably scared, but he doesn’t have to be, just come on down and we can get him home where he belongs. Then you and I can talk about what’s best for your little brother. . . .”

  Jeff came out. He slipped out of the building, hands on his head,
going, “Don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me,” and he wasn’t the hustler of the eighth grade who knew all the moves, wasn’t the dealer in big gold on the basketball court. He was a terrified thirteen-year-old in a dirty blue bandana, who’d been set up.

  Cops in body armor rushed forward and grabbed him. More cops started into the building. A taxi pulled up and Jenny Kelly jumped out, dressed in a low-cut black satin blouse and black velvet skirt.

  “Jeff! Are you all right?”

  Jeff looked at her, and I think if they’d been alone, he might have started to cry. “Darryl’s up there alone. . . .”

  “They’ll bring Darryl down safe,” I said.

  “I’ll take Darryl to your aunt’s again,” Jenny promised. A man climbed out of the taxi behind her and paid the driver. He was scowling. The rookie glanced down the front of Jenny’s dress.

  Jeff was cuffed and put into a car. Jenny turned to me. “Oh, your face, you’re hurt! Where will they take Jeff, Gene? Will you go, too? Please?”

  “I’ll have to. I told them it was me that Jeff phoned.”

  She smiled. I’d never seen her smile like that before, at least not at me. I kept my eyes raised to her face, and my own face blank. “Who set him up, Jenny?”

  “Set him up?”

  “That woman was yelling she’s Darryl’s mother and Jeff was going to kill her baby. Somebody wanted the cops to go storming in there and start shooting. If Jeff got killed, the NYPD would be used as executioners. If he didn’t, he’d still be so scared they’ll own him. Who it is, Jenny? The same one who circulated that inflammatory crap about a Neighborhood Safety Information Network?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know. But Jeff has been . . . there were some connections that . . .” She trailed off, frowned again. Her date came up to us, still scowling. “Gene, this is Paul Snyder. Paul, Gene Shaunessy. . . . Paul, I’m sorry, I have to go with Gene to wherever they’re taking Jeff. I’m the one he really called. And I said I’d take Darryl to his aunt.”

  “Jenny, for Chrissake . . . we have tickets for the Met!”

  She just looked at him, and I saw that Paul Snyder wasn’t going to be seeing any more of Jenny Kelly’s cleavage.

  “I’ll drive you to the precinct, Jenny,” I said. “Only I have to be the first one interviewed, I have to be as quick as I can because there’s something else urgent tonight. . . .” Bucky. Dear God.

  Jenny said quickly, “Your wife? Is she worse?”

  “She’ll never be worse. Or better,” I said before I knew I was going to say anything, and immediately regretted it.

  “Gene . . .” Jenny began, but I didn’t let her finish. She was standing too close to me. I could smell her perfume. A fold of her black velvet skirt blew against my leg.

  I said harshly, “You won’t last at school another six months if you take it all this hard. You’ll burn out. You’ll leave.”

  Her gaze didn’t waver. “Oh no, I won’t. And don’t talk to me in that tone of voice.”

  “Six months,” I said, and turned away. A cop came out of the building carrying a wailing Darryl. And the lieutenant came over to me, wanting to know whatever it was I thought I knew about Jeff Connors’s connections.

  It was midnight before I got home. After the precinct house there’d been a clinic, with the claw marks on my face disinfected and a tetanus shot and a blood test and photographs for the assault charges. After that, I looked for Bucky.

  He wasn’t at his apartment, or at his mother’s apartment. The weekend security guard at Kelvin Pharmaceuticals said he’d been on duty since four p.m. and Dr. Romano hadn’t signed in to his lab. That was the

  entire list of places I knew to look. Bucky’s current life was unknown to me. I didn’t even know Tommy’s last name.

  I dragged myself through my apartment, pulling off my jacket. The light on the answering machine blinked.

  My mind—or the Camineur—made some connections. Even before I pressed the MESSAGE button, I think I knew.

  “Gene, this is Tom Fletcher. You don’t know me . . . we’ve never met. . . .” A deeper voice than I’d expected but ragged, spiky. “I got your message on Vince Romano’s machine. About the J-24. Vince . . .” The voice caught, went on. “Vince is in the hospital. I’m calling from there. St. Clare’s, it’s on Ninth at Fifty-first. Third floor. Just before he . . . said to tell you . . .”

  I couldn’t make out the words in the rest of the message.

  I sat there in the dark for a few minutes. Then I pulled my jacket back on and caught a cab to St. Clare’s. I didn’t think I could drive.

  The desk attendant waved me through. He thought I was just visiting Margie, even at this hour. It had happened before. But not lately.

  Bucky lay on the bed, a sheet pulled up to his chin but not yet over his face. His eyes were open. Suddenly I didn’t want to know what the sheet was covering—how he’d done it, what route he’d chosen, how long it had taken. All the dreary algebra of death. If train A leaves the station at a steady fifty miles per hour. . . . There were no marks on Bucky’s face. He was smiling.

  And then I saw he was still breathing. Bucky, the ever inept, had failed a second time.

  Tommy stood in a corner, as if he couldn’t get it together enough to sit down. Tall and handsome, he had dark well-cut hair and the kind of fresh complexion that comes with youth and exercise. He looked about fifteen years younger than Bucky. When had they taken the J-24 together? Lydia Smith and Giacomo della Francesca had killed themselves within hours of each other. So had Rose Kaplan and Samuel Fetterolf. How much did Tommy know?

  He stood and held out his hand. His voice was husky. “You’re Gene.”

  “I’m Gene.”

  “Tom Fletcher. Vince and I are—”

  “I know,” I said, and stared down at Bucky’s smiling face, and wondered how I was going to tell this boy that he, too, was about to try to kill himself for chemically induced love.

  I flashed on Bucky and me sitting beside the rainstreaked alley window of the Greek diner. What are you waiting for, Bucky, your prince to come?

  Yes. And, Have you ever thought what it would be like to be really merged—to know him, to be him?

  “Tom,” I said. “There’s something we have to discuss.”

  “Discuss?” His voice had grown even huskier.

  “About Bucky. Vince. You and Vince.”

  “What?”

  I looked down at Bucky’s smiling face.

  “Not here. Come with me to the waiting room.”

  It was deserted at that hour, a forlorn alcove of scratched furniture, discarded magazines, too-harsh fluorescent lights. We sat facing each other on red plastic chairs.

  I said abruptly, “Do you know what J-24 is?”

  His eyes grew wary. “Yes.”

  “What is it?” I couldn’t find the right tone. I was grilling him as if he were under arrest and I were still a cop.

  “It’s a drug that Vince’s company was working on. To make people bond to each other, merge together in perfect union.” His voice was bitter. “What else did he tell you?”

  “Not much. What should he have told me?”

  You never see enough, not even in the streets, to really prepare you. Each time you see genuine cruelty, it’s like the first time. Damn you, Bucky. Damn you to hell for emotional greed.

  I said, “He didn’t tell you that the clinical subjects who took J-24 . . . the people who bonded . . . he didn’t tell you they were all elderly?”

  “No,” Tom said.

  “The same elderly who have been committing suicide all over the city? The ones in the papers?”

  “Oh, my God.”

  He got up and walked the length of the waiting room, maybe four good steps. Then back. His handsome face was gray as ash. “They killed themselves after taking J-24? Because of J-24?”

  I nodded. Tom didn’t move. A long minute passed, and then he said softly, “My poor Vince.”

  “Poor Vince
? How the hell can you . . . don’t you get it, Tommy boy? You’re next! You took the bonding drug with poor suffering Vince, and your three weeks or whatever of joy are up and you’re dead, kid! The chemicals will do their thing in your brain, super withdrawal, and you’ll kill yourself just like Bucky! Only you’ll probably be better at it and actually succeed!”

  He stared at me. And then he said, “Vince didn’t try to kill himself.”

  I couldn’t speak.

  “He didn’t attempt suicide. Is that what you thought? No, he’s in a catatonic state. And I never took J-24 with him.”

  “Then who . . .”

  “God,” Tom said, and the full force of bitterness was back. “He took it

  with God. At some church, Our Lady of Everlasting Something. Alone in front of the altar, fasting and praying. He told me when he moved out.”

  When he moved out. Because it wasn’t Tommy that Bucky really wanted, it was God. It had always been God, for thirteen solid years. Tell Father Healey I can’t touch God any more. . . . Have you ever thought what it would be like to be really merged, to know him to be him? . . . No. To know Him. To be Him. What are you waiting for, your Prince?

  Yes.

  Tom said, “After he took the damned drug, he lost all interest in me. In everything. He didn’t go to work, just sat in the corner smiling and laughing and crying. He was like . . . high on something, but not really. I don’t know what he was. It wasn’t like anything I ever saw before.”

  Nor anybody else. Merged with God. They knew each other, they almost were each other. Think, Gene! To have an end to the terrible isolation in which we live our whole tiny lives. . . .

  “I got so angry with him,” Tom said, “and it did no good at all. I just didn’t count any more. So I told him to get out, and he did, and then I spent three days looking for him but I couldn’t find him anywhere, and I was frantic. Finally he called me, this afternoon. He was crying. But again it was like I wasn’t even really there, not me, Tom. He sure the hell wasn’t crying over me.”

  Tom walked to the one small window, which was barred. Back turned to me, he spoke over his shoulder. Carefully, trying to get it word-perfect.