The Great Perhaps: A Novel

by Joe Meno

  “We know, you’re like all in love again,” Amelia says, rolling her eyes.

  “Okay, but, well, I just wanted to say—”

  “Mom, I’m going to be late,” Amelia whispers, rigid in the front seat.

  “No, you’re not,” Thisbe says from the back, shaking her head. “We got like an hour.”

  “Well, I actually have things to do. I’m supposed to be doing stuff for the paper.”

  “BS,” Thisbe whispers. She glances at her mother in the rearview mirror as Madeline tries to continue.

  “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for making things difficult for you both. It’s just that we’re trying to figure things out…and…I hope when, or if, you guys decide to get married, you never have to worry about things like this. But it’s just that…it doesn’t usually work out so easy. It’s hard sometimes but we’re going to keep trying.”

  “Okay,” Amelia says, her hand on the door handle. “Can we go now?”

  “Okay, I guess,” Madeline says, stammering a little, wondering if she should say anything else. “Okay, well, have a great day.”

  Before she finishes her sentence, Amelia has opened the door and has taken off. Thisbe, slow, dressed a little sloppily in overalls, leans forward and kisses her mother’s cheek. “You have a great day, too, Mom,” she says, and then, finding her book bag, she follows, disappearing into the small, colorful constellation of kids. Madeline watches them both go, then puts the Volvo back in drive, and rushes off.

  I. On the way to work, Madeline listens to NPR and remembers that the presidential election is tomorrow. She doesn’t know what to expect. The polls are pretty close and she’s afraid that John Kerry, as thorough as he was during the debates, might have struck people as too wooden, without much of a personality. She’s afraid of what will happen if George Bush gets reelected. She doesn’t think it will be the end of the world, just that it will be very, very bad for everybody.

  J. At work that Monday, Madeline finds two more dead pigeons, murdered, lying there at the bottom of the enclosure. Madeline inspects their bodies inside the lab and again finds they’re both females. That’s eight dead birds altogether. There’s no way she can hide this. When Laura, her assistant, shows up with coffee an hour later, Madeline lets her know what has been happening.

  “Raped?” Laura asks, her thin eyebrows raised in shock.

  “Then murdered.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the dominant males being removed.”

  “Yeah, but why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The two of them spend the rest of the morning inspecting the animals, finding nothing else out of the ordinary, nothing abnormal, no signs of infection of any kind, nothing unsettling about the enclosure itself, no external forces that they think might be causing this strange behavior. Finally, Madeline presents the case to Dr. Hillary, her research advisor. Dr Hillary, his beard as dense and as white as chicken feathers, sits in his leather chair, nodding, staring at the top of the point his fingers make pressed tightly together. When Madeline finishes reading her notes, Dr. Hillary nods, then grimly asks, “And why do you think your birds are committing murder?”

  “I really don’t know. I mean obviously it has to do with us removing the older, more dominant males.”

  “Yes, but why would that cause such upheaval, such bizarre behaviors?”

  “I don’t know,” Madeline admits.

  “You’ve seriously upset those birds’ hierarchy, no?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the results have been quite drastic.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t know why.”

  “I know the how but not the why. I thought removing the more aggressive birds would result in less aggression.”

  Dr. Hillary smiles, rocking back and forth in his chair.

  “So what you found is that without the older, dominant males, the younger, beta males became much more aggressive, aberrantly aggressive, no?”

  “Yes.”

  “And why do you think that happened?”

  “Because the dominant pigeons keep order.”

  “It would seem so.”

  “That still doesn’t explain the rape, and then the murders.”

  “Let me redirect you, then,” Dr. Hillary says. “How do pigeons mate?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What kind of process do they have?”

  “They have a dance.”

  “What kind of dance?”

  “Well, the male bows to the female several times, then he blows out his neck feathers, puffs himself up, starts circling the female. Then he might spread out his tail feathers and drag them around. Then if there are other males present, he’ll try to separate the female from them by chasing her. Then the female, if she’s willing, will slip her bill into his and they’ll begin bobbing their heads, then after that the male climbs on the female’s back and—”

  “So there is a ritual, no, a kind of dance, as you said?”

  “Yes.”

  “I am willing to bet that none of the males that you have in that cage are following the important steps of that ritual dance. I believe, if you were to study them, you would find the males try to mount the females without any kind of dance, as you call it, and the females, unsure of how to proceed without the ritual, think they are in danger and fight off the males’ advances. I think the males then, frustrated, after some time simply peck their prospective mates to death.”

  “It still doesn’t explain why.”

  “Where did you learn about how the world works?”

  “School,” Madeline says with a shrug. “Then grad school.”

  “And what about role models? Your parents, for example. Certainly as a child, perhaps as a teenager, you saw them as dominant influences as well.”

  Madeline, eyes wide, feels herself begin to smile. “The males weren’t there to teach them the dance.”

  “The dominant males were not around to establish order. Or to pass on their knowledge.”

  “Wow.”

  “Wow, indeed,” Dr. Hillary says. “So…”

  “So if I return the older, dominant males…”

  “Then I think you have a very interesting study on your hands.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Hillary.”

  Madeline shakes his hand and sprints back downstairs to the research labs.

  One by one, Madeline reintroduces the red-tagged males back into the experiment’s population. There is no noticeable difference at first. One of the older males flies around, searching for a roost. It squabbles a little with a yellow-tag male, using its larger size to force the smaller bird out of its large box. Madeline makes a note of this and wonders what this sort of thing might say about the world of human beings.

  K. At lunch, smoking in the front seat of her lab assistant Laura’s car, she does not make eye contact with Eric. He is acting strange anyway, all nervous and twitchy. When they finish their smoke break, heading back inside the poorly lit research facility, Madeline leans beside Eric and says, “I need to talk to you for a minute.” Eric looks shocked. He pushes his glasses farther up his nose and nods as Laura strolls back to their lab module. Madeline does not know what to say, only that she has to say something. She clears her throat, then shifts her weight from foot to foot, then simply says, “Eric, I don’t know if you were unsure or not, but I’m married.”

  Eric nods, running a hand through his uncombed hair, sighing. “Okay, I know, I mean…I really apologize. It was just one of those things.”

  “Yeah, you just can’t do that because you think it’s okay. Because it’s not.”

  “I’m sorry, really.”

  “Just don’t do that again. Ever.”

  “Sure, okay, I just…well, sure. I’m sorry.”

  Madeline nods, marching off, the sound of her shoes against the concrete floor sure and steady. She smiles a little to herself as she walks awa
y, a little proud maybe, a little more certain than she has been in some time.

  L. Before she heads home that evening, Madeline checks on the birds once more. Two of the three reintroduced males have found nests. The third, a broad, granite-colored fellow with a slightly hooked beak, is too busy chasing a passel of newly introduced females, which Madeline finds pathetically charming.

  M. In the Volvo, on the way home from work, Madeline begins to cry. But it’s okay, it’s the good kind of crying. As she’s searching for a CD to pop into the player, NPR plays a report about Private Daniel Harkins, the soldier in Baghdad, who was captured and who has been held captive for nearly three weeks. He has been released. Madeline turns up the radio and the professional monotone of the NPR reporter repeats, “Private First Class Daniel Harkins has been released from his captors in the capital city of Baghdad. He’s being flown to a medical facility in Germany, where he’ll be given time to recover from his traumatic experience before returning home to North Carolina…” The report then goes on to mention that fifty people have been killed by a car bomb in Basra. Madeline switches off the radio as she pulls the Volvo into the garage. In the dark, with the automatic garage door sliding down, she frowns at herself for being so weepy.

  N. On Monday night, nothing all that interesting happens. Madeline and Jonathan sit on the couch and watch a special on the worst storms of the century. While they’re watching TV, Madeline keeps sneaking glances at her husband, making sure he’s okay. He’s taken his antiseizure medication, that much is obvious. She looks at him again and smiles. She does think he’s still kind of handsome, maybe a little too serious, a little too self-involved, but he really is pretty nice-looking. She holds his hand and it feels okay, it feels like it means something. And then, without lifting his eyes from the television set, he does something pretty terrific. He squeezes her hand once, then again, a secret code, just to let her know that he knows she is there, that at that particular moment, he is thinking of her and her only.

  O. At work the next day, the covey of pigeons is perfectly silent. There are no dead birds. The red-tagged dominant males each roost in their own corner of the pen. When some of the less dominant males, the yellow-tags, begin to fuss, one of the red-tags always swoops down and begins squawking. Madeline makes a note of this in her book but isn’t sure what it means exactly.

  P. Maybe it actually means dominance is some kind of natural state. Oh, shit, she thinks. What the hell does that mean for the world? What does that mean for the rest of us who really don’t love the idea of being dominated? What if we really don’t want to be part of a dominant empire? What the hell do we do then? Madeline considers these questions as she drives home from work. She stops at a church two blocks from her house to cast her vote. She does it quickly, punching a hole for the judges based mostly on whether they are female are not, and if there are no female candidates, based on whether they are Democrats or not, and if there are two female Democrats, then she decides based on the way their names sound. After that she quickly heads home.

  Q. That Tuesday evening, Madeline sits beside Jonathan and watches the election returns. Thisbe lies on the floor, working on her math homework, glancing up at the television every so often. Amelia just can’t keep still.

  “I’m supposed to be writing something about the election for the school paper, but I can’t watch,” Amelia confesses. “If John Kerry loses, I’m going to totally kill myself. Or move to Canada.” But she takes a seat in the puffy white chair for a while, scrawling some notes to herself in a little yellow notebook, then gets up, then goes and makes some popcorn, then comes back, sitting on the edge of the sofa. Thisbe watches her sister bouncing back and forth around the house and smiles, shaking her head. She turns to her parents and asks, still lying on the floor, “Did both of you guys vote for John Kerry?” Madeline smiles and nods, as does her husband, who also winks.

  “Oh,” Thisbe whispers.

  “Who would you have voted for, honey?” Madeline asks.

  “I dunno. George Bush, I guess.”

  Her sister, Amelia, sighs, looking glum. “That is so stupid.”

  “What?” Thisbe asks. “It’s my imaginary vote, I can vote for whoever I want to.”

  “George Bush is only like the worst president of all time.”

  “I don’t think so. I think he just isn’t as good a talker as that other guy.”

  “Did you even watch the debates?” Amelia asks suspiciously.

  “Yes. We had to watch them in history class.”

  “And?”

  “I guess I liked the president. The other guy, he was too hard to follow. His answers were too long. It was like he talked too much instead of just saying what he thought.”

  Amelia rolls her eyes. “Well, thank God you don’t get to vote.”

  Thisbe shrugs her shoulders, returning to her math homework, her left leg rising and falling as she scribbles mathematical figures on lined paper, the world on the television screen before her being quickly transformed by similar equations.

  R. Things don’t look so bad for John Kerry at first. All the New England states vote for him, and the maps, on the different news channels, show a large block of blue as it gradually appears in the northeastern corner of the country. Most of the Midwest and South vote for the incumbent president, and just as quickly, those parts of the map glow bright red.

  S. Madeline can’t help getting her hopes up as she watches: Illinois, then Michigan, Wisconsin, then Minnesota, all flash bright blue.

  “Wow, this is gonna be close,” Amelia whispers, trying to do the electoral math in her notebook.

  “It looks like it,” Jonathan says. “I hope it doesn’t get decided by Florida again.”

  “No, Florida is already red.”

  “We’ll just have to see what happens,” Jonathan says.

  T. By eleven o’clock, almost all of the votes are in. Once again, the country is completely divided: the southern Midwest and the South have voted for the Republican, the Northeast, northern Midwest, and the West have voted for the Democrat. The entire presidential election hinges on the state of Ohio. Ohio? Why Ohio? Ohio, like the silent, anonymous heart of the nation, located center and to the left, Ohio will, in the end, decide the fate of the country, the world, maybe even the universe. Some reporters mention that there are voters still waiting in line, even at this hour. What can be going through their minds? What kind of questions are they asking themselves as they stand there waiting to decide? Or probably their decision has already been made and, standing there, impatient, waiting to be heard, they stare ahead and wonder why something so simple as punching a hole or marking an X or touching a screen has to be so difficult. Maybe that’s the real question anyway. Why so much concern about the election in the first place, when, in the end, it is only another contest between two Ivy Leaguers? Why does it matter who wins when the results, no matter who is named president, will probably be the same? Because it does matter, Madeline thinks. Because among the things the two men share, there is a world of differences, significant, immutable differences. It is not a small, simple, meaningless decision. Madeline, pacing around the kitchen with nervous energy, finally steps outside, wishing she had a cigarette. She walks quietly into the backyard, her bare feet in the grass, looking up at the sky, at the tops of the trees, searching for the strange, indecipherable shape of the cloud-figure, but it has gone for good, Madeline knows, peeking up there once more: there is nothing. Only the moon, and the swaying trees, the telephone lines, the shadows of the garage, the sky full of clouds continuing their movement east.

  U. “Okay, well, goodnight anyway,” Madeline whispers and steps back inside.

  V. At one o’clock in the morning, the news channels all begin to report that the state of Ohio is now red. By then the girls have both gone to bed. Madeline, sitting beside Jonathan folded up on the couch, flips from channel to channel, hoping to see a different answer, but no, no. From the local networks to the cable channels, each one claims the s
ame thing, their maps all swiftly transformed, the absentee ballots and electoral arithmetic summarily counted, a winner finally announced. A televised photograph of George Bush appears on all the channels, almost all at once, and, flipping through, Madeline feels like a terrible mistake has been made.

  “I think that’s it,” Jonathan whispers sleepily.

  “Why?” Madeline mutters. “Why? Why did people vote for him?”

  Jonathan shakes his head, then sighs. “You can never underestimate the power of fear.”

  “Is that what you really think?”

  He nods again. “I do.”

  Madeline sighs, still staring at the TV. “I guess you’re right. That’s what they did. They tried to frighten people—with the war and terrorists and gay marriage—and it actually worked. It actually worked.”

  Jonathan kisses his wife’s forehead and then stands. “Are you ready for bed?”

  “I don’t think I can sleep,” she whispers.

  “I don’t think so either.” He scratches his beard and then straightens his shirt. “I guess I’ll go do some work for a while.”

  “Work?”

  “I guess.” He leans over and kisses her lips softly, then her forehead again, and says, “Goodnight.” He stretches then, strolls down the hallway to the den. Madeline flips through the channels for another couple of minutes and then switches off the television. She straightens up the parlor, then the kitchen, putting away some dishes, then leans against the counter, sulking. “Forget this,” she says, marching down the hallway to the den.