Sensation

by Nick Mamatas

  “Whose side are you on anyway, Julia?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The group stopped in Union Square; Raymond and Julia needed to rest their hands and everyone wanted Starbucks—“I only take Starbucks when there are two choices available.” The Barnes & Noble at the top of the Square had one, and there was also a coffee shop on the Western end of the square, roughly one hundred yards away from the bookstore. Julia sat on the cooler and refused to move, so Raymond chose the store on the surface, the better to keep an eye on his ex-wife. “I’m not staying with her,” Liz said as she followed Raymond.

  In line for their drinks, Liz said, “Is there any particular reason you are going along with this nonsense. I mean, other than the fact that you’re still in love with a woman who left you at gunpoint. It’s just your ingrained responses to seeing her. The heart leaping from your ribcage, the dry mouth—”

  “My mouth isn’t dry.”

  “Yes it is. That’s why you’re getting a fancy little soda instead of your usual macchiato.”

  “Everyone’s such an accomplished detective these days,” Raymond said. He paid for his drink, and for Liz’s and a fistful of biscotti.

  “You’re a creature of habit, love,” Liz said. “And your love is a psychotic creature, I should remind you.”

  “Not anymore. And that’s for both of us. Trust me, there’s nothing I’d rather do than go home and write a paper about this and maybe end up being interviewed in the New York Times for my controversial new theory of social behavior, but I …” he trailed off and put the bottle to his mouth. He crossed the street briskly, nearly leaving Liz behind; she was on her phone after it chirped to signal receipt of a new message. Julia was still on the cooler, sitting with her knees together and feet splayed, chin in her hands.

  “Goddamn pataphysics,” Raymond said. “Let’s go,”

  Cutting north into Gramercy, where the buildings were tastefully ornate and the chains gave way to boutiques, Raymond told Liz, “Let’s say you quit smoking.” Liz responded by sliding a thin cigarette from the pack she kept in her left pocket as if she were a man, and lighting it with the lighter from her right. “You’d have a craving for a cigarette.”

  “Of course.”

  “How would you eliminate those cravings?”

  “I’d have a bleeding cigarette.”

  Julia laughed. “Ha! That wouldn’t eliminate your cravings at all, just postpone them through temporary satisfaction. You’d eliminate your cravings only by not indulging.”

  “How can I live a normal life?” Raymond asked. “Simple; make sure that everyone knows what’s been going on, in no uncertain terms. Expose these things in a way that cannot be denied by any reasonable person. Create a new normal.” He turned to Liz, “Settle the question, once and for all. If anthropology is a solved problem then I can get on with my life. Without this, no way.”

  “So it’s about you then, not the greater good or hunger for knowledge?” Liz asked. “Physics envy as a solution to penis panic, eh?”

  “He’s not the only party here,” Julia said. “You can address me occasionally if you’d like to. I am holding half the cooler here.”

  Liz exhaled a swirl of smoke. “Maybe I should just wave down the next police officer I see.” She pulled out her cell phone again and thumbed some keys.

  “Put it down,” Raymond said and he and Julia both lowered the cooler. He stepped up to Liz, getting in her personal space, his eyes squinting from the sting of smoke. “I’d like you to assume that the narrative we presented before is right.”

  Liz nodded, “All right then.”

  “If the narrative—that there is a second intelligent species on this planet, one that is actually a prey species to a parasitic neuromodulator. Further, at least in some cases, humanity is a prey species to this neuromodulator, and this has had a significant impact on philosophy, culture, history, and geopolitics, and until this afternoon there was nothing in the historical record to suggest that this is the case.

  “Further, the other intelligent species in question also manipulates the course of world events, perhaps even informing them in a way as profound as neuromodulation apparently does. This other species has managed to hide itself completely, while presenting some level of existence as an unintelligent arachnid. And yet, for all their intellect and apparent resources, they are still ultimately a prey species. They tend to predominate only because they reproduce in the manner of arachnids and thus can swamp out much of the impact of the wasps.

  “What this means is that of all the people—hell, all the sentient beings—in the world, the billions of us, there are a very small number of organisms with free will. In fact, by my count, there are two. You’re one of them.”

  “And me?” Julia asked. But then she deflated. “Ah, the wasps, yes. I have to say … I felt free. When I stole money, did graffiti, killed Fishman. But all those things seem so trivial, just stating it all at once now. Is it really any different than any other vandalism, or theft, or … you know?”

  “Yes,” Raymond said, “I’d say it was. It was different because while your behavior was being influenced by some other organism, it was not being influenced by the spiders, but rather by the wasps. It’s antinomian praxis, after a fashion, which is why those actions had a much greater impact than they might otherwise. Anyway, excuse me, I’m getting knocked off track—” he turned back to Liz. “There are two organisms on this planet with sufficient information to actually realize that the social context in which they are existing, the thrownness of it all. I’m one, you’re two. That’s it. Everyone else has strings on their wrists, ankles, and jaws. That’s why I need your help, Liz. Please, I just want your half.”

  Liz exploded in laughter. “Well what can I say! To not act is an action as well, if you believe farty old Nazis like Heidegger.” She raised her foot and extinguished her cigarette on the heel of her boot. “And yet, Ray-Ray, I have to ask, how do I know that you have free will? Perhaps the spiders fed you misinformation. Perhaps when you had that wasp in your mouth, all as part of your daring plan to save Julia here from a life of middle-class tedium slightly different than the one she had with you a year ago, it stung you, or another one did? Perhaps you were stung on Long Island, or a year ago? Maybe there was a sexual transmission of whatever chemicals informed Julia’s escapades—”she nodded to Julia and interjected, “no offense,” into her own monologue. “So, she’s a marionette with another master, Raymond. Well, perhaps you are too in your own way. Indeed, the only person who I can be sure has free will is myself.”

  “Well, then I need you even more,” said Raymond.

  “Let’s keep walking,” said Liz.

  Raymond kissed Liz on the cheek. A chorus of horns and shouts blasted forth from Third Avenue as Julia dove bodily into the street.

  “Julia!” Raymond screamed, and he ran after her, but Liz intercepted him with her strong arms. “No!” she said, just as a bus steamed to a stop right in Raymond’s path. The bus driver screamed curses, muted by the thick wide windows of the bus, and waved his arms violently, which was plain enough. Raymond crudely shouldered Liz out of the way and kicked the side of the bus, then waved his arms and mouthed curses, knowing that it would be futile to bother raising his voice. The bus lurched forward several inches but stopped again as Raymond cut in front of it and walked into the evening snarl of traffic. Julia was gone.

  19

  WE lost track of Julia as profoundly as did Raymond and Liz. Raymond walked back, ignoring the honk of horns and the polyglot imprecations of the cabbies and commuters. “This doesn’t change a thing,” he told Liz. Liz took up the cooler handle that had previously been Julia’s and continued the march.

  “Double-time it, eh?” said Liz. “Who knows if we’ve attracted the attention of the police.”

  “You haven’t been living in New York long, have you?”

  “Yeah yeah. Nothing’s more tedious than an intellectual posing as a badass because he lives in a
very nice area in a city that used to have rough areas. So, how shall we penetrate the United Nations?”

  “Honestly, I was kind of hoping that something would happen that would allow us free entry.”

  Liz stopped. Raymond walked ahead till he felt his cooler handle nearly twist away from him. “That’s your plan?”

  “Planning isn’t possible. Surely you can see that. We have to improvise. Really, I thought you might be able to do something.” He wiggled his free hand, symbolizing the movement.

  Liz began walking herself. “You know, there really is no such thing as spontaneous organization. Members communicate, sometimes tactically sometimes simply ideologically.” Raymond followed and quickly evened out with her. “I know there is an utterly bizarre American ideal of ‘one man making a difference,’ but that’s simply not how politics, not even sensational spectacles with a soupçon of politics, works.”

  Raymond said, “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s okay.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I presume you wouldn’t be here with me if you didn’t have some sort of plan.”

  “Perhaps my plan is to jump on the next bus.”

  Raymond said nothing. They hit 42nd Street and made a left, threading their way through the crowded streets, past Grand Central Station and toward the windy river.

  “Ever been?” Liz asked. The slab tower of the United Nations rose on the horizon.

  “No, actually.”

  “Why not?”

  “I never get up to midtown. Never been to the Statue of Liberty either, or the top of the Empire State Building. All those famous places you heard about in Adelaide are for kids on field trips and tourists. Sometimes colleagues come into town and ask me what’s a good place to eat in midtown and I have no idea. I counted seven TGIF’s just walking up here.”

  “Hmph,” Liz said.

  “It’s for tourists.”

  The pair walked with their cooler across the final street and onto the gardens and concrete rivers of the United Nations Plaza. Six blocks of flags fluttered on their identical poles, loud enough to Raymond’s ears to make him wince. Acres spilled out before them, mostly empty of people save for the few police in their vehicles and at the security checkpoints. A pair of tourists snapped one another’s photos by the twisted barrel of the handgun statue Nonviolence. A German Shepherd, tongue hanging and leash straining, a uniformed police officer stumbling behind, trotted up to the cooler.

  “Got a bomb in there?” said the officer, a tall man with the skin of an African and just a trace of an accent. Then he laughed.

  “Nope, dinner,” said Liz. The dog sniffed at the cooler and, smelling something good, licked at it. We scuttled around the underside of the box to avoid the querulous nose, which jabbed and tapped as if trying to open the box. “Hungry dog, I guess. May I pet her, officer …” Liz peered at the badge. “Bakayoko?”

  “‘Fraid not, she’s a working dog,” Bakayoko said. “Would you put the cooler down and open it?” He pulled on the leash. “Come along, Sophie, let them be?”

  “The dog smelled a bomb?” Raymond said.

  “No, no. You’d know if she had. She goes wild, and there would be a gun to your head right now, and four or five to your back. But I’d like to see your dinner if you don’t mind.”

  “Do you need a warrant, or reasonable cause?”

  “This isn’t America. You can have your picnic across the street at Ralph Bunche Park instead. That’s America. All your civil rights are across the street, along with a park bench or two. Far more comfy there, eh?”

  Raymond lowered his side of the cooler and told Liz, “Well go ahead.” She just let go, letting the box slam and bounce against the concrete of the plaza. We were on the back, hanging on. Then Raymond opened the lid. Bakayoko nodded. “Another box, is it? Let’s open this one as well.”

  “I’d rather not,” said Raymond. “There’s a wasps’ nest in that box. I took it out of my mother’s house on Long Island this morning. I had to take the early train out, get all outfitted with gloves and one of those hats with a fine mesh net all around, and a smoker too, to get it out. I’ve been dragging it around the city all day. I’m a professor at City College.”

  “And what about this dinner she told me about?”

  Liz stepped forward, her mouth open to register a complaint about being spoken about rather than spoken to, but Raymond took her hand, “I’m an anthropologist,” he said, then he waited for Bakayoko to fill the void. When the officer didn’t take the bait, Raymond said, “I’ve had to put a lot of things in my mouth that I never thought I would. Termites. Whale blubber. Rats and scorpions. Goat penis. Pig brain, with ten-foot strands of nerves I twirled around a wooden fork like it was spaghetti. And I tell myself, whenever I’m in the field and working to make a connection with others, to experience their cultures and gain the trust of insiders, one simple thing. I tell myself that there are only twenty amino acids; these twenty acids form the basis for organic life on this planet. They’ve all been in my mouth already.” He reached down and opened the wooden box in which the nest, fat and lumped like a cancerous heart, lay and with his finger teased out a smaller wasp. He held it up to Bakayoko, who doubled his grip on the Shepherd’s leash; the dog wanted to explore the nest and the insects both.

  “Dinner,” he said, and put the wasp in his mouth, head first, his teeth decapitating it before it could awaken and sting. He dropped the stinger back into the cooler and closed the lid while he chewed three times and swallowed. In their box in the cooler the wasps began to stir.

  It wasn’t a crowd that had gathered as much as it was a ring of people just outside the situational space of Raymond and Liz’s confrontation with the UN police officer. They were well dressed, coming from the United Nations itself—interpreters and accountants languid, with shoulders slumped in their suits; a few Latinos who stood close to one another and dressed in the industrial garments of cleaning staff; several more police officers, hands on their belts, walkie-talkies and batons just a twitch away.

  “What we want to do is have dinner here,” said Liz. “For the cause of solidarity. Under the flags, or on the grass by one of the statues. Beat your angry hornet into tasty protein. I’m the publicist. We’ll be here nightly, like a vigil. We hope that people will start bringing their own foods, trading with one another, feeding one another. Did you know that in Haiti some people are reduced to eating dirt because the price of beans and other staples are so dear, thanks to peak oil? And that even the dirt is getting expensive now?” She nodded.

  Bakayoko nodded back, mimicking what he saw. “I’m familiar with the consumption of insects and of course I read the papers, see every picket sign and desperate petitioner, hear the officials on their cell phones in a dozen languages, ma’am,” he said. “Very little gets by me or Sophie.” He reached down to pat the dog’s flanks and to subtly examine the waistbands of Raymond and Sophie. No firearms, no wires, nothing clicking or ticking down or even blinking. “There is paperwork to be filled out, though, if you expect media to come here, or food to be served. Permissions to have, in hand, before you begin.”

  Raymond picked up his end of the cooler, with Liz quickly following. “If you can tell us where to go, we’d—” “You can go,” Bakayoko said, “home. To your phone book and Internet. It’s nearly 8 p.m., there’s nobody to take your calls now, no meetings to be had tonight.” He pointed with his chin over Liz’s shoulder and across the plaza and the First Avenue. “Or you can use Ralph Bunch Park, back in America, where anyone can eat whatever they like whenever they want.” He laughed. “Ho ho, isn’t that the truth then! And you bring us hornets to eat instead. How wonderful for you. How utterly brilliant. I’m sure you’re a pair of those strange people performing all those foolish stunts for reasons of so-called politics. Playing Nintendo while Rome burns and takes the rest of the world with it. Thank you, but no. Take your vermin—pardon me, your amino acids—and come back some other day.”

&n
bsp; Raymond stood, his jaw stiff, not knowing what to do.

  UN-BEE-LIEVABLE

  Fugitive Ott Finds Parking Spot At

  UN Plaza … The Hard Way!

  David Schneider—Special to New York Post

  June 23, 20__

  Talk about your international incidents! Fugitive Julia Ott Hernandez, who has evaded authorities since the shocking murder of real-estate developer Peter Neads Fishman nearly a year ago, made a run for the border last night by commandeering a tour bus and driving it into the United Nations Plaza and through the visitors’ entrance. Nobody was hurt in the escapade, but Ott Hernandez escaped again, though her estranged husband, CUNY professor Raymond Hernandez, also on the scene, was questioned and released.

  Ott Hernandez, 32, boarded a Big Apple Tour Bus at approximately 6:30 p.m Wednesday. The bus, which was idling outside a McDonald’s on 38th and Park, was unoccupied. The cherry-red double-decker weaved through late rush-hour traffic as it made its way to the United Nations, with Ott Hernandez using the bus’s PA system to shout for right of way, but she did not attract police attention until getting within spitting distance of the United Nations. “That’s when she gunned it,” said UN police officer Randolph Bakayoko.

  Ott Hernandez guided the speeding bus through a shrubbery and aimed at a small crowd of people that included both Raymond Hernandez and Bakayoko. They and about a dozen others ran for their lives as the double-decker swayed and rolled up the plaza, nearly slamming into some of the famed sculptures on the plaza. The bus took out two cement security pylons that had been put in place in front of the Visitor’s Entrance after 9/11 and slammed through the glass doors.

  “The husband started following her, dragging his picnic cooler and screaming her name, ‘Julia! Julia!’“ Bakayoko said. Moments before, Bakayoko said that he had been examining the cooler for contraband, and found that the professor was carrying a wasp’s nest within. He radioed ahead to security within the UN complex. “I told them a bus was coming, and they told me, ‘We know.’“