Max

by Peter Berczeller

  Her answer made me feel like a total schmuck. Here I’d been telling myself stories about how Pete had ravished her that time with the Spanish flies, but it turned out she’d been a willing accomplice all along. No way was I ever going to capture her for myself. I’d have to settle for her being – and staying – at the top of my fantasy wishlist.

  “Why do you want to know?” she added, almost as an afterthought.

  I had nothing left to lose; no reason to play coy. “Because as crazy as you are about him, that’s how crazy I am about you.”

  What could she say? Not much. Just how flattered she was about my feelings. How she could see being friends with me in the future. That was the gist of her sending me a noncommittal “thanks, but no thanks.”

  Now that I’d gotten my answer, I went back to the reason she was here in the first place.

  “You’re on the button,” I admitted, “the guy with the hushpuppies was me.”

  “But how did you do it? How did you get rid of these guys?” she wanted to know.

  My head felt like it was about to pop open.. The morning had already been a disaster. Her confession, my confession; my blown cover in St Marton, when I thought I was being so clever. I told her I needed some time to think, that she’d get some answers pretty quick. She must have understood she wouldn’t get any more out of me right then. Said she’d drop by again in a few days. I promised to come up with the goods she was looking for.

  As she was going out the door, she casually sent a few words in my general direction. “Hope nothing happens to Akbar. It’s not his fault I love him so much!”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  PETE GETS A REPRIEVE

  November, 1984

  While I was waiting for Alison to come back, I had another big worry. I’d just gotten the final judgment from the Housing Court. My books and me were found guilty on all counts. No wonder: the owner (that illiterate jerk) had brought along a couple of experts who swore that the weight of my book-stuffed apartment was tipping the building to one side. That must have convinced the judge. We had to leave by the end of the month. I didn’t care about myself, I could always sleep in my office; at least for the time being. But what about the books being torn out of the only home they’d ever known? I might have to rent a storage unit and visit them on Sundays, like a single dad. I just couldn’t face it.

  My new social worker, Elena I, tried her best to console me. Her shtick was to put on an old-time nun’s habit (she’d purloined it during a brief stint in an upstate convent) before the main event. Then we’d go into our number with the outfit on or off every which way. For minutes on end, it was night in the daytime, while I was wrapped up in the folds of that black tent. Gotta admit, those religious exercises gave me what’s called “symptomatic relief.”

  The last words Alison said hit me right in the kishkes. Her coming to the conclusion that the five suicides were somehow engineered by me didn’t bother me. If anything, I welcomed the chance to show off to her. To prove that the forgettable guy in the hushpuppies had another, enigmatic, unsuspected side to him. But she’d gone further, used those Princeton smarts. If I somehow got rid of the St Marton bad boys, what was to prevent me from doing the same to Pete? Nothing. That’s why she sent me that veiled little warning. Which meant: I’m on to you, keep your murderous mitts off my Akbar.

  Now I had a real dilemma on my hands. I was going to punish Pete because he’d forced himself on her, made her do all that steamy stuff I’d seen in my mind’s personal newsreel. Now it turned out she was a collaborator with the regime, not a victim as I’d thought. When she got up on all fours and stuffed her mouth with as much as she could get hold of, he wasn’t holding a gun to her head. Far from it. I’d have gone through with my plan to zap him with the laser because he’d forced my #1 Shikse Fantasy Princess into what used to be called “unnatural acts.” Turned out they were anything but unnatural for either of them. I was ready to do my social engineering stunt one last time to punish Pete for what ended up to be just a misunderstanding. Sure I was jealous of him, also what the two of them were up to. But he hadn’t forced her into anything. To kill him now would just make me a murderer, same as the ones who killed my father.

  Which left a big hole in my schedule. I could always go back to cutting the suicide center down to size by keeping the amateurs from going all the way. Research can be a refuge: ponder away for all your’re worth, meanwhile not getting your hands dirty. But now that I was dropping the doing-away-with-Pete project, I needed something to take its place. You can’t just hope that the energy you’ve generated in your mind – and decided not to use at the last minute – will take the hint and float away somewhere, take you off the hook. It’ll keep knocking on your door, until you slot it into something else you’re doing; or at least thinking about.

  Which is exactly what happened with me. For a while, I’d been considering being my own guinea pig. Not stop with just the theory of how the suicide center works, but go all the way, try it out on myself.

  In medicine, self-experimentation happens more often than you’d think. What you discovered could be dangerous, so you don’t want anybody else to take the risk. Also, how many cooks do you know, who don’t want – need – a healthy taste of what they concoct? Still, the lead-up to killing myself, not death itself, was the main attraction. What really goes on, just before? Do you become hypnotized by the burnt-out suicide center? Feet, hands, or whatever is going to work best, in a trance? Can’t resist opening the window, fiddling with the rope, no will of your own?

  No way of knowing for sure how the whole thing works, until it actually happens to you. By then, it might be too late to send a picture postcard. But just think of that moment of revelation, when everything’s falling into place. How many people do you know of, who can die on their own specific terms? Not just killing themselves; anybody can do that. But having their suicide center tickled into doing the job? That’s an original.

  Sound a little over the top, to think all at once of ending it all? (Or beginning it all, you never know…) It sure sounds suspicious, making a decision like that in what sounds like one moment to another. But think of it this way: it only seems like you made up your mind in an instant. Actually, the thought behind it has been laying low, taking its own sweet time. Then along comes a catalyst – a spark – and you get what appears to be a snap decision.

  Same with me. Trying out the invention on myself was always percolating away in the background. Could be I was never going all the way with it, but the whole Alison business put it over the top. I was ready to die for love, which is not the same as dying from it. You’re racing to a motel for a rendezvous – you can’t wait another minute to do what you’re going there for in the first place – and you get killed in a car crash on the way. Love is what pulled you in; not its fault you can’t drive straight. In that situation, the feeling, the desire is mutual. Not the one-sided mooning around engaged in by yours truly towards Alison. Dying for love fits much better into that equation. Letting it – helping it – clobber you over the head.

  But pointing the laser at my own head, pulling the trigger? Not that anybody was checking, but I still had a protocol to follow. Just because you’re planning to get yourself killed, doesn’t mean you can dump the science you’ve been fed all your adult life. No; somebody had to do it to me, let my suicide center take over from there.

  Who else but Alison?

  CHAPTER NINE

  A TASTE OF MY OWN MEDICINE

  Late November, 1984

  She showed up right on schedule a couple of days later. A purposeful look about her. No more playing coy. Now was the time to cough up the info I’d promised her. I’d moved the two cameras down from the shelf onto my desk. No way she could miss them. As soon as she walked in, I could see her focusing on them. The cameras had to be a tipoff for her. “Aha,” she must have been thinking, “now I’ve got him by the short hairs.” After that, no more asking for help; on the order of, we’re fellow dicks tryi
ng to crack this case. Now it was me getting the third degree. She knew already that I’d lugged around two cameras when I was spotted in St Marton. What make were the cameras, why did I need two? She’d find out soon enough, but, for the moment, I acted puzzled. Like what a crazy idea, to incriminate those innocent cameras.

  I offered to open them up, show her what’s inside. That put a little red on her face. She was getting ready to apologize, when I took the real camera out of its case. Clicked the shutter, shot off the flash. Then I showed her the exposed film inside, so she could see it was all on the up and up. By this time, she was already embarrassed. Wanted me to stop, she believed me, no use going on with this. But I insisted, protesting I had nothing to hide. That’s when I handed her the fake camera, the one carrying its secret pregnancy, the laser.

  By now you could ask, didn’t I have some last minute doubts about what I was doing? If I was going to have her feed me a poison, there’d always be an antidote, in case I changed my mind. But once she shot the laser at me, there was no going back. As far as I knew, no way you can cut a deal with a suicide center. Dicker back and forth, negotiate something. Once you’re in, no way of getting out. I was getting myself killed because this particular woman couldn’t care less whether I lived or died. On top of my being so nosy that I had to follow my research until the very end. That’s why I couldn’t back out now.

  So there I was, showing her the second camera, the fake one. I already had her on the defensive, so I kept pushing her, how she had it all wrong with the cameras. Offered to let her take a snapshot of me. Supposing this was some kind of death ray Brownie, would I be crazy enough to let it shine on me? She kept saying no, no, no. (If only she’d just once said yes, yes, yes to me, I wouldn’t be in the predicament I’m in now.) I kept insisting. Showed her the shutter button, and how to focus on my right-sided profile. The one with the active locus ceruleus.

  When she finally clicked the button, no flash; also, no sound from the shutter. Just a short, low hiss, and a tiny little burning smell. She understood right away what had happened, what I’d made her do. Came right over and put her arms around me, the waterworks instantly turned on, saying “you poor boy, you poor boy,” over and over again. Planted her mouth on my cheek, and left a little puddle of spit mixed with tears, to mark the spot. Made me resolve never to wash that side of my face again. No question it was an extreme way to get her attention. Is it a fair tradeoff to die in exchange for a wet kiss?

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE TRUTH MAKES ME FREE (SORT OF)

  Early December, 1984

  So, if the suicide center is supposed to do the job within a few days of getting zapped, what am I still doing here? Shouldn’t I be way dead by now? The answer to the latter question is “yes.” Which brings up an urgent consideration: how am I different from the five I’ve already put away? We all got the laser beam shot in the general direction of our right locus ceruleus, and I’m the only one who’s still around to tell the story. Is it professional courtesy extended by my suicide center? Could it be it can’t stand to put away the guy who first put it on the map?

  What went wrong was, I got stopped from going through with what’s supposed to happen next, after the center gets burned. The arms and legs executing the execution after the usual incubation period. You can’t hang it on the laser not working, or Alison not aiming at the right spot. I was the only one to blame for what happened afterwards. I spilled my guts to Alison. I’ve asked myself why a hundred times, and I still don’t know the answer. People do crazy things after going through a big emotional calamity. How much more emotional can it get, than when you trick the woman you dream of – even when you’re awake – jolting your suicide center into action? Or maybe there’s even a simpler explanation. The brain is a dark attic stuffed with info you want to keep to yourself. Maybe it just felt good to open the little window, let in some light and air.

  What I should have 100% for sure have shut my trap about, was the usual timing between the locus zap and the actual suicide. If I hadn’t let Alison in on that, I wouldn’t – at least for the time being – be sentenced to life. Nothing to do with being sentenced for life. The ones involved in the latter activity hope to walk out the front door of the prison someday. In my case, parole means I’ll be going through with what my suicide center was programmed to do all along.

  Meanwhile, Alison was going on and on about how guilty she was feeling. After all, she was the one who pulled the trigger. Kept reassuring her it wasn’t her fault. I’d conned her into doing it.

  She asked me to sit tight, she’d be back within the hour. Did I promise I wouldn’t leave, do anything silly? Which is a laugh. I mean, how much more could I have upped the ante, after what I made happen a little while before? I had no idea what she was up to, but there was one thing I had to do right away: get rid of the laser gun, the paperwork, and all the research notes about how the suicide center operates. If I died, or something went wrong and I stayed alive, no way I was going to let anybody else in on what I’d figured out. Who knows what would happen, if anybody got hold of my invention? Use it for stickups. “Hands up, or your locus is dead meat!” And, how about in politics? Knock off our government, and replace it with a traveling squad of North Koreans? It was my patriotic duty to Our American Way of Life not to let the technology fall “into the wrong hands.”

  Didn’t take long to break the laser and the fake camera into little pieces. I dumped the wreckage into the garbage can down the hall, then burned my notes in the lab sink. Lively little bonfire. The rats enjoyed it; jumped up and down, like it was the village fair.

  CHAPTER TEN

  INSIDE THE COUNTY PSYCHO

  Early December, 1984

  Nowadays, the Psycho Unit at the County is all different from what it used to be. In the old days, there were any number of crazy people in there. They got sent in from all over the city, making it a way station for acting weird. Threatened to kill their family, or even went through with it; citizens walking the streets in their birthday suits. That kind of bad behavior. Then they’d get funneled out again, either for another chance back home, or to the State Hospitals, which were holding pens for the ones who were never going to get better. These days though, having something go wrong with your head doesn’t get you three squares and a clean bed. Instead, you get a shithouse full of pills, and, if you have no other place to go, you get to sleep on the street. Making the County, and other public hospitals, pioneers in the out-of-doors treatment of schizophrenia.

  Doesn’t mean they closed the Psycho – that’s what everybody’s always called it – down altogether. They kept a VIP floor for people they want to “keep under observation.” Which means if you’re important enough and you’ve gone off the rails enough, that’s your temporary refuge. Me, they’ve got in the penthouse suite. Nice view of the smokestack coming out of the generator building; also of a little piece of sky. They brought me here later the day of the zapping. Alison fixed it all up. Lynx must have pointed his forelock straight at the Mayor.

  At the beginning, they were just keeping an eye on me. I was allowed to walk around and take a shower. They also gave me Thorazine, to tone me down. Turned out, no way some new tranquilizer can beat out something as ancient as a suicide center that’s been waiting to do its thing for practically forever.

  Around a week after I made Alison hit me in the head, I was sitting there reading a book. Then, out of nowhere, I felt that I had to get rid of myself right away. Nothing like a voice inside of me giving me the order. It was more a unanimous decision of every part of my body to swap living for dying. At the same time, thinking perfectly clearly about implementing same in what seemed to be just a few seconds. Which shows how little time it takes to make arrangements for eternity. I checked out the possibilities in the room, one by one. No way of jumping out the window; it was shut tight. Besides, it was covered by the mesh I’d seen from the street. The look of those windows had always scared me when I walked past the Psycho a few times a d
ay. Now that I was on the inside, it made sense to me. What self-respecting insane asylum would leave the windows open and uncovered?

  No poison around; no plastic bag either, to wrap around my head. The best I could think of was the bed sheet. Made a beeline for it, rolled it up and tied one end around my neck. Then I looked around for a place where I could sling the other end. I kept feeling a peculiar rush, all the parts of my body on high alert, checking in at the same time. Hands tingling, heart racing. My gut squeezing away, like after a healthy dose of prunes. I was looking forward to an up-close and personal view of the process of dying; what happens during. The situation not the same as when you’re ready to croak, and a couple of what they call “vital organs” get together and agree that enough is enough. It must be extra boring – when there’s not even a remote possibility of the rest of you getting better – for your heart to have to beat on and on like some gone-crazy church bell, 24/24, 7/7. And how much interest can there be for the kidneys to keep on drip, drip, dripping? Having the two of them go – pretty soon, the brain gets in on the action too – you’re liable not to notice the changeover between being in “critical condition” and being dead. Which is not my case at all, the whole combo of dying of “natural causes.”

  Now I would find out for myself what everybody who ever lived wondered about: the bottom line. Where does it all lead to? Right after your vital organs stop being so vital, do you wake up in what looks to you like the Borscht Belt, on a beautiful day in July? With your nearest and dearest waiting there to greet you at the bus stop in front of Grossinger’s Hotel? Or is it goodbye Charlie, the moment expiration becomes your only inspiration, when all your being turns into nothingness? (Apologies to Sartre.) The latter has possibilities from the recycling viewpoint. Specifically: they take a filet of soul out of you, and transplant it into the next kid on the assembly line. That alternative doesn’t hold a candle to the afterlife we keep trying to make reservations for. But, then again, who cares about your fundamentals going into somebody else, when you don’t even know it’s happening?