These days the only way to experience joy was through chemistry. It was necessary first to unplug from the Connectivity and then, as the world faded away, to put euphoria into your mouth and suck on it. This was the lover who never disappointed you, the friend who never failed you, the partner who never cheated on you, the government that never lied. This alone was dependable, loyal, honest, and true. Sleepy, relaxed joy. Here it came. Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream.
Ego death.
Samadhi.
Bliss.
* * *
—
QUICHOTTE’S LETTER, WHICH HAD arrived along with the photograph, spoke a little alarmingly about the end of the world. Salma had attached a copy of the letter by a magnet to her refrigerator door. As usual, her pseudonymous correspondent’s handwriting was impeccably stylish, while the sentiments expressed in that fine strong hand were irredeemably off-kilter.
My dear Miss Salma,
In a story I read as a boy, which, by a serendipitous chance, you can now see dramatized on Amazon Prime, a Tibetan monastery purchased the world’s most powerful super-computer because they believed that the purpose of their order was to enumerate the nine billion names of God, and the computer could help them do that swiftly and accurately. But apparently it was not only the purpose of their order to complete this heroic act of naming. It was also the purpose of the universe itself; and so, once the computer finished its work, very quietly and without any fuss, the stars began to go out. Such are my feelings toward you, that I believe that the entire purpose of the universe up to this point has been to bring about that moment in which you and I will unite in eternal delight, and once we have done so, the cosmos will have achieved its goal and will therefore peacefully end, and we will ascend together, beyond annihilation, into the sphere of the Timeless.
Before he left for the night, Anderson Thayer said that this letter made him nervous. The destruction of the cosmos. Annihilation. Beyond annihilation. This was language that should give Salma concern. These were certainly not words to laugh about. Her laughter was inappropriate. “No, but look,” she said. “One minute he’s inspired by old science fiction garbage and the next instant he’s back on his mystical voyage of the soul. Read the rest of it.”
As I have told you before, dear, I have already cast aside belief, unbelief, dogma, and reason for the sake of Love. I have already learned that all worldly knowledge is useless.
“That’s worth knowing, right?” Salma giggled. “Except that then knowing it would be useless too? Look, now he’s struggling with giving up desires and attachments. See what he says happens when he achieves that! Reality vanishes! He’s living now in a postreality continuum, which must be the same one that will peacefully end when we fall in love. I mean, it’s a comedy routine. I think it’s sweet. Look how he signs off. It’s as if he’s a visitor from the eighteenth century.”
Yours aff.ly, dearest Madame, Quichotte.
“Also,” she added, “the end of the world is fashionable these days. Aren’t we having Evel Cent from CentCorp on the show soon? That’s his bugaboo too.”
“I think it’s another reason to involve the cops,” Anderson said. “I’ll get them to put the photo out on the wires. I don’t want him within a mile of you.”
“I don’t like it when you get bossy and overprotective like this,” Salma snapped. “It makes me want to remind you that you work for me.”
So after a pleasant meeting they had parted on something less than the best of terms. But he was used to her hissy fits. He knew they didn’t last and the gratitude she had expressed moments earlier represented her real feelings. He knew it would be business as usual tomorrow. Sometimes he felt as if he were her parent and she his brilliant, willful child. Sometimes he felt big and she felt small. He also knew that this attitude of his could be read as condescension and irritated her more than anything else, so he was careful not to let it show on his face. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.
And now rising-sinking toward sleepy euphoria in her floating bed, she imagined him, Quichotte, beside her as the cosmos dissolved and they moved together into the beyond, the Timeless, where past and present and future all existed simultaneously, the time in which God lived, perhaps, seeing all things, as now they too would see all things, like gods, immortal, free. She looked toward him and saw her grandfather’s face. She felt neither fear nor anger, neither bitterness nor disgust. She saw only an old man melting into dust, into light. In this moment, engulfed in chemical happiness, she found it easy, even natural, to forgive.
Was that what Quichotte, purifying himself, was coming toward her to give her? Was he the one who would heal the wounds?
These questions were too big to be considered under the influence of the China White. Pleasure overwhelmed her. She slipped into the spiraling, dizzy light.
* * *
—
WHEN SHE HAD MADE her way up the lollipop ladder and the night came to open the gift-wrapped box containing SPI’s pride and joy, Miss Salma R discovered that InSmile™ was like graduating to a Rolls-Royce after years spent behind the wheel of a Nissan Qashqai. It was color after a lifetime of black-and-white, Monroe after Mansfield, Margaux after HobNob, Cervantes after Avellaneda, Hammett after Spillane. It was like your first real kiss, or your first genuine orgasm after years of being Meg Ryan in Katz’s Delicatessen. One puff under the tongue was all it took. The speed of delivery, the power of the hit, the quality of the high. And yes, Anderson was right, it was dangerous. At one point she was out of her body, hovering above it, looking down at it, and she could choose whether to reenter or not. It was the ultimate thrill ride and you had to be an expert jockey to stay on this horse. Fortunately she was a great horsewoman and could stay in the saddle all night long. This was not her first rodeo, but it was the rodeo Olympics, and only the greatest athletes could compete in that stadium.
“I’m in,” she told Anderson Thayer. “What’s the most discreet way to do the face-to-face with the supplier before he arranges the regular courier?”
“That’s easy,” Anderson said. “We invite him and his wife to come and watch a taping of the show.”
* * *
—
DR. SMILE WAS HAPPY that he had made Happy happy. She did so much, she deserved a weekend in the big city. Fall in New York was an exciting time. And the chance to meet the star of Salma? Happy loved that show. When he told her he was taking her up to New York for a little break, and revealed what they would be doing, he saw tears well up in her eyes, and she jumped up and shook with pleasure.
“You see what I told you?” she cried. “We’re on the A-list now!”
“What do you think,” Dr. Smile asked her, “you know our relative Ismail Smile is such a big big admirer of Miss Salma?”
“But you let him go, isn’t it.”
“Maybe I could find him. What do you think, take him along so he also can meet the lady? Good idea or no?”
“Bad idea,” she said, coming at him with her mouth in a loving pout. “This little trip must be for you and me only, and no pagal cousins along for the ride.”
Quichotte took one of the last turnings off the turnpike before the tunnel’s mouth. “We’ll spend the night here,” he told Sancho. “As I said, I don’t want to arrive at the great city weary from the journey and covered in the dust of the road. Don’t be disappointed. Destiny will still be waiting for us tomorrow.” As they drove down the exit road in the fading light, a sort of fog or cloud settled on the road and it was only by good fortune that they avoided an accident. The cloud cleared away as quickly as it had come and they found themselves passing a sign pointing toward the town of Berenger, New Jersey (pop. 12,554). “Thirty years ago in Jersey City there were gangs terrorizing brown-skinned persons,” Quichotte said. “Let us hope things have quieted down in this small town at least.”
They p
ulled in at the JONÉSCO Motor Inn on Elm Street, surprised to see how empty the town was both of pedestrians and of traffic. As they got out of the car they heard a loud trumpeting noise which seemed to be coming from a neighboring street.
“What was that?” Sancho asked.
Quichotte shrugged. “No doubt the locals are indulging in some form of amateur musical or theatrical entertainment,” said he. “Let’s attend to our own business. That’s always best.”
Inside the Motor Inn, they were greeted at the check-in desk by a distinguished-looking man, gray-haired, balding, with an intellectual’s sadly comic face and what sounded like a thick Eastern European accent. He seemed surprised to see them. “Excuse me, but did you get into town without any trouble?” he asked. It was an unusual opening gambit for a conversation.
“Yes, naturally,” Quichotte replied. “We turned off the turnpike and followed the signs and here we are. Why, should we have expected otherwise?”
“No, no,” said the man, who turned out to be the owner himself. He gave a little shake of the head and waved his hand airily. “Please, allow me to offer you what accommodation you need.” As Quichotte was filling out the required form for a two-bedded room, the bald man explained, “This is my place. I’m a little shorthanded today.” But Sancho also heard him muttering under his breath, “There were no barricades? Incredible.”
Upon hearing this he spoke up. “Mr. Jones?” he began.
The other shook his head. “I am Jonésco,” he corrected Sancho, accenting the é, and pointing to a sign on the wall identifying him as the proprietor.
Okay, Sancho thought, call yourself whatever you want. “Sir, I heard you saying something about barricades?”
The proprietor of the Jonésco Motel shook his head. “You misheard,” he said. “I was saying, the bar is closed. My barista Frank didn’t show up for work today.”
No, that’s not right, Sancho thought, but kept his counsel.
Then the man at the desk began to act even more bizarrely. “If you humor me,” he said, “before I give you gentlemen your keys, will you allow me to examine your ears?”
“Our ears?” Quichotte replied, in deep puzzlement. “Well, on the one hand, I don’t see why not, our ears being of the common or garden variety; but on the other hand, that is a highly intrusive request.”
“Indulge me,” said Mr. Jonésco. “I have become something of a student of human physiognomy of late. But it’s fine, it’s fine. Now that I look, I see that you both have splendid and completely human ears.”
“Did you say human?” Sancho said.
“No,” replied the man at the desk, “I said normal. Perfectly normal ears. Your noses also seem entirely appropriate for your faces.”
“Now it’s our noses he draws attention to,” Sancho protested. “Maybe we should look for another motel?”
“You won’t find many motels open for business, I’m sorry to tell you,” said the proprietor. “Many people have fled the town. Left,” he corrected himself. “Left is what I meant to say, and what, in fact, I believe I did say. The population, regrettably, has declined. This used to be one of the stops of the Manhattan ferry service, but the port is now out of commission, and many people relocated after it shut down. There has been, in fact, a population decline of seven percent from the 13,501 counted in the 2000 census. May I finally, as a final check, ask you to open your mouths so that I can inspect your teeth?”
That was too much even for a man of Quichotte’s mild disposition. “We most certainly will not comply with that request,” he said, drawing himself up. “Now hand over the keys, my good man, and let’s have an end to this.”
“Of course, of course, my apologies,” said Jonésco, doing as Quichotte had asked. “I’m sure you haven’t noticed anything amiss in your dental structures recently. Nothing in the way of enlargements?”
“What on earth can you mean by enlargements?” Sancho demanded. “Have you been drinking while your barista is away?”
“By no means did I say enlargements,” Jonésco answered. “I said toothaches. A simple solicitous inquiry. In my family we suffer terribly from toothaches all the time.”
“What you said sounded nothing like toothaches,” Sancho objected, “and it sounded exactly like enlargements.”
“Never mind now, Sancho,” Quichotte tried to bring the discussion to a close. “Let us go to our room. I need a nap.”
Just then the trumpeting sound arose again, more than one trumpeter this time, and it wasn’t that far away. “What on earth is that awful noise?” Sancho asked.
The motel proprietor gave a little laugh which, it seemed to Sancho, contained more than a modicum of nervousness, even of fear. “Flügelhorns,” the fellow said. “In our town there are many avid flügelhorn players and they like, in the afternoons, to rehearse.”
“Well,” said Quichotte, “they don’t sound very expert to me. That’s a frightful din and I hope they don’t rehearse all night.”
* * *
—
ON THE ROAD TO BERENGER, Sancho had noticed that as Quichotte neared New York and what he believed would be the grand and happy culmination of his quest, the years seemed to drop away from him and a certain gaiety, a passion for life, was reborn in his breast. He was relentlessly cheerful, laughed a good deal, enjoyed engaging Sancho in heated discussions about music, politics, and art, and in general seemed to be getting younger in every respect, except that his knees gave him a deal of trouble, and he dragged his right leg. Old as he was, he appeared to be unconcerned by questions of mortality, of when the end might come and what might or might not lie beyond that great finality. “I saw an interview on TV,” he told Sancho, “with a famous filmmaker who was asked by the sycophantic interviewer if he was happy that he would always live on in his great cinematic masterpieces. ‘No,’ the filmmaker replied, ‘I would prefer to live on in my apartment.’ This is also my plan. If the choice is between a necessarily tedious death and immortality, I choose to live forever.”
He began, too, to tell Sancho stories of his salad days, when he had many friends, traveled the world, and was attractive to many women. “Oh, the girls, the girls!” he cried, tittering lasciviously. “Mine was a generation when frequent sexual intercourse was thought of as freedom, and like all the men of my time, I believed in that freedom with all my lustful heart.” Now at last he spoke about his old life. The “girls” began to blur together in Sancho’s thoughts. He noticed some common elements to the stories. The girls almost always left Quichotte after a short time, and they almost all had bland nondescript Western names, and Quichotte did not specify the cities in which he had known them or the languages they spoke or their religious affiliations or anything that would bring them to life as human beings. It was almost as if he hadn’t known them very well. It was almost as if…and then he understood that they were all precursors of Miss Salma R, all shadows in his life as she was a shadow, people not known but loved from a distance. Maybe they were real people glimpsed across a room or in a magazine. Maybe they were dreams. Maybe they were all characters in TV shows.
Or: were they all women he had pursued slash stalked?
Or worse?
Who was Quichotte anyway?
There was one woman about whom Quichotte spoke differently. This was the lady in New York to whom he affectionately referred as the Human Trampoline. She didn’t appear to be a past romantic liaison, but it sounded as if she did actually exist, and Quichotte was plainly uncertain of his welcome. “We will definitely look her up,” he told Sancho, “and if she wishes to see us, that will be delightful for us both.” He didn’t use her real name or provide any further details. But this was someone who mattered to him. Maybe if they did meet, some of the mysteries surrounding Quichotte might be solved.
Sancho began to think that Quichotte might be a virgin, just like himself. And sometimes he had a s
tranger thought: that just as Quichotte had invented him, so also somebody else had invented Quichotte.
* * *
—
THE NEXT MORNING, while Quichotte was still asleep, Sancho walked out into the streets of Berenger, looking for a coffee. In the Starbucks there were two men arguing, who seemed to be friends quarreling over the fact that one of them was drunk while the other wanted to discuss something important.
“The question is,” the sober one was saying, “are they the way things are going or is it just a temporary aberration? We need to know this before we buy.”
“They’re fucking monsters,” said the drunk one. “Shouldn’t be allowed to exist. Nobody’s going to buy a damn thing from them.”
“Of course we aren’t planning to buy from them,” the sober one said. “For God’s sake. The question is, can we live with the situation or not?”
“You wan’ know how good the schools are is that it,” the drunk one replied. “How easy is the commute. Fucking monsters I’m saying and you wan’ know the crime rate.”
Quichotte Page 19
