The Bewildered

by Peter Rock

  He could hardly remember agreeing to this, taking off his clothes, putting all this on. His hair was stiff, some kind of gel plastering it down. Stumbling, he lifted the dusty blinds away from the window. Pigeons clapped their wings, scattering from the rusted fire escape. He was on the second floor; below, on the sidewalk, people walked under a pale sun. SILVER DRAGON INC., one sign read; JAPANESE HAPPY FAST BOWL, said another. A red banner hung from a lamppost: CHINATOWN. He could see the edge of the tall red gate that spanned the street, next to a square yellow sign for CINDY’S THE ADULT BOOKSTORE.

  He turned, shivering, and saw his clothes carefully folded to one side, almost as if they’d been laundered. How much time had passed? He pulled dough from his eyebrow, and began to dress before realizing how fast he was moving, how much he was depending on sight—

  He misbuttoned his shirt. He dropped a sock behind a chair. He sat down on the cot again. He tried to hold in his breath, to exhale slowly, to rein in his heart. He felt not only exhausted, but also strangely exhilarated.

  Footsteps approached. Steven fumbled for the dark glasses; he got them back on his face just as the door opened and Chesterton entered. The size of the man was surprising, and his color, but not the formality with which he carried himself, the slight sadness—it went along with the tone and diction of his speech.

  Chesterton paused; his gaze settled all around the room. He seemed slightly startled to see Steven dressed, but not upset.

  “I trust,” he said, “that her story all sounded very familiar to you, sir.”

  Heather stirred at the sound of his voice. She pushed herself up to a kneeling position, the copper plate pressing down on her breasts. She moved calmly, wearily. Chesterton set her folded clothes in front of her.

  “Ah yes,” he said. “I’m sorry—it seems like you had quite a time.”

  “Amazing,” Heather said, her voice soft and distant.

  “Perfect. Your sock, sir.”

  Steven was careful not to reach for it as the man held the sock out to him.

  “How long since you’ve had vision?”

  “Pardon me?” Steven said.

  “How long have you been blind?”

  “Well,” Steven said, “I’m kind of like Heather. I’m still going.”

  “So you can remember.”

  “Yes; some things.”

  Chesterton was turned away, sideways, out of propriety, not watching Heather as she dressed. It made Steven like him more. He himself wanted to help her untwist the copper wires, help her dress—her skirt was inside out—but he did not.

  “And you can see light and dark?”

  “Not today.”

  Chesterton waved a huge hand in front of Steven’s face, stopping just short of striking him. Steven held still; he did not flinch.

  “Fantastic,” Heather said, almost completely dressed. Her skirt was straight now; she’d turned it inside in. “It was so vivid. I saw—”

  “That’s fine. That is sufficient. I do not require this knowledge.”

  Chesterton bent down, pocketed the coin on the floor, then looked around the room one more time. Satisfied, he moved closer to take hold of Heather’s arm, then Steven’s, just above the elbow. He helped them to their feet, then led them through the door. Slowly, they passed down the hallway, the stairs.

  They descended into the shop, which they had quickly passed through, earlier. How long ago? Steven felt his watch, heavy in his pocket, but couldn’t take it out and check it. He was lucky, he realized, that Chesterton hadn’t commented on the fact of his watch before; perhaps he had—perhaps he already suspected Steven of having vision, and that explained all the questions.

  In the shop, small jade carvings were displayed next to a shelf of copper bracelets not too unlike some of the things he and Heather had worn upstairs. Steven fought an urge to turn his head, to look around himself; he curled his toes inside his shoes and closed his one eye tight, felt the eyelid of the other, the flat pressure of the coin. He smelled incense, dirty cinnamon.

  “Very fine,” Chesterton said. “Thank you. That will conclude our work for today. I do appreciate your time, and trust that you found this an enlightening experience. I assure you that your pleasure is reciprocated.” His voice dropped lower, his tone solemn and serious as he continued. “I need not remind you, of course, that you have agreed not to discuss this experience, to take it away with you. Not with other people, not even between yourselves when you are alone.”

  “Of course,” Heather said. “We understand.”

  Chesterton led them to the door and turned the crowded key ring that hung there.

  “Was this door unlocked?” he said, speaking to himself, shaking his head, and then he again took hold of Steven and Heather, guiding them out onto the sidewalk, gently into the stream of walking people.

  21.

  V. CONTINUED PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS

  I pause now from my description of Affected individuals, a task to which I will shortly return, in order to reflect on my motivations and methods, to suggest where I am headed, where I hope to arrive. A pause to catch my breath, a moment to check my feet, to be certain that they’re beneath me.

  Already the metaphors gather, when what I desire is to speak plainly, to present the facts. Here—this is how I’ve begun: after the wire is collected, after it is graded, I melt it down. This is the high-grade wire, wire involved in human electrocution, as previously defined. I melt and shape it into anklets, bracelets, chest plates, arm cuffs, and attach them to the naked bodies of two participants.

  This works best with two people; to work with only one, it is more difficult to close the circuit—a phrase which I use only partially as a figure of speech—and to work with more than two individuals is something I cannot yet even consider. There is danger involved, the possibility of taking someone too far, of running them all the way down; of course, I can’t anticipate every danger. My experiments are a way of demarcating the limits of safety.

  I have forged copper plates for the solar plexus, and the hips; I have formed special bracelets and anklets—and in all these are holes through which wires are run, and it is by these wires that the two individuals are physically connected, and through them that deeper linkages occur. How to explain it, or suggest where these demonstrations will lead? Once connected in this manner, the one is infused somehow by the other (and vice-versa?).

  I carefully select those on whom I experiment. The Affected? No; not yet; this I still consider. I must understand them better, first—they are not untrustworthy, merely inscrutable. The things they do, the reflection and self-consciousness that escapes them. For instance, they don’t talk about the underground, don’t recognize each other, or seem to. It’s somehow shameful, perhaps, or there’s a kind of code of conduct, but it’s more likely that such memory is impossible for them. Perhaps there are those among the Affected who can remember their actions, or have some glimmering suspicions, who are trying to understand this phenomenon just as I am. This gives me hope.

  So far I have concentrated on linking two UnAffected individuals, and studied the connections established between them through the medium of this wire. Cleverly, I have chosen to work among the blind—an almost arbitrary choice, at first made in a desire for secrecy, a wish not to be seen. The surprising, unexpected benefit that the process returned or provided visual memories to the blind—this maintains their desire to participate. I gather these people’s recollections (secreted away in the adjoining room, I record it all through hidden microphones), in the interest of rigor, yet the usefulness of this material is dubious, or at the very least currently escapes me.

  To return to my primary thrust: It has long been my suspicion that a different level, or perhaps quite different kind of experience (or action) takes place in the lives of the Affected. Does the belief in an ecstatic expansion, a positive experience or insightful other angle logically follow, when pursuing an understanding of the Affected, whose external lives are marked by so much dull
ness and repetition? Not necessarily. Here, I am convinced only by intuition.

  I will be more myself, stepped up and wound tight, humming, my mind relentless, my body anticipating where I need to be. Will I be in this world, or another? Will clocks hold me, will I be in more than one place in a moment? It is too soon to say. These are only glimmerings, hot suggestions. My logic rattles, here, I realize; it is my hope that in retrospect the gaps in my reasoning will be filled, self-evident, that so much of what I am now eager to convince you, to convince myself, will shortly be plain—what appears preposterous will become familiar, unexceptional.

  It may fairly be asked why I have not yet included myself in the experiments; to this, I would respond that:

  1. I don’t wish to cloud my objectivity.

  2. I am awaiting further results.

  3. I have not yet met the ideal partner.

  It may also be asked why I have not linked the Affected, but those who have carefully followed my argument probably fear this possibility in the same intrinsic fashion that I do. I fear this attempt would be foolhardy, catastrophic. To link an Affected individual with one who is UnAffected? I do not know. I have considered such a thing; I have considered linking my own body with Victor’s. I hold out this possibility, I put it off. A last resort whose failure would leave me bereft, had I no other options.

  I must proceed scientifically, not leap and lurch after my desires. In this way, perhaps, my desires themselves may change. I must better tune my instruments, better calibrate my experiments.

  It was before dawn. Kayla sat alone at the skatepark under the Burnside Bridge, reading Chesterton’s notebook, which she kept folded inside her own. As she read, she wrote questions, recorded her own thoughts. Some sections she read twice, three times; she did not allow herself to turn a page until she had understood. She paused longest over the diagrams—the dark lines that were copper wires, stretched from body to body, attached through copper plates, the people flat on their backs, faces hastily sketched in, eyes two black pinpricks, staring out at her.

  She would take it all further, interpret things more clearly than Chesterton could, her mind less clouded; though she was quite taken by the logic and language of his writing, she also suspected it. After all, he was an adult, and adults deluded themselves in every direction.

  She checked around herself, careful of discovery. It was gray, rainy, and the air smelled of wet ashes, some homeless campfire nearby. Atop the chain-link fence, a line of crows was perched, folding and unfolding their wings for balance. Kayla bent her neck back and looked up at the bridge’s black underside, the whole thing trembling slightly, shaken by the cars and trucks she could hear but couldn’t see. Then she looked back into the notebook, reading. To access what is most electric in us, most alive. She thought of Leon, as she read, and also of Natalie. As she had suspected, Leon was onto something, whether he realized it or not. And that was the question: how to get there. She too wanted to live another, better way, and in the stolen notebook she knew she had a key.

  She closed the notebook’s pages, buried it deep in her backpack. She tightened her shoelaces, took off her hoodie so she could skate in just a T-shirt—she’d given up all the Japanese clothes, that whole idea, since finding the notebook. That had been a dead end, connected to nothing, though she did not blame herself for following the possibility.

  Standing, kicking her board around, she dropped in, down the six-foot wall, and rolled across the flat, concrete expanse, hard and gray and worn shiny, up the other side, around and around without pause, circling, tightening. She had grown bored with how everyone was skating, these days. Guys, mostly. It was all one big trick and then out—no sense of flow, foresight, any continuity. It was all about getting your picture taken, impressing someone, more about a moment than a feeling. Pathetic.

  She ran a 50-50 grind along the near side of the bowl and saw him, standing up by her pack, watching. Leon. She carved up the far wall, gaining the momentum to pop up next to him without kicking again. He stood there with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his face expressionless, his shoes untied.

  “Where’s your board?” she said.

  “Forgot it, I guess. I thought you were a guy.”

  “I don’t skate like a guy.”

  “No, not your skating,” he said. “Your hair.”

  Kayla ran her hand across the stubble—smooth in one direction, rough in the other. The barber had tried to talk her out of it, but she had made him take it all the way down.

  “I skate better than a guy,” she said. “Different.”

  “I never saw a girl without hair before.”

  “Natalie.”

  “She’s not a girl,” he said, “and she wears wigs, most of the time.”

  “I like the feel of the wind,” Kayla said. “I’m not wearing wigs or hats.”

  “Or helmets.”

  “Exactly.”

  As they spoke, Kayla paid careful attention to Leon. He seemed upset, perhaps, distracted, like he wanted to say something but couldn’t figure out how. Or maybe that was just her, thinking he had something to tell her, hoping.

  “You can take some runs on my board,” she said.

  “No, thanks.”

  “You all right?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sleepy, maybe.”

  He glanced past her, and she turned to see a stray dog scuttle past, down an alley. As she looked away, she was thinking: And then there is the forgetfulness, the lost time, the erratic sleep patterns, the attempts at self-medication. She turned back to Leon, and he looked at her as if he were a long way away, somewhere she could not go or reach. He was not trying to trick her, she reminded herself; just as the notebook had warned, he actually had no clue.

  “It’s just,” he said. “It’s just—forget it.”

  “Maybe I can help you,” she said.

  “No one can. I don’t know what to do; I can’t tell what’s happening to me.”

  She kicked her board around in a gradual semicircle, uncertain how far to go. “Listen, Leon, I have some idea, I can tell you. It started the night of the accident, when you fell.”

  “What?”

  “And it probably has something to do with Natalie,” she said. “Are you doing things with her? Is she the problem?”

  “It’s not her; it’s my parents—”

  “Don’t you see,” Kayla said, “how it’s all connected? You have to let me try to help—me and Chris.”

  Again, Leon was looking past her.

  “What is it?”

  “I thought I saw someone,” he said.

  “Where?” Kayla turned, squinting down the street—the alleys, dumpsters, parked trailers. “I don’t see anyone.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Did you pierce your ears?” she said. “Why?”

  “I didn’t,” he said. “They’ve always looked like that.”

  Kayla could see the tiny holes, the indentations, but she didn’t argue. She sat down on her board, her knees bent, and rolled side to side, looking up at Leon.

  “Can’t you just tell me?” she said.

  “Tell you what?”

  “I’m your friend, Leon. I’m going to go where you go.”

  It was as if he didn’t hear her, and it was the most important thing she had to say to him. Eyes wide, he looked like a frightened boy and then, in the same moment, like a young man who had seen something great or terrible. Kayla could only pick at the heels of her Chuck Taylors, where the canvas was unraveling. Their rubber toes were worn smooth and shiny from falls.

  “Just tell me what you want to tell me,” she said.

  “You’re just like them—questions and questions and questions; I don’t even know what they’re asking about.”

  “Who?”

  Leon just looked at her as if she should know, as if he had told her.

  After a moment, he said, “I’ll see you later on?”

  Kayla wa
tched as Leon turned away and dropped down to the sidewalk. He shuffled out from the shadow of the bridge, not pausing or slowing as the light rain fell down on him.

  Natalie was kneeling beside a dumpster, a block from the Burnside Bridge, near the railroad tracks. She wore blue coveralls, heavy leather boots. Tearing pages from the stash in her jacket’s pockets, she twisted their edges and wedged them here and there. The exposed paper edges flashed the color of skin and hair, long, painted fingernails, beckoning smiles.

  Natalie did not feel the coolness of the summer rain. At the sound of Leon’s footsteps, she turned her head and looked up, unsurprised.

  “What are you doing?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Something—”

  She held out an almost full page from a magazine at arm’s length so both she and Leon could look at it. In the photograph, a naked woman stood next to a stained-glass window with her head thrown back, her arms over her head and tangled in a sheer white nightgown she was taking off—it was as if she were wrestling a ghost, and the smooth front of her body was pushed out, strong and rounded. The heavy breasts with their pale nipples, the sharp line below her navel, parallel to the floor, that was the tan line where her bikini had been and now was not—and all the white skin below the line, soft and inviting, stretching down to the soft V between her legs.

  “So?” Leon said.

  “This is Daina House,” Natalie said. “The January Playmate, in the very first days of the Bicentennial. In her spare time, she loves working in her parents’ backgammon company, to escape the crazy world of modeling.”

  She looked at the photograph one more time, then crumpled it up and rolled it under the dumpster.

  “If you like her so much,” Leon said, “why not keep her?”

  “Because that’s selfish,” Natalie said. “I want to share her; she wants to be shared. I like to think of a person, finding her here—”