The Subject Steve: A Novel

by Sam Lipsyte

  It was Desmond's boot. I studied the palisades of grain in the leather.

  "He's up now. He'd like to see you."

  Desmond walked me out to my mark, took my arm as I went to open the thin pine door.

  "Just be yourself," he said.

  "Just let go of my arm."

  Heinrich sat up in his hospital bed, tissue balls and clementine peels spilled out on the counterpane. The sky on the wallpaper was paler than I'd seen on TV, the desert darker.

  "Steve-o!" called the studio audience. You could hear the tape hiss as the cries died down to some stray handclaps, a few knowing hoots.

  Steve-o devotees.

  "Do my tumors understand that when I go, they go, too?" said Heinrich.

  I looked around for cue cards. Spotlights popped.

  "Tumors," I said. "Tumors shmoomers."

  "Cut!"

  Trubate bobbed up out of the darkness.

  "What the fuck was that?"

  "Ad lib," I said.

  "Ad lib," said Trubate.

  "That's right."

  "Listen," said Trubate, "don't wait for the laugh track. Makes you look like an amateur."

  "I am an amateur."

  "Point taken. Just don't ruin my show."

  "Or what?"

  "I'm a sick man," said Trubate. "And I don't have the luxury of dying, like you do. I have to live with my sickness. I have to take it out on other people. Or the people other people care about."

  "Is that a threat?"

  "Vague. Veiled."

  He stuck an old light meter under my chin. The dial didn't move, looked busted, and Trubate didn't check it anyway.

  "Let's take it from the dead dad speech," he said.

  Heinrich coughed, pulled a clementine from a sack that hung on his bedpost, started to peel it down.

  "You know," he said, "I watched my old man die. Kind of like this. He gathered us all to him. He said he had something to show us. When we were all there in the room he lifted up his blanket, pointed down to his bedpan. To what was in the bedpan. 'There it is,' he said. 'I wish I could leave you more.' He was dead by dusk."

  "I don't believe that story," I said.

  "Jeez, you want a gazelle?"

  He had his tongue out. It was hard to tell if he was razzing me, or just gagging, dry.

  "Can I get you some water?"

  His eyelids were caked with paste. Beige fluid frothed at the hems of his mouth. He shuddered like some piece of overheating machinery.

  "Hey," called Trubate from the darkness, "Code Blue Man!"

  The Philosopher leaped through the door in his Lycra hood, a heel of French bread in his hand. The recorded applause was a concert-hall roar, maybe something bootlegged from a diva's farewell. The Philosopher did some bug-eyed business to the camera, a vampy strut to the bed. He sopped up Heinrich's froth with his baguette.

  "Won't be long now," he said. "Vitals are locking down. Big choo-choo's comin' round the bend. All aboard!"

  "This is a man here," I said. "A man dying. Have some respect."

  Heinrich made more noises. Froth fluttered up.

  "Meat, meat, meat," said the Philosopher. "You, too, pal."

  "I'm in fine fettle," I said.

  "That's how you're supposed to feel in the final stages of PREXIS. Haven't you heard the news? How I discovered virulent Goldfarb clusters within the original PREXIS protein model?"

  "PREXIS schmexis," I said.

  Laughter boomed out of the walls.

  The Philosopher fell on me. We pitched down to concrete. I kicked, caught him with my knee, flew at him with both fists, windmilling. Rain of blows. Steady rain of blows. My knuckle came up with a piece of blue-stained tooth.

  Now Heinrich started to stir, thrash, blow froth, a sea beast sounding. I went to him, took his hand.

  "Herodotus," he whispered, "writes of an army that went away to war for twenty-eight years. When they returned home they found themselves locked out of their city. Their wives, you see, had married their slaves. A new generation had grown up and seized power. The last thing these slave sons wanted was the masters of their fathers back in town. Day after day the old army stormed the city. Day after day the slave sons drove them back. At last one of the wizened old generals said, 'If we keep attacking them with swords and spears they will consider themselves our equals and they will keep beating us back. We must go to them with whips.' And so they did. And when the slave sons saw the masters of their fathers come to the city walls with whips, they fled."

  Heinrich's hand drooped down along the bed skirt. I thought it a sign, some finality of musculature, a swoop death-ward. But he was just strumming the fabric down there with his thumb. Boredom, itch, even now.

  "I genuinely prefer tangerines," he said, turned to the wall dunes, died.

  "Cut!" called Trubate from the darkness. "That was dynamite."

  Someone scurried up to cover Heinrich with a sheet. The Philosopher was kneeling on the floor, feeling around for his teeth.

  "Goldfarb what?" I said to him.

  "Cluthterth," he said through his ruined mouth.

  "I believe you."

  "Fuf nath ta beleef?"

  The Digger and I dug the hole at daybreak. We dug it near the rockpile behind the hangar. The clouds were the color of our shovel blades. The Digger looked to be suffering under his ski mask.

  "Why don't you take that thing off?" I said.

  He stared at me through slits in the wool.

  The rest of them stood in a ring around us. Trubate, Desmond, Warren, Dietz, all the Realmers, dozens of them, most dozing in the heat. The Philosopher sat a little ways off, his mouth stuffed with gauze.

  They'd carried Heinrich out on a battered boogie board, shrouded him in counterpane. A pair of mint-condition quarter pieces commemorating the statehood of New Jersey rested on his eyelids.

  "Coins of a darker realm," said Desmond.

  They slid Heinrich into the hole.

  "That's it?" said Renee.

  "What else is there?" said Trubate.

  "When my dog died," said Warren, "we buried him just like this. And we all threw something in that reminded us of him. Dog toys, dog biscuits, essays in which I'd mentioned my dog."

  "That's so beautiful," said the Rad Balm girl.

  "Oh, is it?" said Renee. "Why don't we just throw you in."

  "Go ahead," said the Rad Balm girl. "See if you can find another technologist who'll work for stock options these days."

  "Cunt," said Renee.

  "Silly cunt," called one of the New Zealanders.

  I started to walk away.

  "Where are you going, Steve?" said Trubate.

  "I'm leaving."

  "You can't leave. Don't you get that? Damn, you of all people."

  I walked off in the direction I'd come with Dietz. Somewhere up ahead was the abandoned campsite. Past that was the runway. I could wait for the plane. Maybe the plane was due back. Doubtful, but possible. What wasn't possible?

  I'd gone in for a checkup.

  I could hear Trubate shouting down his people behind me. I kept walking, walking through the pain, walking it off, moving through my moist crackle and burst. I pictured each step shucking those Goldfarb clusters loose, little protein deathsquads bouncing along in miniature humvees through the bleak ravines of me. They had names like Reynoldo, Spider, Wideband, wore paramilitary underwear manufactured in Rhode Island. Ever since the Philosopher had told me about the clusters I'd been feeling them on the move. Psychosomatic? Later, towards the end, I asked him.

  "Psychosomatic like a heart attack," he said.

  Now Dietz caught up with me.

  "What are you doing?" he said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "He'll shoot you."

  "Paranoid hippie fuck," I said.

  I heard the crack, the whistle, felt the punch in my spine.

  Why does Steve deny his name is Steve?

  He hated his name. There was nothing to his name. There was tau
nt built into it because of its nothingness. It sounded like something you wiped off your shirt. Everyone was supposed to be special but how could you be special if your name was tantamount to lint? He stayed in his room and read books. He stayed in his room and read the beginnings of books, until there was mention of a breast heaving, or a groin tightening. Then he'd put the book aside for a few minutes. He could do it over and over again, for hours. He'd skip school to do it.

  He knew what was special.

  His mother said he was too shy. His only friend was Cudahy. They used to burn trees. Sometimes he'd sit by himself in his father's toolshed, study the lawn mower blade in his lap. He'd run his thumb over the rust, up to the toothy crack near the tip. Something might scuttle in the rake bin behind him. Field mice, his father called them. Field mice ran free in the fields. They had freedoms we couldn't dream.

  They had no names.

  What he'd seen his father do with Cudahy's father, there was a name for that. That wasn't anything, though. Kids did stuff like that all the time. It was weird, was all, like seeing your old man on a moped.

  He got more Steve years on him. It was time to be in the world. The world was like God or some fucked-up dragon. You couldn't look at it all at once or you'd go nuts.

  He fell in with a woman who believed in falling in love. They made a creature together. People made creatures to pass themselves onward, but that's not how he saw it. He wanted to stop the Steveness. He needed a family to destroy him, his Steveness. Someday he'd make a new name for himself. Before he died he'd have a new name, or no name.

  It wouldn't be the name his mother used to call him when she called him in for dinner from the stoop.

  "Stee-eeve!" she used to call.

  Once, his buddy Cudahy grinned.

  "Tell her fuck you."

  They'd been wrestling in the grass. Greco-Roman. American. Fake American.

  "Fuck you, Mom!" he called across the yard.

  He had to eat dinner on his bed. The penalty for insolence is room service. He couldn't eat, though. He couldn't get it down. It was because of the guilt. He said it was because of the broccoli.

  What does Steve eat?

  He eats what's brought to him. Water, bread and water, sometimes stew. The Realms community decides his dinner daily. Steve has joked that he can gauge the mood of the nation by the size of his portion. Some days the nation is in a generous mood. Some days, maybe, the generous majority is busy. Those days the people Steve tends to call the bastards log on to the Subject Steve. Just Water, they shout at their screens. Of course, there are those who have already visitedThe Tool Shed and downloaded the latestthought command application. They don't have to say anything at all!

  They just think just water, and just water it is!

  When is Steve not available for viewing?

  Never is Steve not available for viewing. There are camerason him all the time. There are camerasin him all the time.

  Is the Subject Steve a game?

  The Subject Steve (TM) is a revolutionary media space that binds together the most innovative elements of gaming, spectacle, democracy, and commerce. It is produced byThe Realms in association with theGoldfarb-Blackstone Life Lab.

  What is the significance of the mothering hut?

  The hut Steve inhabits, housed in the main facility, is an exact replica of the one erected by the late Heinrich of Newark at the now-defunct Center for Nondenominational Recovery and Redemption. It was used for purification purposes and to hasten personal growth. The Realms, as many know, is indebted to the teachings of Heinrich, but its methods and goals must be situated in a much larger context.Read Realms-founder Robertson Trubate's mission statement for more information.

  How long does Steve have to live?

  It's difficult to calculate. By our calculations there can be no calculations. He is dying of something no one has ever died of before. He is dying of something absolutely, fantastically new. Click here for his medicalchart or visit the Realmsarchives for a peek at the top-secret notes Goldfarb and Blackstone took during those first, exciting consultations. Click here for adimensional model of the deadly Goldfarb protein.

  Is Steve's item book posted in its entirety?

  It will never be complete until Steve himself achieves ultimate completion.

  Does Steve deserve our sympathy?

  We'll let the Realmers speak to that. Here's a transcript from comments made earlier this week in the Special Cases Lounge, one of our most popular rooms.

  gary7:fuck steve . . . anybody here?

  burma:steve-O fuck that fucker die already!

  nonabravo:he's misunderstood

  burma:this twaddle again? i say fuck steve

  gary7:bad dad bad hubby.

  nonabravo:less than bad. worse.

  reneelegs:He thinks he made me come.

  bundiscakes:Sad Less than sad.

  gary7:fuck him

  machinaX:right on baby!

  nonabravo:did you see that bio on his father?

  seawolf:inner monsoon my ass.

  steve: Hey, it's me.gary7 : fuck you get the fuck out of here.

  reneelegs: steve you should go.

  burma: you're ruining it dude.

  gary7: go the fuck you fuck.

  "You're a hit," said Bobby Trubate. "But watch it with all the scribbling. Better you babble than scribble. Better yet, moan. Steve, they love the moans. They love the mealtimes. They dig dialogue, conversations, say. The conversation we're having now? They love it. We have data. Your pathetic attempts at masturbation? The rubbing? They adore this. Hell, they even tune in for your naps. But the writing, I mean, have you ever watched somebody write? What are you fooling around with that stupid item book for, anyway? The rest of us burned ours, you know. After we buried Heinrich. Very ritualistic. Very moving."

  "I'm not done with mine."

  "Well, I'm not going to stop you. More Steve content. For later. Do you know what I mean when I say for later?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "The bed restraints aren't too tight, are they?"

  "No, they're great."

  "Do you have enough arm motion?"

  "Sure."

  "How's your back?"

  "I don't know. I'm restrained."

  "I'm sure it's fine," said Trubate. "I'm sorry I shot you. But I bet you're pretty stoked it was a rubber bullet. I ordered them by mistake, but then I figured, rubber gets the job done. I'm not here to kill people."

  "No, I suppose not."

  "I mean Heinrich would have killed your ass. Bailing on his funeral like that."

  "I guess so."

  "I'm on your side. Not that there are sides, but if there were sides, I'd consider myself on your side."

  "Thanks."

  "Steve, do you know that I love you?"

  "I didn't know that," I said.

  "Now you know. I was going to say, not in a sexual way, but what the hell does that mean? I love you in every way. We're all post-human here, right? I'm not afraid. Are you afraid?"

  He pointed to a canvas satchel on the wall, Heinrich's old pain kit.

  Branks, breast-ripper, pear.

  He looked up into one of the cameras in the thatch.

  "Realmers," he said, "are you ready for more show!?"

  The Philosopher came by for a visit.

  "You," I said.

  "Me," he said, bared his new blazing teeth.

  "Nice," I said.

  "Had to fly up north for them," said the Philosopher. "Find a mouth guy Blackstone hadn't turned against me."

  "The Mechanic," I said.

  "We're in heavy litigation."

  "Sorry to hear it."

  "Don't be," said the Philosopher. "I consider it a continuation of our collaboration by other means."

  He smoothed his hand on his hood.

  "Why do you wear that?" I said.

  "I'm Code Blue Man."

  "Like a superhero?"

  "People are frightened by science. This makes them feel m
ore comfortable. Are you comfortable?"

  He lifted a long syringe from a felt-lined case.

  "What's that?"

  "It's just a prop. People want more injections."

  "There's stuff in it."

  "Yes, there's stuff in it."

  "What's the stuff?"

  "Prop stuff. Now, if you'll allow me to lift your gown for a moment."

  "Why?"

  "Because," said the Philosopher, his voice loud for the microphones, "I need to take this frighteningly large needle and inject the sensitive tip of your penis!"

  "No!" I said.

  "It's crucial to your treatment!" he shouted.

  "Please," I said.

  "Just trust me," he said.

  I decided to trust him. I figured he meant to fake it. I could sense a weariness in him, some seismic disgust with the entire enterprise.

  I guess I figured wrong.

  Time went by, probably. It was hard to keep track. The Realms launched a news division, a twenty-four-hour, continuously updated wire service, but the news was always at least several hundred years old. "False Messiah Leads Jews Awry in Smyrna," read one headline. "Pre-Classic Mayan Ritual to Include Hallucinogenic Enema," went another. Maybe it was all part of continuum awareness training.

  Maybe it was all part of a plan.

  Didn't it all have to be part of a plan?

  The Rad Balm girl said it could well be.

  The Rad Balm girl said there were big plans for my finale, too.

  "My finale?" I said.

  "We're days away," she said. "Bobby's given us the green light. Traffic is slowing down so it's time for the green light. The green light is going to be the light at the end of the tunnel. But it might not be green. It will be Heavenly, which I think of as white. But those are my prejudices speaking. My prejudices speak me. But sometimes they're right on the money."

  "You're confusing me."

  "I'm crystal on this. The Subject Steve must reach a satisfactory conclusion. A conclusion of total satisfaction-saturation. For all parties concerned. I need you to sign this waiver."

  She handed me some stapled pages, a Bic ballpoint.

  "Read it after you sign it," she said. "You know you're going to sign it anyway. You don't have to feign scrutiny. It's crucial that we stay crystal now."