The Normals

by David Gilbert

  "I'm rubbing your balls, for Christ's sake."

  "Just pretend for a second."

  "If you'll pretend to come."

  "I'm not trying to be flip, okay, Imean, maybe I'm normally guilty of being flip, I know, of taking nothing seriously, but that can wear you down."

  "Billy, you're telling me this while you're jerking off."

  "It's just, it's like, at the end of the day I've got no muscle for it, for—"

  "Either jerk off or talk."

  And Billy, the weakling, decided on the former. He shut up. Soon enough Sally scooted down and began—Hello!—licking his balls, knowing this would speed up the process, like a shortcut home. Her tongue mechanically flicked along the seam, and she held her hair away from the action as though dangerous gears were down there. Billy perched on his elbow for the visual thrill. The cooperation between her mouth and his hand resembled genital CPR. A cock code blue.

  Sally peered up. "Close your eyes."

  "Do I have to?"

  "Yes."

  Billy leaned back, closed his eyes, though he still watched her through his squint, watched her work the pouch of old man skin, the tip of her tongue twirling, flicking, her lips smack-sucking, her left arm resting against his thigh, her skin hairless and impossibly smooth against his sunless flesh, a nice little contrast, like honey on snow, like she was poured onto him, and he wanted to shout, "I'm leaving this afternoon, I'm disappearing for no reason concerning you," he wanted to come clean, but her tongue was stopping up his mouth and dripping silence into his ear, the pleasure just pleasurable enough to slip him away for a second.

  He came—

  —Comes. The porcelain is an added perk against his balls. As always, there's an ejaculatory montage where flashes of weirdness temper pleasure. Jerry Lewis? Monkeys in a tree? The Brazilian rain forest burning? Opening his eyes, Billy sees his portrait in the mirror, a sort of Frans Hals, The Masturbator. And while he has no feelings of guilt or shame in the act itself—God no!—maybe there's something in the spillage, in the mess, in the soiling. Semen can seem like radioactive waste, the unfortunate byproduct of heat. His seed, spooge, spunk (no word can salvage the substance) plays as ironic leitmotif under the stamp of American Standard.

  There's no "Finally" from Sally; no "You owe me"; no tossing of yesterday's boxers for the mop up; no "You better get moving or you'll be late."

  No, "I'm snuggling with myself," from Billy.

  No, "You make a cute couple."

  No, "Opposites attract."

  No, "I'll see you tonight."

  No one last lie.

  There's nothing but the familiar smell, the brackish backwater of tidal pools drying in the sun. Billy runs the water into the sink and imagines a million versions of himself drowning in the water, like those pigs in North Carolina, bloated Billies running down the drain, shoulder to shoulder, connected by the sticky pull of death.

  Off goes the light—Christ, it's dark—and Billy fumbles back toward bed without any presumptions of stealth. His hands flail about, a zombie jolted awake by autoerotic galvanism.

  A voice surprises him. "Can't sleep?" It's Do.

  "Not really," Billy answers.

  "Me neither."

  12

  6:56 A.M.

  Billy wakes up with Where am I? in his lungs. Vision slowly loses its nocturnal blur. Gray rubs into a lighter wash and the residue of his bedroom in New York resolves into this room in Albany. He touches the cannula in his arm like a drunken memento, a piercing, a tattoo, from somewhere in the night. Oh yeah, Fm here, catches his breath. He waits for the alarm, goes through his normal morning doom and gloom where awful images flash through his head, often suicidal in form—pistol to temple, noose around neck, shotgun in mouth—the ultimate in snooze bar. They comfort him the way a twisted mother might whisper shhh-shh-sh into a fevered ear. Don't worry, honey, you can always kill yourself tomorrow.

  6:57 AM.

  Waking up a few minutes before the alarm is always a pleasant surprise. Internal rhythms are in sync with the sun and the moon and the forever expanding universe instead of—Beep!Beep!Beep! —white-knuckle-holy-fucking- shit fear. Walking up before the alarm is like cheating a villain his due, stopping the bomb's countdown a second before zero. Yes, Billy feels connected, also a tad complicit. Poor Do and Lannigan. They're screwed, he thinks. In three minutes their world will blow.

  6:58 A.M.

  Billy closes his eyes, just an extended blink, a brief good-bye kiss to sleep. No big deal.

  6:59 AM.

  He falls straight through the mattress and into a dream. It's his only recurring dream, in which he's sitting by himself in a packed cineplex watching a movie, a great movie, and he's eating popcorn and drinking soda and just loving this movie, glancing over his shoulder, seeing upturned faces flicker with almost ecstasy, we're all loving this movie, he thinks, and this excites him even more than the movie, to the point where he wants to nudge his neighbor and say, Wow, huh? wants to stand up and shout, Can you believe how good this movie is? their reaction more important than the action on-screen. But of course he says nothing. The movie itself changes with every dream—comedy, tragedy, thriller, musical, farce, sci-fi, horror, documentary—and Billy never remembers the plots in any detail, which is a shame, because they're always so good. No, all he remembers is being spectacularly entertained and feeling terribly alone.

  7:00 A.M.

  The alarm sounds.

  The ceiling speakers beep as if the whole building is reversing, crushing Billy under its wheels. After this revelry, "Good morning" is announced, followed by "Breakfast is in half an hour. Half an hour. Please be ready. Thank you." The third floor stretches with activity: pipes groan, toilets flush, TVs begin to bicker. The walls must be paper-thin. Even yawns slip through the drywall.

  7:04 A.M.

  Do is the first up. He rises mechanically, like a switched-on robot inhabiting no wasted movement. First thing, he makes the bed. His trowelish hands smooth the sheets with wet-cement respect. Pillows are fluffed, set in place, briefly admired. Then he goes into the bathroom.

  7:12 A.M.

  Into their room walks either Nurse Clifford or George (Billy can't quite remember who is who, which seems to be their goal, to be a nameless figure known only as Nurse). She draws open the curtains as if ripping Band-Aids from eyeballs. She tells them, "Fifteen minutes until breakfast."

  "Eighteen minutes," Lannigan corrects.

  "Just be ready."

  "My mother used to do that, lie to me so I'd get up sooner for school. It drove me nuts. She'd lowball me by fifteen minutes."

  "I was simply rounding down."

  "Yeah, right."

  The bathroom door opens, revealing Do, half-soaked in his clothes. His hair could be a drowned Pomeranian still struggling for life.

  "What were you doing in there, jogging?" Lannigan asks.

  "I forgot my towel," Do says, his face pelted by hundreds of microscopic blushes.

  7:16 A.M.

  Lannigan dismounts from bed with gymnastic flair, as if he's been sleeping on a balance beam. He begins stretching. The presentation resembles yoga though the positions are more theatrical and less disciplined, like ten action-packed poses. Shirtless in boxer-briefs, his body is lean, his left nipple pierced. The routine ends with an arching of the shoulders back back back, until, resembling a figurehead for a flamboyant ship, his sternum cracks. "There we go," he says, going loosey-goosey.

  Billy wonders if he's gay. Probably. Or maybe. Lannigan certainly gives the impression. Plus he's in great shape, perfectly tan, has hiply cut messy hair and overly hinged joints, and speaks with the sort of articulation of men who enjoy every suprasegment of their own speech, as if eavesdropping on themselves. Yes, Billy figures he's gay, without prejudice, with, in fact, the self-serving acceptance of enlightenment. My gay roommate. But Lannigan's effeminacy seems too studied, like a person who only reads reviews and never bothers with the actual book. He steps clear of his u
nderwear, grabs his towel without regard to his exposed penis, a bit of uncomfortable exclamation in what should be a straightforward sentence leading Lannigan into the bathroom. "Towel," he says to Do.

  7:19 A.M.

  "Ten minutes until breakfast" is announced.

  Do, still wet, sits on his bed and thumbs through the informed consent. "Think the side effects are going to be bad?" he asks Billy. But Billy is in the strange part-time employment of consciousness where thoughts play like dreams. Ragnar flies on wings. Sally spits fire. Gretchen licks his cannula. From nowhere his old friend, Charlie Mauck, drops in, Charlie who called two years ago and left a message which Billy never returned. And then there's—"Huh, Billy?"—Do, with that voice, that air-bubble-on- vocal-cord voice, that please-just-swallow voice.

  "Not too bad," Billy says.

  "But brain stuff"

  "Yeah, basically."

  "Atypical antipsychotic," Do reads.

  "Better than a typical psychotic, right?"

  "And you're not nervous at all?"

  "Sure, I'm nervous, but not that nervous."

  Do looks toward the closed bathroom door. The voice behind it sings a made-up pop song, the lyrics concerning a boy and his hamster. "What do you think of Lannigan?" Do asks.

  "Not much, really."

  "He's kind of out-there."

  "I wouldn't take him seriously."

  "Tardive dyskinesia," Do reads. "Sheesh."

  Billy watches Do, slumped, his hair slowly drying into a rusty mess. Billy finds himself liking Do—or liking himself for liking Do, the simple country boy, the large man-child, as if liking Do, talking to Do, humoring Do, is somehow magnanimous.

  7:27 A.M.

  Billy is finally on his feet, in the bathroom, brushing his teeth and peeing. The layer of dried semen splits his piss into two streams, neither hitting the owl, until Billy power-pees and breaks the barrier and throws down a good solid rope. He washes his hands, dabs water in his hair. He does his best to ignore the sink, an awkward lover turned inanimate at the stroke of midnight.

  7:30 A.M.

  They line up in the hallway, twenty-six strong, and follow Nurses Clifford and George down the stairs and into the cafeteria. They walk as if shackled by bad dreams. The other colors are already eating: the yellows in collective cringe, the oranges napping on Formica, the blues Hollywood hungover in their giant sunglasses, the reds still sweating up a laughing storm.

  Rodney, tray in hand, beelines for Billy and his table. "Hear the news?"

  "What?"

  "Two yellows washed last night."

  "What happened?" Billy asks.

  "Bad reaction or they just broke down. It can happen. You snap, you get tired of all the probing, and the money starts meaning nada, and you're all, 'Get me out of here.' " Rodney seems giddily refreshed, like he spent the night in a champagne bubble bath.

  "What are they on?" Do asks.

  "Don't know yet. But I do know that this is their ninth day and the ninth day is always a bitch because the ninth day isn't the tenth day, which is your first glimmer of hope, because damn you're almost done. And it isn't the eighth day, which is the beginning of the next week, and hell, you figure you can last anything for a week. Besides, nine is just a bad fucking number. Upside-down six, square root of three, three threes, three sixes, six six six, a bad number, nine, because it has shit in it without it being obvious. Nothing good ever happens with nine. It's even an ugly word. Nine," Rodney says with Nazi accent.

  7:34 A.M.

  Breakfast is pancakes with maple syrup. People lean over their stack with the glee of a relic from childhood, a toy unearthed in the attic. Pancakes! Forks are held in enthusiastic fists. Gretchen sits two tables down. She's caught Billy staring in her direction more than once, always responding with a conspiratorial brow, as if they're the only normal people amidst all these normals. My God, her eyes are playful. They might as well be little balls of wool waiting for a kitten to pounce. And Billy sees Ossap and Dullick sitting alone. Plates and condiments are spread around them in what Billy swears is a mock-up raid. The saltshaker is surrounded; the saltshaker is doomed.

  8:01 A.M.

  "Report to the dose room in five minutes" is announced over the speakers. The greens hush. It's like rustling trees suddenly gone still by something more sinister than a breeze.

  8:07 A.M.

  The dose room borders the cafeteria. The layout is like a futuristic college lecture hall, where students are fed information in new and improved ways. A hundred medical lounge chairs are divided into ten rows, the chairs color-coded with either a blue, red, yellow, orange, or green headrest cover. Each chair has its own computer station. Up front, where the blackboard would be, a large-screen TV is permanently tuned to CNN.

  "The Clintons will arrive today at the fashionable Hamptons in Long Island for the second leg of their vacation and spend two days attending . . ."

  The green section is located in the back three rows.

  "There was a Concorde scare at JFK yesterday. The mishap seemed to have been caused by operational error possibly . . ."

  Windows face the courtyard where the bronze hand hails the yellow taxi sun.

  "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? is being called a true . . ."

  Billy takes a seat, and Do sits nearby.

  "Showtime," Lannigan says, clapping his hands.

  8:16 A.M.

  Nurses appear, or not nurses per se but dose technicians, informally known as feeders. They wheel carts emblazoned with miniature standard-bearing flags, like a drug regatta, Billy thinks, each boat with its own course, its own aisle, its own batch of buoys to circle.

  8:27 A.M.

  The feeder in front of Billy is American-heartland attractive, attractive like a familiar fast-food restaurant in a strange land, blond, buxom, big-teethed, her eyes the "o" in wow. She brushes an optical-scanning pen over his bar code bracelet. The computer beeps.

  "I feel like produce," Billy says.

  "Huh?" she says.

  "Nothing."

  The cart is crowded with two-ounce cups. They come snuggled in slots, slots labeled with bar codes, bar codes arranged in ranks, ranks aligned with letters: A, B, C, D. The setup reminds Billy of an odd game of chance and he's tempted to rub his hands together and venture a guess. Some cups are missing, those numbers already swallowed. The feeder consults her clipboard, sweeps a few more bar codes, then hands Billy a cup from row D.

  Two gray pills are nestled inside.

  "You need water?" she asks.

  "No thanks." Billy jostles the cup, the pills leapfrog. Billy has loved pills ever since he was a boy and popped M&M's like they were life-saving cures, often going into shock and struggling for a few milligrams of candy-coated relief. Tic-Tacs were also excellent because they rattled when dispensed and sat so nicely in your palm. Pills seemed to be a sign of complexity, a need for something else. Billy envied those kids with parents who had full medicine cabinets, the Mrs. Silvermans with headaches, the Mr. Doljacks with bad knees. Billy would stare at Tommy Schuller, known throughout the neighborhood as "that Ritalin boy," and wonder why he was so lucky, so extra cared for.

  Billy slams back the cup.

  The feeder clicks on a penlight. "I need to check your mouth to make sure you're not cheeking the dose. Tongue up, left, right, all around, all set."

  This lack of trust pleases Billy.

  "In about ten minutes you'll have your blood drawn. I'll come and get you."

  "Okay."

  She moves down the line.

  8:35 A.M.

  Poor Do. He's hacking, drinking cup after cup of water, rubbing his Adam's apple like it's a Gobstopper in need of the Heimlich. His pills did not go down smoothly. He swallowed them individually, first regarding them like they were teardrop diamonds, hard and sharp, then washing them down with frantic gulps of water. His face reddened, and his mouth yucked, and five minutes later he's still yucking. "I think they're trapped in my throat," he says. "Trapped sideway
s or something."

  "They'll work their way down," Billy assures him.

  "I can feel them, just there." He presses his thumb into the Windsor knot of soft flesh where clavicle meets sternum, presses his thumb too hard for comfort. He could be holding himself hostage. "Right there, I'm positive. Can feel them every time I swallow."

  8:48 A.M.

  The bleed room has eight color-coded medical loungers. Phlebologists stand on duty like barbers of old. Blues, reds, yellows, oranges, greens come in, sit down, get scanned and hooked up. They give blood in two-teaspoon increments. The whole process lasts about a minute from hello —

  "Joy, right?"

  "Yes." She glances at his ID. "Mr. Schine."

  "Please, 'Billy.'"

  "I'll probably stick with calling you Mr. Schine."

  "Okay."

  "Arm please."

  "Can't wait, can you, to see these perfect veins?"

  ". . ."

  "Have you always worked in the blood field?" Billy asks, seeking conversation during this intimacy, seeking, maybe, a friend. He wants to be the cool normal, the cordial normal, curious about her own well-being, as if Joy is a waitress and Billy is the patron who strives against the cold economic exchange.

  ". . ." from Joy.

  "You're not much of a morning person?"

  "Pump your fist, please."

  "Am I being annoying?"

  "My son kept me awake all night."

  "I couldn't sleep either."

  "Okay, you're done. Next."

  "I'll see you. Thanks."

  —to good-bye.

  9:23 A.M.

  Everybody is dismissed, color by color, the palette never mixing.

  9:26 A.M.-12:16 P.M.