The Normals

by David Gilbert

  "That's not funny."

  "But those are the problematic details."

  "Is your father in poor health?"

  "Physically, he's fine, but no way can he survive without her. You've almost filled the entire test tube."

  "Oh crap."

  Schine, 19:18

  "You can call someone, you know, and tell them about your parents. Do you have any brothers or sisters, any relatives who could help you deal with the situation?" Joy asks.

  "No, just me. I'm sorry to lay this on you."

  "That's all right."

  "No cause, no cause."

  "What's that?"

  "Nothing."

  "The least you should do is go home."

  "I don't think I can."

  "You're not close with your folks?"

  "Never have been."

  "Either way, the death of a parent is the hardest thing."

  "Death of a child, that's harder."

  "Go home, Billy, that's my advice."

  "Don't tell anyone, okay? Not that there's anyone to tell."

  "This is the last draw, but stay longer if you want."

  "No, I'll go."

  "Leave this place and go home."

  "Yeah, maybe."

  Billy gets up and leaves as Joy removes her latex gloves and throws them into the garbage bursting with sluffed hands, fingers gone limp.

  28

  MIDMORNING Sunday, Billy, bored and curious and a bit disheveled in his thoughts, decides on attending the AHRC's nondenominational service. It's run by Carlson Dickey, a security guard. He greets his flock of blues, reds, greens, oranges, and yellows with a welcoming handshake and a suggestion to take any seat but preferably up front. "We don't stand on color around here," he tells Billy. "Grab a Bible from the table and make yourself comfortable." He wears his blue-gray uniform and nonlethal utility belt, his curly dirty-blond hair tonsured by the officer's cap tucked under his arm. He looks like a cherub grown old and fat, falling from a frescoed ceiling and landing in a pile of mustache and eyes accustomed to the slow arc of a Softball.

  The first few rows carry nine normals—no matter how virtuous, a small sum, Carlson Dickey seems to suggest as he cranes his neck out the door for the hope of more bodies. Do is here. He traces his index finger along the onionskin pages of his Bible as if searching a phone book for a name he can't quite remember and has no idea of the spelling but he'll certainly recognize it when he sees it. Do is the only other green. For the sake of balance and spectrum, Billy sits between a yellow and a blue.

  "Hey," he says.

  The blue, deep in sunglasses, whispers, "Did you hear anything about doughnuts?"

  "No."

  "Told you," the yellow says.

  "What about doughnuts?" Billy asks.

  "I heard they give you doughnuts afterwards."

  "No chance," the yellow says.

  "Maybe he's hiding them and after the final amen he'll pull out a big box of Dunkin' Donuts. I'm thinking three per parishioner if he got the party box."

  "You're delusional."

  Billy, inspired, opens his palms and pronounces, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with lightly fried dough."

  This does not go over well.

  "That's not funny," the yellow says.

  "Not at all," the blue agrees.

  "Don't dis Jesus."

  Billy apologizes, thankful he censored his near-riff on the potential glories of a jelly-injected communion wafer, a two-in-one sacrament, delicious too. Mmm-mm Jesus. But really, this is just bad-boy blasphemy, the sort of desperate-to-be-noticed iconoclasm he despises in himself. It's not that he's religious. There was no God in his home, his mother and father adopting the separation between church and love. The only religious training he received was a circumcision and that was for aesthetic reasons. "Officially," an adolescent Billy once asked his father, "I'm not a Jew, right, because my mother's a gentile." Abe frowned. "Don't say that word." "What word?" " 'Gentile.' " "Goy, then." "Not that word either." "Okay, fine," Billy said, "but in terms of your people's law, right, I'm in the same boat as Mom while you're waving from the promised land." "Oh, I'm in the boat, too," Abe told him, "the front of the boat, and your mother's in back." "Where am I then?" Billy asked. "Lucky for you, you're not in this boat, if we're talking boat as religion. No, you're on the shore, free to choose whatever boat you want. But we, we dug our own grave, or boat. Okay, enough of this talk." God bless them, Billy thinks.

  Ossap and Dullick come through the door, and Billy sinks as they eyeball him suspiciously and pick up Bibles like some primitive form of bludgeon and nod toward Carlson Dickey, who seems satisfied with this slightly greater number, with Dullick and Ossap who sit down and bend over, either praying or plotting.

  The pulpit is a latter-day lectern draped in a purple sheet, the fabric satin and a tad too erotic for the proceedings. Carlson Dickey steps up to the lectern, rustles papers, relocates his Bible, clears his throat with phlegmy gusto like he's coughed up vertebrae. "Welcome to our Sunday service," he says, reading poorly from prepared text. "This is something new for the center, something I've been campaigning for, what with you good people being stuck on Sunday with nowhere to worship, so I asked and asked and asked and finally they said yes and here we are on our third Sunday. I'm so proud and happy that you can be here with me on this day of the Lord. I'm still learning, and I'm certainly no preacher, as you can see, just a lowly security guard." Billy can imagine Carlson Dickey taking a nail for Christ. "But together we will share in our common faith, whatever denomination that might be, and honor God in our humble fashion in our humble setting."

  After a few prayers and a hymn ("Amazing Grace" photocopied and handed out, Carlson Dickey gets to the reading, which is from Daniel 1:3—16:

  Then the king commanded his palace master Ashpenaz to bring some of the Israelites of the royal family and of the nobility, young men without physical defect and handsome, versed in every branch of wisdom, endowed with knowledge and insight, and competent to serve the king's palace; they were to be taught literature and the language of the Chaldeans. The king assigned them a daily portion of the royal rations of food and wine. They were to be educated for three years, so that at the end of that time they could be stationed in the king's court. Among them were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, from the tribe of Judah.

  But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the royal rations of food and wine; so he asked the palace master to allow him not to defile himself. Now God allowed Daniel to receive favor and compassion from the palace master. The palace master said to Daniel, "I am afraid of my lord the king; he has appointed your food and your drink. If he should see you in poorer condition than the other young men of your own age, you would endanger my head with the king." Then Daniel asked the guard whom the palace master had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; "Please test your servants for ten days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. You can then compare our appearance with the appearance of the young men who eat the royal rations, and deal with your servants according to what you observe." So he agreed to this proposal and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days it was observed that they appeared better and fatter than all the young men who had been eating the royal rations. So the guard continued to withdraw their royal rations and the wine they were to drink, and gave them vegetables.

  Carlson closes his Bible and leans into the pulpit for dramatic effect, forgetting the unlocked wheels of the lectern and sliding forward and then almost tumbling backward. Ossap and Dullick snot with laughter. Resettled, Carlson begins: "I'm going to jump right into my sermon because my sermon today is on Daniel. In case you forgot, he's the prophet who was cast in the den of lions and lived not because he pulled a thorn from one of the lion's paws, I think a common misconception, but because he had total faith in the Lord and the Lord gobbed up the lion's mouth so that Daniel lived. Daniel is the fir
st great"—he glances at his notes for the word—"apocalyptist. He was the interpreter of Nebuchadn-uhn-uhm-nay- dennezzar's dreams and the reader of the handwriting on the wall and the man behind the visions about the four beasts and the ram and the goat and the seventy weeks and the contemptible person and the end of time and the final consummation. All that stuff is from Daniel. I was thinking about Daniel when I was thinking about what I might say today. Daniel came to mind because you have something in common with Daniel. You do. Like in our reading where the best representatives of the Israelites—those without physical defect —were taken to the king's palace, that's kind of like you here. Daniel's request of having one group eat the fatty royal diet and another group eat the nice healthy, surprisingly hearty vegetarian diet is something like a parallel design study. You have the old way versus the new way, the standard treatment versus the experimental treatment. And I was thinking, you're kind of like prophets as well. You're providing signs of the future, your blood, your body, lighting the path ahead. You're the first comers. Yes, you're prophets. Small prophets perhaps, but prophets are better than deficits. Because of you a grain of the future drops down the hourglass. You're everyday prophets, no lottery jackpot, but instead, pennies and nickels, loose change saved up until something is earned. Dependable prophets. Even in failure the world has gained because of you and a better world will come. Truly. I believe that. It might be hard to believe now. Impossible to believe. 'Me?' you might say.

  'No. I'm here for money. Five years from now I don't care what I've done,' you might think. 'My memory of this place will last as long as the cash.'

  But guess what, your blood lives on. It does. A single drop has raised the level a little higher, not much higher, but a little bit higher, a billionth of a billionth of a billionth higher. You won't be remembered for it, but you have changed the world. That's a fact. Your blood is in the system. God is knowledge and knowledge is speaking through you even if your tongue is gobbed up with sin, even if you feel you are the contemptible person. You are part of the whole and the whole is God. A part and a whole. Think back on Daniel's parallel study. Faithless versus faithful. Not nonreligious versus religious, but faithless versus faithful. Ask yourself, who is healthier? Regardless of your idea of who or what God is, or how God should be worshiped, ask yourself, who is healthier? The disconnected or the connected? Even if there is no God, even if you die and are greeted with nothing, who is healthier five minutes before they die, in the unspeakable horror of that moment, who looks to comfort the weak and the frightened but those who understand that we are all made in an image of one thing and that one thing is faith? Who understands that we are all reflections of love and not mere reflections of ourselves? Who possesses comfort in the last second of life and who screams? If you were the palace guard, who would you choose as the healthier?" Carlson Dickey steps away from the pulpit like the question might be settled with fists. "Let us pray," he says.

  After the Lord's Prayer—nope, no doughnuts—the congregation of normals departs. Billy notices that Ossap and Dullick loiter with Carlson Dickey, Dullick genuflecting his eyebrows and Ossap playfully jabbing the Hargrove Anderson Medical security patch on Carlson Dickey's arm.

  Is Ragnar everywhere? Billy wonders.

  Back upstairs, Billy gives a glance into Dr. Honeysack's office. Honeysack sits hunched over his desk like paperwork has flatlined for the last time. Billy says, "Hey, doc," enjoying the patently ridiculous notion of this man ever being known as doc—he's as folksy as brushed steel. The overhead twin fluorescent tubes do his complexion no favors; his skin could be absorbing light for a long lonely night of glowing in the dark. His return of "Hello" carries the telltale pause of / have no idea who you are.

  "Billy Schine," Billy says, presenting his ID badge for further proof.

  "Right-right-right."

  "Working on a Sunday, doc?"

  "Is it Sunday?"

  "Sure is. I just attended your nondenominational Sunday service."

  "Certainly not mine," Honeysack says.

  "It was interesting."

  "A security guard, right?"

  "Yep."

  "That guy's been a royal pain about having some sort of service. Next thing he'll push for is a chapel. He's hanging on his last straw."

  "A thin rope."

  "That's right," Honeysack says. "He's been here only three months, thumping his Bible nonstop. Driving a lot of people crazy, me included. You see him and before he even speaks, you want to shout shut up. He's not long for this job. Acts like St. Francis with the research animals and half the time he's not even allowed where he ends up. One thing for a researcher or a doctor to go on about the concept of God, but we don't need a security guard preaching to us." Honeysack seems startled by his own bitterness. "Sorry," he says. "I'm thirty-six hours without sleep. Anyway, I didn't peg you as the religious type."

  "It was just something to do."

  "I'd rather have root canal."

  "I think it's interesting. You ever read Dante?" asks Billy.

  "In college, probably."

  Billy, arms crossed, leans against the doorjamb—doorways, it seems, are his favorite place for a pose. "I remember this one bit from the Inferno, actually I'm probably remembering the Dore engraving more than the book. There's one engraving of a soldier, a really bad guy his entire life who's been killed in battle, and a devil is ready to drag him down into the pits of hell because this is a guy they've been eyeing for a long time. Then an angel appears and says 'whoa' to the devil because the soldier, with his last breath, has fashioned a cross with his arms. It seems that this is enough to save him, this one gesture." Billy illustrates with his own arms and imagines the soldier slipping away into death and feeling, in those last few seconds of life, a warm blinding faith stronger than fear, his muscle straining against armor, struggling to express this newfound light before his soul empties into the ground. Billy eyes Honeysack dramatically, like Honeysack is a series of lines incised in metal in need of ink. "You know, people have been talking about your work, your real work."

  "How's that?"

  "They're talking about your research, with embellishments. They're convinced it's happening in a hollowed-out mountain somewhere or an ice cave or some banana republic where cash is king."

  Honeysack shakes his head wearily. "They're always talking about it. The thing's become normal lore and I'm afraid it's going to stay normal lore. Where have they put the payout, I'm curious, a half a million?"

  "No no, just in the twenty-thousand-dollar range."

  "Any good names?"

  "Huh?"

  "Like 'freeze and seize,' or 'frosty the dead man,' or 'blood on the rocks,' all of which I've heard. Or my personal favorite, 'no fucking way is this ever going to happen in my lifetime.' " Honeysack smiles without humor. His thin upper lip is unable to register any emotion but strain. It's a rubber band wrapped around a cluster of unpaid bills.

  "No," Billy says. "They had no great names."

  " 'Honeysack's folly,' that's what they should call it." A blush of heat colors the doctor's gauntness, particularly around the problem areas of his skin where acne damage lingers as shame and anger. "Think the FDA would let us try our procedure on a real person, say somebody on death row, a murderer? Like your Dore guy. You give him a choice, either get killed by lethal injection or participate in some radical medical research. If you survive, which is a good chance, then your sentence is reduced to life in prison. Think the FDA would be interested? No. Of course not. They'd scream ethics. They'd mention all sorts of awful tests done in the fifties on convicts. And, yes, they were awful, but still. The FDA would even claim cruel and unusual punishment regardless of the fact that this person is about to be strapped down and killed like a dog, his life going down the drain without any purpose. They'd scream ethics, and in return, we might scream morality. We might even scream redemption." The word elicits a roll from Honeysack's earthbound eyes. "Yes, redemption," he says for his own sake. "Fuck God, but why
not redemption? Penance? A massive act of contrition? Why not? There is some truth in that stuff. Even if the state is hell-bent on killing the guy, on going ahead with his death sentence, given the choice, do the study and maybe do some good and then get executed, well, I bet the guy would side with us. I do. Or at least a workable percentage would."

  "Sounds reasonable to me," Billy says.

  "Instead we waste their lives. And I should say I'm against the death penalty."

  "Me too."

  "I've given money to causes that fight the death penalty," Honeysack says.

  "I haven't, but still."

  "What kind of stupid phrase is 'death penalty' anyway?"

  "Like life is a game."

  "Death is too ultimate to be slipped in with 'penalty,' " Honeysack says.

  "I agree."

  "I'm not trying to make martyrs of these men," Honeysack says.

  "Of course not."

  "So forget redemption, how about death reparation, giving something back?"

  "You should run for office," Billy says.

  "It's frustrating. You can get so close, you can practically prove your thesis with all the animals you want, but if you're doing something truly radical, you can never make that, that—"

  "Evolutionary leap," Billy fills in (a tad smugly, in his opinion).

  "Fuck evolution," Honeysack says, as if evolution is the bane of his existence, as if evolution stole his girlfriend and wrecked his car and leaves laughing messages on his voice mail. "This is about practical medical science. Evolution is just a bad childhood game of telephone done nonstop, an endless whispering loop between simpleton cells. I have no need for evolution."

  "It was just a metaphor," Billy explains.

  "Yeah, a metaphor." Honeysack says this with equal disregard. "Can I ask you a question?"

  "Sure."

  "Do you believe that something can be unnatural? Because I don't. The only time unnatural is ever mentioned is in relation to something man has done, but if man is a part of nature, how can his expression, whatever that might be, be unnatural? Whatever we do, by definition, is natural. Cities, cars, airplanes, global warming, hell, abortion, bestiality, you name it, it's all natural, isn't it, if it comes from us? It might be self-destructive, unhealthy, illegal, repugnant, but it's still natural. How can anything be unnatural? Nature has no opposite."