The Normals

by David Gilbert

  No, these goblins are after different game. They're herding animals, mostly dogs, from the center's east wing. Beagles scamper free as well as mixed breeds with strong traits of Labrador and German shepherd and some sporting pointer. There's a golden retriever with its belly shaved; a cocker spaniel with a cone around its neck. The more energetic dogs speed around the courtyard in frantic circles, their hind legs hitched in tight serpentine. The fast chase the faster, their mouths nipping It! They tackle, roll, yap, bound toward grass where pissing and shitting must be more pleasurable for they muster an endless supply. They're beasts stoned on smell. But a majority of the dogs are far from enthusiastic. They are the ones in the midst of experimentation, nurtured with disease and recovery. They barely move. Instead, they lie down, or worse, step-step-step, collapse, and struggle to get up again. They limp. They shiver. They lick worn bits of overly kenneled fur. Some wear backpacks in the mode of sporty dogs who jog and hike with their sporty owners. But these dogs are the sportless; they carry the machinery of their own demise.

  "I feel like"—Billy turns around—"we're on a sinking ship"—and sees Gretchen standing by the door. Lit from behind, she resembles a ghost who is sick of the haunting part. Despite everything, Billy is glad for her company.

  "It's unbelievable," he says.

  "Who are they?" she asks.

  "No clue."

  Gretchen drifts toward the window. "Animal rights, I'd guess."

  "Yeah."

  "Do you think security has any idea?"

  "I would seriously doubt it," Billy says.

  "Yeah, stupid question."

  More animals are brought into the courtyard: rhesus monkeys clutched none too gracefully, Chimps hugging their rescuers sweetly. Cages are lugged from indoors and dramatically opened for the camera. Out flee rats, mice, gerbils, bunnies, the jetsam from a sinking ship. More dogs are brought forth, lame dogs who must be carried. The goblin videographer rushes over and films a pit bull convulsing in somebody's arms.

  "This is awful," Gretchen mutters.

  "Look at that dog," Billy says of a largish breed with a cone around its neck and a scar on its shaved chest.

  "That's a Bouvier des Flandres," Gretchen tells him. "That's a real breed."

  "And how about that one?"

  "That's a vizsla, another expensive dog."

  "And that?"

  "A basenji."

  Billy thinks of Eden, and he's Adam pointing to an animal in the distance and saying, "Dog," and Eve shakes her head and says, "No, Chesapeake Bay retriever."

  The goblin videographer is summoned to the HAM sculpture. Across the wrist a banner has been unfurled (unreadable from this angle). Under the impressive thumb knuckle, two goblins, short and tall, stand in the camera's headlight. They must be making a statement because they flamboyantly gesture toward the AHRC behind them and the pitiable animals all around. The taller goblin holds a hairless rhesus monkey, which he thrusts forward, much to the displeasure of the monkey who leaps out of his grasp and lands on the head of the shorter goblin. Its claws instantly dig. The rhesus-affixed goblin tries pulling the monkey free, but the monkey has a good grip on pantyhose and hair, ripping both apart. The taller goblin tries helping his friend by grabbing the monkey's scruff, but stocking and scalp are like taffy and the monkey isn't letting go. The afflicted goblin now screams (audible through the glass) as the taller goblin yanks and pries. The fellow goblins briefly stop herding animals and watch this struggle, some obviously amused, and the videographer keeps on filming like this will be perfect for the blooper reel. Finally, the monkey abandons its position and leaps for the higher ground of the sculpture, springing from thumb to index finger. It hugs the bronze trunk like a memory gone weird. The shorter goblin dabs his head while the taller goblin tends to the worst of the scratches.

  That's when Billy recognizes them. "Ossap and Dullick," he says.

  "You think?"

  "I'd bet my life."

  Behind them, the third floor begins to bustle.

  The hallway fills with shouts and naked feet slapping.

  News filters in of the night nurse found tied up.

  Word is the lounge has the best view, but Billy and Gretchen stay together. They watch Ossap and Dullick as they do another take for the camera, their statement this time more subdued and lacking in props. Ossap speaks while applying pressure to his forehead; Dullick rips his black shirt for a makeshift bandage; Dullick reaches for Ossap; Ossap swipes Dullick away; Dullick, shirt ruined, crosses his arms; Ossap, frustrated, divests himself of the tattered pantyhose and screams at the videographer who removes his own pantyhose and hands it over for the sake of anonymity. Thus Carlson Dickey, the security guard preacher, is revealed. He starts filming take three.

  "There's security," Billy says.

  "What do you think they're saying?" Gretchen asks.

  "I have no idea."

  In the hallway, the newly freed night nurse screams, "Everybody back into your goddamn room, right now, no screwing around! We have a situation here!"

  Yes, Billy thinks, a situation. The friskier dogs have noticed the rabbits.

  They are now giving chase. The rabbits don't stand a chance. They're too drugged, too chemically cooped up for evasive maneuvers. They're ripped apart, torn open, played with until lungs stop squeaking, then abandoned for the next flash of fur. It's a massacre. The courtyard, the massive dial of that clock, might as well be the floor of a timeless abattoir. The goblins try their best. They kick the dogs halfheartedly (animal abuse not their natural instinct) and scoop up the injured bunnies and run for the vans. They're all running for the vans, bringing as many animals as they can muster, like this is Saigon, 197 5. Move move move! Those left behind are urged toward the safety of the woods, but the dogs, the mice, the rats, the lone rhesus monkey atop of the bronze hand have no understanding of freedom, not in this world. They watch the vans speed away with little more than passing curiosity, more interested in the cool night air, the moon, the sirens in the distance flashing the horizon red, the brief recess of life unbounded by prescription.

  "Run away," Gretchen says, like a filmgoer talking to the screen.

  Billy reaches for her hand, and she accepts it, neither one saying a word.

  He holds her without flirtation, fingers cupping fingers, nothing more, nothing less, their palms creating something a few degrees warmer than normal body temperature. They stand like this not forever, no, obviously not, but long enough so that time loses its grip and surrenders to heartbeats with no sense of the clock, only the immeasurable rudimental damp of a first touch. The remaining dogs chase down the last of the rabbits. Mice bump into nothing as if searching for the walls of a maze. The monkey balances itself on the raised index finger and reaches up into the air, wanting something higher than bronze. Billy and Gretchen watch this, holding hands, until the night nurse, a schoolmarm of the imagination, orders Gretchen away.

  38

  THE NEXT morning, the final morning, the specifics of last night trickle in.

  It seems Ossap and Dullick accosted their roommate, Stew Slocum, in the middle of the night. Bum-rushed him, Stew tells people during breakfast, though in truth he was sound asleep and duct-taped to his bed. Similar assaults happened on other floors. Every color was involved, some in teams, some solo, all coordinated precisely. Carlson Dickey was rumored to have disabled the entire night security staff, a notion Billy thinks absurd until Dr. Honeysack's confirmed it after breakfast. "That's true," he says. "Supposedly he had a gun, a toy gun it turned out. That's our top-notch security for you, immobilized by a water pistol."

  "So who are these people?" Billy asks.

  "Animal rights nutcases," Honeysack explains, unconcerned, other business glinting behind his sleep-deprived eyes, his pupils like self-concocted speed pills. "Some extremist branch of PETA. SHAME is what the banner said: Stop Heinous Animal Medical Experimentation. It's a new one on our enemies list. But anyway."

  "I bet they came up with
the acronym first," Billy says. He pictures the group brainstorming around a table, tossing out words and deferring their meaning until later. "I bet they had a problem with the H."

  "Yeah, right, anyway." Honeysack leans in for privacy. "So about today."

  "They couldn't stomach SAME."

  "One o'clock is when your group is cleared to leave, but we can't pick you up until two, so you'll have to wait outside till then. I've already okayed it with the staff, told them your ride will be late. Not that they care; they have other things on their mind. So two o'clock be in front of the AHRC." Honeysack looks at Billy like Billy is his dealer, like Billy is the only one with the goods that might sustain the doctor for another day.

  "Okay, you got it?"

  "Got it. You know, 'heinous' is a lousy choice."

  "Have you done your note?" Honeysack asks, teeth gnawing a knuckle.

  "Yeah," Billy answers. " 'Inhumane,' small i, big H, that would've been better."

  CNN has discovered the story. Desperate for news, they already have Exclusive Tape of the incident, delivered to them by way of a militant group of animal rights activists, SHAME their name, the same SHAME who broke into Hargrove Anderson Medical's Animal Human Research Center in Albany, New York, late last night. This is a mouthful for the reporter on the scene who's perspiring through his suit. The man is hairy with sweat, like a werewolf transformed by the sun, his face unleashing a growth of nonstop drips. He might be live but he looks as if he wishes he were dead, Peter Barnes bannered below his wilting jacket. Billy, packing up his suitcase, is amazed by the evidence of heat outside his window. For two weeks the weather was only circumstantial.

  The CNN video begins inside the east wing of the center. Flashlights poke around darkness and reveal stacks of cages with dogs inside, barking and wagging tails like possible ASPCA adoptees. Some pooches have only the strength to register a whimper. Others say nothing though their eyes reflect red. On the tape, whispering can be heard, as well as latches being released and paws clicking the floor, a Morse code of huh? huh? huh? Through random beams of light the animals bustle around the lab, and a SHAME goblin whispers, "show them the steak," like meat is an idol these restless natives worship. More cages open, more dogs stretch their legs. The camera gets jostled by an overly excited hound that practically licks the lens. "[Beep] nipped me" is muttered. A quick shot of the steak-bearing goblin: dogs surround him, his torso climbed like a tree with a squirrel atop. Growls commence. Mice, rats, gerbils, rabbits are loaded into duffel bags, Billy recognizing them as the type Ossap and Dullick carried that first day. Then—jump cut—they're outside, in the courtyard with the vans and the herding goblins and the wrist of the hand sculpture slit by the SHAME banner. Ossap and Dullick make their statement: "We say SHAME on Hargrove Anderson Medical for their cruel treatment of animals. Death for the sake of science is still death. Torture has no rationalization. As the Hippocratic oath states, 'Do no harm,' but it seems Hargrove Anderson and dozens of other multinational pharmaceutical corporations follow a hypocritical oath of'Do no harm to profits.' " A bit of blood marks Ossap's forehead, like he's been henna-blessed by a Hindu priest. "In a hundred years we will be ashamed of our diet today." The final sequence is the quick piling into the vans, the peeling tires, the whooping of triumph from the goblins inside as the AHRC fades in the rear window and the dogs inside the van begin barking in what might be the beginning of a fight.

  Peter Barnes is back live. Shaved of sweat, he already sports a five o'clock mist as he reports on the latest development. Security was found bound and gagged but uninjured. The loose animals are being rounded up, a spokesperson for Hargrove Anderson Medical assuring the public there is no safety issue, no CDA concerns, no danger of sick animals on the loose. Already several of the SHAME participants have been caught. PETA in a press release has denied any responsibility though they support their fellow liberators. And finally, more details are sure to follow as this story continues to unfold, Peter Barnes, CNN, Albany, New York. The morning slips through the TV, through the loop of CNN where roughly every so often Peter Barnes returns with fresh tidbits: names and photographs of the SHAME people; added information on the chronology of the raid. But Billy keeps watching for the ten seconds of video that show Ossap and Dullick standing in front of the bronze hand while behind them the AHRC looms, in particular, the west wing, its windows pressed with faces, bodies barely visible, like shadows of shadows.

  The TV holds last night while the courtyard contains its aftereffects. Police stand around and take pictures and point in various directions. A groundskeeper shovels up rabbit remains and hoses blood into pink skims, the nozzle a gun. A researcher leans a ladder against the hand sculpture and entices the rhesus monkey with a banana, almost comedic in its yum-yum unpeeling, its offering bringing not-so-funny capture. A posse heads into the woods for strays, and every now and then a dog is dragged back. Occasionally a gunshot is heard and soon a man steps from the tree line with a yellow medical waste bag in hand. Billy wonders how many dogs are still out there.

  Gretchen stops by his room. She's dressed in the clothes she wore two weeks ago, as if clothes could bookend a masquerade.

  "They're shooting some of the dogs," Billy tells her.

  "I know."

  "Must be the ones who don't come."

  Gretchen crosses her arms. She has the look of reality soon regained. "I just want to get home and eat Chinese food in bed. You know what I mean?"

  "Yeah."

  Gretchen sits down on Do's old bed. All the edge is gone from her face; she is unlovely from all angles. "I feel like I've been watching one of those nature shows," she says, "with the wildlife footage of elephants and tigers, and I'm thinking how beautiful the world is, and I almost feel hopeful, like regardless of who I am at least I live in a world like this, that is, until the end, when the narrator says his but—there's always a but—and they begin showing what's happening now, the deforestation, the poaching, the acid rain, like all the previous footage was dug up from a time capsule buried only yesterday, and right now, these animals, their lives, this world, is gone. I try to change the channel before that but hits, not in denial, but it's not something I need confirmed." Gretchen shrugs. She nails her beauty mark like a gymnast whose poor routine is redeemed by a perfect dismount. "You know what I mean?"

  Billy nods.

  "I just want to get back to the city and curl up in bed."

  "I love you," Billy says matter-of-factly. The words, once said, seem empty and leave him defensive of feeling.

  Gretchen grimaces. "Please don't say that."

  "But I do."

  She glances down, as if the floor has a diagram of impossible dance steps. "That's ridiculous, Billy. You don't know me. Two weeks in this place is hardly real, let alone real enough to fall in love with somebody. Once you're back outside, you'll see. But let's not have this conversation, please."

  "I know what I know," Billy says. "It might not be much, but I love you. I'm not expecting anything like trumpets or fireworks, I just wanted you to know."

  "We can sit together in the van," Gretchen tells him.

  "I'm not going back to New York."

  "Where are you going?"

  "Elsewhere," Billy says.

  "Oh." Gretchen's tongue traces against the inside of her check, as if feeling for an unseen flaw. "You know why I didn't sleep with you?" she says. "Because I liked you too much to include you in my project. Or maybe I thought you'd remember me better unrequited."

  "I don't care about the guys you slept with here."

  "I'm so relieved."

  "And I lied," Billy says. "I do want trumpets and fireworks."

  "Well, that can also be the prelude to war."

  "Just say the word and I can be in the van with you."

  "I can't say that word."

  "It doesn't have to be a big word," Billy nearly pleads.

  "Turn down the melodrama, please."

  "That's an unfair thing to say to somebody who's
trying to say something."

  "Billy, I don't love you. I mean I think you're nice and sweet, but that's all. Nothing more. Nothing earth-shattering."

  "I thought you didn't want anything earth-shattering."

  "You're too young for me."

  "I'm not that young."

  "When you get to my age you'll understand how young you are."

  "Please, you're not that old," Billy says. "You know what I wish? For the first time in my life I wish I had a cell phone, then I could give you my number and if you were ever watching TV, watching one of those nature programs and that big but was approaching, you could call me and I could talk you through the bad bits." Billy thinks of his pocket suddenly ringing The Rite of Spring. "I'd give the number to nobody else. It'd be a line solely dedicated to you."

  "A cell phone. How romantic."

  "I was just trying to be original."

  "But alas, you don't have a cell phone," Gretchen says.

  "True."

  "I could give you my number but it'd probably be fake."

  "I'll take that." Billy grabs the pen and folded-over suicide note from his suitcase.

  "Just one number has to be wrong," Gretchen tells him.

  "Make them all lie, I don't care, but write it down."

  Gretchen relents and scribbles her name and questionable phone number across the top-right-hand corner. "There," she says. "Seven perfectly random numbers."

  "I'll call every day."

  "I already feel sorry for the chump on the other end."

  In the courtyard, the dog hunters return for lunch. Two of them lug a deer carcass, a good-sized buck with six points.

  "Look at that," Billy says.

  "Maybe a case of mistaken identity," Gretchen says, smiling through the truth.

  39

  LUNCH IS leftovers, the greens in civilian dress and already breaking with the recent past, like graduates who have learned nothing and must make their way alone in the world armed with this knowledge. Nobody talks much. The SHAME news event is discussed in terms of/ was there, I saw the whole thing, I knew those guys, their own brush with fame springing from someone else's notoriety, a sort of new American celebrity, Billy thinks, hearing people ready themselves for Peter Barnes's microphone, Hi Mom! blinking behind their eyes. Billy keeps to himself, eating nothing, doctor's orders. Gretchen sits at another table, no worse for his love, holding court one more time, as if plates are commemorative-issued, her face stamped beneath spaghetti.